Calendar and plan design feedback

[Imminent]

First of all, what an immense update, there is so much to love. With any big change there will naturally be teething, but huge congratulations to everyone involved.

For context, I’ve been on Sufferfest for over a year, and was a beta tester.

Plans
I miss the browsability of the plans - just exploring and going “oh that one looks tough” or “oh that has interesting workouts I didn’t know about”. It was one or two clicks away to see a plan. That gave me a sense of ownership over all the plans - and gave me the confidence to compare.

The wizard has its place, but I’ve lost my “power user” mode. I’m literally relying on my past knowledge to “know” all the plans. Plus there’s variables - I want to know what a 4-6 hour volume plan might look vs a 6-8 version, but now I have go through progression > yoga > MTP > Preview > View schedule! No no no. So much no.

Calendar

The new calendar is clean. But it’s a “sea of same”.

1. The icons for the various disciplines all have the same scale (a person doing something), so they’re too hard to discern. The MTP one is fantastic - it stands out. It means I can quickly glance at a plan and see where they all are to get a sense of how the week might look. Maybe it’s a contrast issue - everything is kind of the same contrast.

2. This was an issue with the old app too, but I’d love to get a sense of, at a glance, which workouts are ‘intense’ and which ones are ‘recovery’. I personally know that Team Scream is gonna kill me, and “To get to the other side” is chilling. (the IF/TSS data is there…) Even though they’re both “things”, having “breathing to crush them” should feel less of a thing than Fight Club. Perhaps a toggle overlay?

3. The old app put the name of the training program across the top of the week. The new one puts the training program name on the top of each day. This adds so much visual noise to my plan. I literally have “Ian Boswell 200 Mile Gravel Training Plan” written on top of all 15 scheduled workouts this week. Verses once in the old app. No no no.

4. I get a green tick icon if I’ve done a workout. It also turns the top bar green. That’s two indicators doing the same thing.

Those are my biggest irks. Can’t wait to try out the new pro rides…

[WahooCoach_Corey]

Thank you for taking the time to share all of your feedback! Super useful and I will pass all of it along to our Wahoo Developers

[CPT_A]

I agree with these. And not just because shaggy cow.

[JSampson]

@Imminent All good points and I would agree with them. I have already done a Pro Ride (Strade Bianchi) and it was awesome - hope you enjoy those!

[CPT_A]

Really looking forward to the expanded pro rides. I’ve loved/hated Norway since day 1.

[ErickT]

Please bring back the color coded bar to show which plan the workout belong to.

[Calvin_Crawford]

I really liked the color coded bar! I also miss being able to easily delete a plan. I mean, I figured it out, but it’s really not obvious

[sirKris]

I agree with the calendar points and want to add the mobile calendar is kinda useless. I also want to add some feedback.

• the home page feels like it was designed by some one else, feels out of tune. (also what is the added value of the vacation picture behind my upcomming workouts?).
• Also the news cards, need more white space between them.
• I miss color in the app, feels like nothing is designed to draw attention. In the calendar color is used, but the focus seems to be on what I did in the past.
• for the workout / library if I want to browse the workouts, I now have to click more. 1 to view the workout details and 1 to go back. In the Sufferfest app, the workouts were always visible on the left.
• you have an item called progress, but it shows badges, I expected to see my progress how I improved, training data
• the desktop feels like a blown up mobile app
• yesterday I was doing my 15min yoga session and it took 25min because video kept freezing up.
• nice you have an Android app, but 2bad the iOS app is now also an Android web app with matching look and feel.
• also the app logo in ios app switch still shows as the SUF logo

[Gallonero]

Just for feedback

a good thing and a bad thing:

Good thing:
I love the “add to calendar” function of the library. Viceversa. Maybe the plus button on the calendar could make you choose to add a single workout instead of an entire training plan only.

Bad thing:
The back button in android is disabled. I know the back arrow on top it’s more Apple friendly, but for me is one of the reasons I use Android devices.

My apologies if that was already told, but in this days a huge amount of words had been written.

[Nicola]

Overall, I’m very satisfied with the new app!
Will we see a “season planning tool” similar to Trainerroad’s? Or maybe a podcast or article to teach us how to organize the plans in order to be on top form for our main event?

[JamesJordan]

One other thing you might want to consider - can we have a way to replace the red/green combo with something that suits those of us that are colour blind.
Interesting most men are in some way red/green colour blind to some extent and some of us like me are completely red/green colour blind.

[Imminent]

There’s a part of accessible (or, “inclusive”) design that says colour should not be the only indicator of something changing, for exactly this reason. Around 8% of men are colourblind, in various ways.

So the top bar changing colour doesn’t pass, which is probably why the secondary icon was added in. The common fixes here are to add a texture or line to the states.

