SSA sailplane tracker - too complex

This is the point: if it takes an hour to figure out how to use it, then it's basically designed for time wasting technophiles sitting at computers.

Spot on (pun intended). If I had a dollar for every time I heard "I don't see what the problem is. You just click on [insert appropriate OS-specific, multi-step, inscrutable-icon-driven, undocumented sequence]", I'd be flying a shiny new glider.

This is what's referred to as unintuitive design. That's fine for Photoshop, or possibly even for something like SeeYou (highly motivated users willing to climb the learning curve) or Snapchat (users who take pride in being members of an exclusive "club" who have climbed said learning curve). Not so good for those who need something simple and easy to use from the beginning.

Two different user profiles and sets of user stories/use cases. The "simple" functionality is a subset of the full-featured functionality. But the user profiles can be very different. That means the user interface for the "simple functionality" may need special attention, rather than less attention, which is the way it often occurs.

"I don't see what the problem is" couldn't be more true in situations like this.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"

Nope. No search button. Can't post a screenshot, but there is no "search." Home. Map. Login. Those are the only top nav options. Also, the "filter" option that renders with Chrome on Windows 7 doesn't show up on Android. It's obviously not a fully responsive design; the experience is definitely degraded on mobile platforms. Same with Silknon Android.

I'll have to take back what I said about the tracker on ios. It works. The issue is that if you aren't logged in, glideport aero doesn't tell you this, it just sits there on the map of North America and refuses to do anything useful.

So okay -- user error on my part. But still wondering why an observer needs an account in the first place.

best,
Evan

On Mon, 25 Jul 2016 19:44:00 -0700, Papa3 wrote:

Nope. No search button. Can't post a screenshot, but there is no
"search." Home. Map. Login. Those are the only top nav options. Also,
the "filter" option that renders with Chrome on Windows 7 doesn't show
up on Android. It's obviously not a fully responsive design; the
experience is definitely degraded on mobile platforms. Same with
Silknon Android.

I'm a very casual user of the tracker on a laptop, works reasonably well
now.

The big hangup for me was initially trying to use the SSA version, it
frequently gave a blank window when trying to start it, and once demanded
a security exemption be approved on Firefox. Wasted time trying
different browsers and different OS's.

Big breakthrough was when I dumped the SSA version and just went directly
to glideport.aero. Works so much better.

Case in point, glideport.aero for me has the nice search box that works
as expected, when I go back to the ssa version, it's missing. No
apparent way to log in, not even sure if you log in to that version.
Maybe if I spent hours reading manuals, all this would be clear, but I'm
not going to do that.

Just saw a meme, it said software is like a joke. If you have to explain
it, it's not very good. I'm sure that will offend somebody, but I'm
still scratching my head over what the advantage of the SSA front end is.

-Dave

On Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 10:45:06 AM UTC-4, David Kinsell wrote:
On Mon, 25 Jul 2016 19:44:00 -0700, Papa3 wrote:

Nope. No search button. Can't post a screenshot, but there is no
"search." Home. Map. Login. Those are the only top nav options. Also,
the "filter" option that renders with Chrome on Windows 7 doesn't show
up on Android. It's obviously not a fully responsive design; the
experience is definitely degraded on mobile platforms. Same with
Silknon Android.

I'm a very casual user of the tracker on a laptop, works reasonably well
now.

The big hangup for me was initially trying to use the SSA version, it
frequently gave a blank window when trying to start it, and once demanded
a security exemption be approved on Firefox. Wasted time trying
different browsers and different OS's.

Big breakthrough was when I dumped the SSA version and just went directly
to glideport.aero. Works so much better.

Case in point, glideport.aero for me has the nice search box that works
as expected, when I go back to the ssa version, it's missing. No
apparent way to log in, not even sure if you log in to that version.
Maybe if I spent hours reading manuals, all this would be clear, but I'm
not going to do that.

Just saw a meme, it said software is like a joke. If you have to explain
it, it's not very good. I'm sure that will offend somebody, but I'm
still scratching my head over what the advantage of the SSA front end is.

-Dave

Wow - just tried that, and it's definitely different. For example, there's the search function that wasn't there in the SSA version. Of course, I tried it, and I got some fairly unintuitive results, but I can see where the "direct" version might be better. However, when I tried the "direct" version on my Galaxy running Chrome, I get yet another user experience.

Whatever. Works for me when I want to see what the local gang is up to while I'm stuck at work. Certainly wouldn't win any awards for Information Architecture or Usability, but not the worst application I've ever used.

On Saturday, July 23, 2016 at 1:50:03 PM UTC-6, wrote:
Can someone explain how you are supposed to use the SSA sailplane tracker?
It seems way overly complex. You should have the option just to zoom and pan to an area of interest and see all the live tracks.

However it seems you have to figure out what airport the pilot took off from and what contest they are part of on what date etc.

It should be as simple as this, go to the map, see the aircraft, done!
https://www.flightradar24.com/

If I ever go missing it look hopeless that someone could find a broadcasting spot.
Or do you have to be registered with glideport.aero?

How do we get our club's current airport to be listed as an option?

thanks
Chris

I had trouble when ssa suggested that I needed a modern browser like chrome suckered into loading chrome onto two computers. This resulted in two messed up machines as Microsoft and google battled to take over the computers.

Yuck!

6W