harsh feedback on new graphs

1

just got some harsh feedback on the new look of the graphs:
“it looks childish now. Before it was great! Everything looked
right. Now it just looks off. It’s not going to stop me from using
your product though. I don’t know maybe its like when facebook makes a
layout change and everyone bitches and moans about it, but 2 weeks
later they forget and grow to like it.”

Bethany thinks that with a few tweaks it will be definitively better
than the old version, but I thought I’d solicit feedback from you all.

–
http://dreev.es – search://"Daniel Reeves"
Follow the Yellow Brick Road – http://beeminder.com

2

Is it just me, or is it not as crisp as before? The fonts look fuzzy, like
there’s some kind of aliasing issue.

On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 12:59 PM, Daniel Reeves dreeves@beeminder.comwrote:

just got some harsh feedback on the new look of the graphs:
“it looks childish now. Before it was great! Everything looked
right. Now it just looks off. It’s not going to stop me from using
your product though. I don’t know maybe its like when facebook makes a
layout change and everyone bitches and moans about it, but 2 weeks
later they forget and grow to like it.”

Bethany thinks that with a few tweaks it will be definitively better
than the old version, but I thought I’d solicit feedback from you all.

–
http://dreev.es – search://“Daniel Reeves”
Follow the Yellow Brick Road – http://beeminder.com

3

I think the primary unpleasantness is the speed of rendering / re-rendering.
Is it impractical to put the rendering on the client side?
Javascript’s canvas2d api is pretty much the same as any other vector
graphics api.

Johnicholas

On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 4:02 PM, Isaac Schankler eyesack@gmail.com wrote:

Is it just me, or is it not as crisp as before? The fonts look fuzzy, like
there’s some kind of aliasing issue.

On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 12:59 PM, Daniel Reeves dreeves@beeminder.comwrote:

just got some harsh feedback on the new look of the graphs:
“it looks childish now. Before it was great! Everything looked
right. Now it just looks off. It’s not going to stop me from using
your product though. I don’t know maybe its like when facebook makes a
layout change and everyone bitches and moans about it, but 2 weeks
later they forget and grow to like it.”

Bethany thinks that with a few tweaks it will be definitively better
than the old version, but I thought I’d solicit feedback from you all.

–
http://dreev.es – search://“Daniel Reeves”
Follow the Yellow Brick Road – http://beeminder.com

4

Initial thoughts

  • yellow is very hard to see, yellow brick road and days of buffer almost impossible to make out
  • axis and units are easier to read, definite improvement
  • akrasia horizon is easier to read, definite improvement
  • the color of my data points and line look different… Not sure if I like the new colors, but not really sure what they were before
  • it does seem a little washed out or out of focus now. It was very sharp and bright before and now seems dull and muted
    -----Original Message-----
    From: Daniel Reeves dreeves@beeminder.com
    Sender: akratics@googlegroups.com
    Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:59:34
    To: akraticsakratics@googlegroups.com
    Reply-To: akratics@googlegroups.com
    Subject: harsh feedback on new graphs

just got some harsh feedback on the new look of the graphs:
“it looks childish now. Before it was great! Everything looked
right. Now it just looks off. It’s not going to stop me from using
your product though. I don’t know maybe its like when facebook makes a
layout change and everyone bitches and moans about it, but 2 weeks
later they forget and grow to like it.”

Bethany thinks that with a few tweaks it will be definitively better
than the old version, but I thought I’d solicit feedback from you all.

–
http://dreev.es – search://"Daniel Reeves"
Follow the Yellow Brick Road – http://beeminder.com

5

I didn’t even notice that until you said it. Now everytime I reload my graph I see it load from top to bottom. Is that new too?

-----Original Message-----
From: Johnicholas Hines johnicholas.hines@gmail.com
Sender: akratics@googlegroups.com
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:07:39
To: akratics@googlegroups.com
Reply-To: akratics@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: harsh feedback on new graphs

I think the primary unpleasantness is the speed of rendering / re-rendering.
Is it impractical to put the rendering on the client side?
Javascript’s canvas2d api is pretty much the same as any other vector
graphics api.

Johnicholas

On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 4:02 PM, Isaac Schankler eyesack@gmail.com wrote:

Is it just me, or is it not as crisp as before? The fonts look fuzzy, like
there’s some kind of aliasing issue.

