The automatically generated image is confusing

Newbee
1

Hello beeminders :slight_smile:

I’m starting too use BM, and this is the biggest issue I’m having. When I look at my goal page, the biggest element that draws my attention is the big image with the multicolored graph on it. This graph in an automatically generated image, but I feel like I’m looking at an interactive widget and I want to click the different parts or hover my mouse over one to get information about what it means.

Like, what is that yellow-striped zone under the yellow road? Why are theses datapoints colored orange? What does “Wed” mean? Wednesday? What is the purple line between my data points? What is this “Akrasia horizon”? I found the answers to some of these questions by looking at helpers on the page, but some of it still eludes me.

I feel like the whole thing would be much easier to understand if the image were more interactive, with at least some information displayed somewhere (maybe in a line of text below the image) when your mouse is pointing at an element in the image. It would be easier than looking everywhere on the page for the answer to your question, because there would be a direct link between what you’re looking at and the help you’re given.

Anyway, that was my feedback. Thanks for the whole “beeminder” thing, and good day.

6 Likes
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Hi @poignardazur!

Good news! Turning the graph into an interactive, zoomable widget is happening. The preliminary version is even available, although it might not help you with these questions.

I am not 100% sure you want the questions answered, or if it’s an example of things that would be more “intuitive” if they were discoverable from the graph. (Let me know if you do want clarification and one of us will certainly help out.)

1 Like
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@adamwolf, may I ask where that preliminary widget can be found? I would be interested in playing with it.

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There’s a little experimental beaker button in the upper left corner of the graph on each goal’s web page.

Clicking on that will temporarily turn on the experimental client-side graphs. The big thing right now is that there are buttons in the lower left corner: reset, pan, zoom.

These are particularly handy if you want to zoom in on a road segment to get a better look, but don’t want to permanently change the default viewport.

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I think you have to be a daily email subscriber to see the button. Also it’s an Erlenmeyer flask and not a beaker (sorry sorry).

2 Likes