Thank you very much to everyone who explored our first Good Ways app prototype, completed the survey or left a comment.
We want the app to be good for as many people as possible. Testing, collaborating, co-producing, learning and improving are all critical if we are to make that happen.
We are reading a digesting every response – not just the scores, but all of the comments, suggestions, criticisms and ideas too.
Thirty people completed the survey and more people shared their thoughts directly on the website. The feedback has been incredibly useful and has given us a much clearer picture of what is already working, what needs to be easier and what people would like Good Ways to do in the future.
It is not too late to comment – Founder Members can see the prototype and comment feedback here.
In addition, we have been through the prototype with our Community Advisory Team and other people in our community in person.
The good news
The overall response to the direction of the app was very encouraging.
Twenty-nine out of thirty people rated the attractiveness of the prototype four or five out of five. The same number agreed that Good Ways is moving in the right direction.
People particularly liked the clean and colourful design, the maps and photographs, the choice between map and list views and the amount of useful information shown on each route.
Ian summed this up brilliantly:
“I like that it’s simple and clean. It appears to have everything needed on a front page to get outside.”
Choosing a way to get around, browsing routes and posting reviews or notes also scored strongly. People generally found these parts clear and intuitive, even at this very early stage.
One survey response told us:
“I love the direction this is going. The design is clean, bright, and easy to read.”
Another simply said:
“Great start!”
Thank you. We are delighted that the overall idea and design are connecting with people.
Saving routes needs to be much clearer
The biggest area of confusion was saving a route and finding it again.
Some people understood the bookmark symbol immediately. Others were unsure whether to press a bookmark or a heart, expected saved routes to appear within their profile or did not realise they needed to select the Go section.
Only five of the thirty people testing the six-step saving and opening task rated it four or five out of five.
That is exactly why we share rough prototypes early.
We need to make it much more obvious when a route has been saved, where saved routes can be found and what the different navigation buttons mean.
There was similar feedback about changing a profile name. Editing the name was generally straightforward, but people expected a clear Save changes or Cancel button and confirmation that their change had worked.
Reviews, notes and warnings
People liked being able to contribute different kinds of route knowledge. There were also some excellent suggestions for making this simpler and more useful.
These included:
- allowing people to edit or cancel something they have posted
- adding a Don’t know / not applicable option to ratings
- reconsidering words such as “Nice”, which some people found too vague
- asking whether someone has actually completed the route
- using better prompts to encourage helpful rather than purely opinion-based reviews
- making reviews, notes and warnings easier to understand and filter
We will look carefully at how much information we ask people to provide. Sharing knowledge should feel useful and enjoyable, not like completing a long form.
More route information and better filters
There were lots of ideas about the information people would use to choose a route.
Suggestions included route length in miles as well as kilometres, ascent and descent, difficulty, distance from your current location, circular or linear routes, surfaces, road walking, stiles, cattle, parking, toilets, cafés, public transport and nearby places of interest.
People would also like clearer symbols and map legends, more sorting options and filters that remember their settings.
These suggestions reinforce one of the central ideas behind Good Ways: everyone is different, so the “best” route depends on who you are, what you need and what kind of journey you would like to have.
Ideas for the future
We also received ideas for turn-by-turn navigation, off-route alerts, offline maps, creating and exporting routes, additional map layers, smartwatches and connections with services such as Strava and OS Maps.
We have recorded all of these.
They will not necessarily all appear in the first version. Some are immediate usability improvements, while others are larger features that will need more research, design and testing. We do not want to build everything at once, but we do want people to know their suggestions have been seen and will help shape our priorities.
The feedback process needs improving too
A few people found the survey itself difficult to complete. It opened several browser tabs, made it hard to return to the questions and, for some people, did not scroll properly.
We are sorry about that.
Feedback should be easy to give, so we will also learn from this and improve how we organise future testing.
What happens next?
Our next step is to share the first version of the Good Ways app.
It will still not be finished – Good Ways will continue to grow and improve – but it will be a much more complete and usable version than the prototype you have just tested.
Your feedback is helping us decide what to improve first and is giving us plenty of ideas for what could come next.
Thank you again to everyone who took part. Please keep the comments, questions and ideas coming.
We are listening.
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