On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 12:59 PM, Daniel Reeves dreeves@beeminder.comwrote:

just got some harsh feedback on the new look of the graphs:
“it looks childish now. Before it was great! Everything looked
right. Now it just looks off. It’s not going to stop me from using
your product though. I don’t know maybe its like when facebook makes a
layout change and everyone bitches and moans about it, but 2 weeks
later they forget and grow to like it.”

Bethany thinks that with a few tweaks it will be definitively better
than the old version, but I thought I’d solicit feedback from you all.

–
http://dreev.es – search://“Daniel Reeves”
Follow the Yellow Brick Road – http://beeminder.com

6

thanks everyone! we improved the fuzziness slightly [1] and we’re
working on some of the other issues.
keep letting us know what weirdnesses you notice!

danny and bethany

[1] as rob felty pointed out, we were accidentally specifying a
different height/width in the html than the actual image size

On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 13:02, Isaac Schankler eyesack@gmail.com wrote:

Is it just me, or is it not as crisp as before? The fonts look fuzzy, like
there’s some kind of aliasing issue.

On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 12:59 PM, Daniel Reeves dreeves@beeminder.com
wrote:

just got some harsh feedback on the new look of the graphs:
“it looks childish now. Before it was great! Everything looked
right. Now it just looks off. It’s not going to stop me from using
your product though. I don’t know maybe its like when facebook makes a
layout change and everyone bitches and moans about it, but 2 weeks
later they forget and grow to like it.”

Bethany thinks that with a few tweaks it will be definitively better
than the old version, but I thought I’d solicit feedback from you all.

–
http://dreev.es – search://“Daniel Reeves”
Follow the Yellow Brick Road – http://beeminder.com

–
http://dreev.es – search://“Daniel Reeves”
Follow the Yellow Brick Road – http://beeminder.com

7

Has anybody had access to Superbetter
(https://www.superbetter.com/page/faq) yet?

I’d love to try it, but it seems there’s an access code needed until
the start of the public beta…

Alex

8

I hadn’t heard of Superbetter. My first impression is that it sounds a
little touchy-feely for me but I’ll be happy to be proved wrong!

On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 13:02, Alexander Schwarz miro23@gmail.com wrote:

Has anybody had access to Superbetter
(SuperBetter: Empower Youth Mental Health) yet?

I’d love to try it, but it seems there’s an access code needed until
the start of the public beta…

Alex

–
http://dreev.es – search://“Daniel Reeves”
Follow the Yellow Brick Road – http://beeminder.com

9

+1 for client-side plotting in javascript.

flot would work for a quick and dirty solution, but can, in my experience, become frustrating for highly customized plots.

d3.js might be a nice option—while there’s a bit more overhead, it allows for complete control of svg elements. this would also facilitate nice interactive plots (mouseovers on data points, etc.).

-j

On Feb 24, 2012, at 4:11 PM, Jake Jenkins wrote:

I didn’t even notice that until you said it. Now everytime I reload my graph I see it load from top to bottom. Is that new too?
From: Johnicholas Hines johnicholas.hines@gmail.com
Sender: akratics@googlegroups.com
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:07:39 -0500
To: akratics@googlegroups.com
ReplyTo: akratics@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: harsh feedback on new graphs

I think the primary unpleasantness is the speed of rendering / re-rendering.
Is it impractical to put the rendering on the client side?
Javascript’s canvas2d api is pretty much the same as any other vector graphics api.

Johnicholas

On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 4:02 PM, Isaac Schankler eyesack@gmail.com wrote:
Is it just me, or is it not as crisp as before? The fonts look fuzzy, like there’s some kind of aliasing issue.

On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 12:59 PM, Daniel Reeves dreeves@beeminder.com wrote:
just got some harsh feedback on the new look of the graphs:
“it looks childish now. Before it was great! Everything looked
right. Now it just looks off. It’s not going to stop me from using
your product though. I don’t know maybe its like when facebook makes a
layout change and everyone bitches and moans about it, but 2 weeks
later they forget and grow to like it.”

Bethany thinks that with a few tweaks it will be definitively better
than the old version, but I thought I’d solicit feedback from you all.

–
http://dreev.es – search://“Daniel Reeves”
Follow the Yellow Brick Road – http://beeminder.com