This is why “dark mode / light mode” approaches are just following trends - it just extends problems like this; a high-contrast mode would be a better solution. I can’t see them letting you choose custom colours though.

[tdp]

Agree with the above Calendar critiques, have some to add:

When on the mobile app, you can add a plan to the calendar, but you cannot delete the entire plan at once. You can only delete individual workouts.

As someone mentioned on another thread, it would be a nice feature to be able to build our own plan by selecting what days to train (I don’t ride indoors on the weekends, unless the weather sucks, but almost all the plans have training days on Sat/Sun) and then selecting the desired focus.

It was also nice to be able to see the plan up front, instead of having to click a laundry list of options every time.

A step up from here would be if the program could track what workouts have already been ridden, and then select different workouts when assembling a new plan. (Basically, every plan uses the same recovery rides, I can only ride “A Dogs Life” so many times) With all these new Inspiration rides, it’s time to mix it up a bit.

And agree with many others in saying that the new color schemes are too vanilla and boring. The lack of contrast makes the pages visually confusing. I haven’t been able to do a ride yet, but hearing that the video intros changed is definitely a bummer.

Hopefully the “last ridden” date comes back once I start riding with the new app, as well as a list of completed workouts under “Progress”

Lastly, don’t forget what brought you most of us as customers, and that is quality cycling training workouts that have the capacity to be ridiculously hard. Terms like sufferfest, pain cave, and having someone rip off our legs and beat us with them are phrases of endearment. Who cares if it scares “normal” people away. If you water down what brought us here, we will leave. Also, I don’t care about yoga, mental training, strength training (do my own of all of these), or running and swimming. It seems like the cycling has taken a back seat on the new site. All of this hype for 1 more Sufferefest workout. I’m happy for more Inspiration vids, and interested to try the “Week with,” but I was hoping for a big drop of what made Sufferfest unique.

Not ironically, Wahoo is most likely assembling a website that uses all of the tech they sell. I bet they roll out their own treadmill soon.

[gpsjared]

@ErickT

Please bring back the color coded bar to show which plan the workout belong to.

@Calvin_Crawford

I really liked the color coded bar! I also miss being able to easily delete a plan. I mean, I figured it out, but it’s really not obvious

I know Sir @Glen.Coutts is also a big fan of this as well

@sirKris

you have an item called progress, but it shows badges, I expected to see my progress how I improved, training data

Spot on! We will expand this section of the app to include analytics and activity history, as well as to enrich the experience with the badges (being able to drill down into a badge and learn what it takes to earn it, for example)

@sirKris

nice you have an Android app, but 2bad the iOS app is now also an Android web app with matching look and feel.

I’m not much of a iOS (or Android, for that matter) power user, so I don’t notice this too much myself, but we’re mindful of work we can do to improve the native experience for both platforms. Going this route allows us to achieve feature parity across all platforms, but it is a trade-off. Out of curiosity, does the ‘web app feel’ put you off completely, or more of a nuisance?

@sirKris

the desktop feels like a blown up mobile app

Similar to above -

@sirKris

also the app logo in ios app switch still shows as the SUF logo

This is an Apple thing - we saw it a lot in beta testing when switching between the SUF and SYSTM apps - something to do with the way the OS caches app icons if I recall. The next time the app cache clears the SYSTM icon should appear in the app switcher (you can restart your iPhone/iPad to force the cache to clear)

@sirKris

the home page feels like it was designed by some one else, feels out of tune

Early days yet, but duly noted! Would you, for example, want to be able to set your own image (from a selection or file upload)?

@sirKris

Also the news cards, need more white space between them

Is this in regards to the home page, calendar or library?

@sirKris

I miss color in the app, feels like nothing is designed to draw attention. In the calendar color is used, but the focus seems to be on what I did in the past.

We have some UI improvements on the board and hope to implement them soon. We’ll know more over the next week or so how the roadmap will shakeout, but I’ve seen the designs and I like the update

@Gallonero

Good thing:
I love the “add to calendar” function of the library. Viceversa. Maybe the plus button on the calendar could make you choose to add a single workout instead of an entire training plan only.

Yes - we have something coming in a future update (add workout to calendar from the calendar) which we’ve prototype tested with our beta testers and it’s a really nice touch. I have a feeling it will be exactly what you’re after.

@Gallonero

Bad thing:
The back button in android is disabled. I know the back arrow on top it’s more Apple friendly, but for me is one of the reasons I use Android devices.

Definitely hearing you and others on this - big pain point from reports in the forums and through other feedback channels. We have to be careful with the ‘back’ functionality because we don’t want to make it too easy to quit a workout (especially mid-workout and by accident), but we’ve actively been working on some solutions and if we like the result we’ll bring them to the Android app. We’re also working on native navigation gestures for iOS as well.

@Gallonero

My apologies if that was already told, but in this days a huge amount of words had been written.

Don’t stress, we’d rather you make your perspective known and it gives us a chance to interact🤝

@Nicola

Will we see a “season planning tool” similar to Trainerroad’s?

Are you thinking of their AdaptiveTraining features or another resource/tool they offer?

@JamesJordan

Interesting most men are in some way red/green colour blind to some extent and some of us like me are completely red/green colour blind.

Deuteranopia / protanopia palettes makes a lot of sense. I know it was a consideration in the colours used for the workout profiles (interval graphs), and expanded themes are entirely possible. Inclusive design is a major consideration, and we’ve got work to do on that front

@Imminent

So the top bar changing colour doesn’t pass, which is probably why the secondary icon was added in. The common fixes here are to add a texture or line to the states.

I’m not sure if I’m missing some context here, but which “top bar colour” are you referring to?

@tdp

When on the mobile app, you can add a plan to the calendar, but you cannot delete the entire plan at once. You can only delete individual workouts.

You can, but we haven’t done a good enough job of making it intuitive/easily discoverable. @DameLisa has a later beta of the app (part of the direction we’re taking), but here’s how to do it on the current version.

@tdp

As someone mentioned on another thread, it would be a nice feature to be able to build our own plan by selecting what days to train…

Dynamic, contextually responsive plans - no.1 on my wish list too!

[Carl_Harwood]

@Imminent

Plans
I miss the browsability of the plans - just exploring and going “oh that one looks tough” or “oh that has interesting workouts I didn’t know about”. It was one or two clicks away to see a plan. That gave me a sense of ownership over all the plans - and gave me the confidence to compare.

The wizard has its place, but I’ve lost my “power user” mode. I’m literally relying on my past knowledge to “know” all the plans. Plus there’s variables - I want to know what a 4-6 hour volume plan might look vs a 6-8 version, but now I have go through progression > yoga > MTP > Preview > View schedule! No no no. So much no.

Can’t agree more with this.
With the old system it was easy to be “inspired” by the plans to fit round outside rides.

[sirKris]

Forgot to mention the previous post, I forgot to say congrats with the new platform, such an overhaul is never easy.

I’m not much of a iOS (or Android, for that matter) power user, so I don’t notice this too much myself, but we’re mindful of work we can do to improve the native experience for both platforms. Going this route allows us to achieve feature parity across all platforms, but it is a trade-off. Out of curiosity, does the ‘web app feel’ put you off completely, or more of a nuisance?

A native (feeling) app does add to the overal experience of a platform for me. If I compare SYSTM to the other Wahoo apps, they have the Android look, but they have also the iOS feel. I suspect that is more of an hybrid app. They feel snappy, where SYSTM feels slow for me. But that could be totally me.

For the blown up mobile app feel on the web, there is so much more screen real estate for desktop, I feel that could be used to give a better experience. I get the mobile first approach, but for indoor training I use a laptop or a 27" screen.

Early days yet, but duly noted! Would you, for example, want to be able to set your own image (from a selection or file upload)?

I would ditch the image, for me it doesn’t do anything. I need to see 2days training, or a way to add another training outside my plan, maybe a suggestion what to do.

news cards need more white space

With the news cards, I mean these. For me the white on the grey has bad contrast, and they are so close to each other, I checked it, with 8px padding instead of 4px it looks already better.

Also on the workout pages, a card has a shadow, which sets it more apart from the background.

[gpsjared]

Good stuff all around. I’m not on the design team myself and I don’t know what work is already in flight, but I will definitely advocate for a more polished experience (as a richer set of features). Really helps me out when you (and others) go into detail like this.

[gpsjared]

@Imminent

Preview > View schedule! No no no. So much no.

We’ve got some work to do on this experience, % agree with this.

@Carl_Harwood

Can’t agree more with this.
With the old system it was easy to be “inspired” by the plans to fit round outside rides.

Duly noted +2, thanks for the perspective cc @Imminent

[RichardK]

When I add a plan, it gives me the start date in American format (mm/dd/yyyy). Everything else on my iPad is set for British date formatting (dd/mm/yyyy) so this looks odd.
If I choose metric in SYSTM settings, it shouldn’t default to this date format

[Nicola]

I was thinking about the plan builder: Cycling Planning, Training, & Analytics - TrainerRoad
It’s very useful because it sets a tailored program considering all your races and type of race. At the moment, I use it to know when and where to plan a base-build-specificity block and try to translate it in the Sufferfest training plans.

Edit:

Here is what I’m talking about. You enter your races’ dates, what kind of race it is (climbing, TT, criterium,…), its duration,… and then you’ve got a plan to optimize your fitness for each event. I have to say it’s very useful.