Windows 95 design

[Purrrist]

The visual design of everything MRA is very Windows 95 which is unfortunate. I'm certain that hiring a graphic designer would pay itself back many times as people like me are really turned off by the amateuristic layout of both the site and the navigation app. This while the functionality is already very good. It's not wise to cut costs in that department, just a tip.

[Nick Carthew]

@Purrrist said in Windows 95 design:

The visual design of everything MRA is very Windows 95 which is unfortunate. I'm certain that hiring a graphic designer would pay itself back many times as people like me are really turned off by the amateuristic layout of both the site and the navigation app. This while the functionality is already very good. It's not wise to cut costs in that department, just a tip.

I think being compared to the most successful and revolutionary computer platform ever; is something to be proud of.
It’s easy to sit behind your keyboard and complain, how about putting forward some ideas or suggestions?
Personally I like the design as do thousands of other users. It’s simple and very intuitive to learn.

[sudolea]

@Nick-Carthew said in Windows 95 design:

I think being compared to the most successful and revolutionary computer platform ever; is something to be proud of.
It’s easy to sit behind your keyboard and complain, how about putting forward some ideas or suggestions?
Personally I like the design as do thousands of other users. It’s simple and very intuitive to learn.

I can only confirm this. We're 25 years later, and I wish the Windows 95 look and user interface had stayed.

If MRA would adopt the M$ Windows roadmap, then within now and 25 years we will have seen the same useless changes. Just naming a few :

• having to press the start button to stop,
• configuration items wandering around in increasingly more illogical places, to find out they are so well hidden in the end that you give up looking for them,
• at some point in time, being forced into using tiles just to find out in the next version they were (wisely) put aside.
  Not even mentioning all the countless buzzwords to sell the sh.t. With as rule of thumb : only 1 out of the 10 buzzwords will make it in the version after the next one...

[Purrrist]

@Nick-Carthew What I mean is that graphical design has come a long way since 1995. There are always die-hard users who cannot see fault in their favorite products which is fine by me as it is all subjective of course.

I would in fact be able to make this look a lot more professional but it's not my core business and I am in no way offering my services. I have also worked in ICT for a long time and know windows 95-98-XP inside out, win 7 to 10 a bit less because I switched to OSX and Linux but I am not bashing that win95 in any way. Just pointing out that this dated look pushes away many more users than it attracts. I still cringe every time I see those new icons, honestly.

I can assure you that there are not thousands of users who like this design. They are just not complaining about it.
I don't mean to either. As I said it is just some genuine advice because I wish MRA lots of success. I have literally done what you ask of me; I've put forward the idea and suggestion to invest in professional graphics which will put MRA on the map (see what I did there ;-)) with Kurviger, RouteYou, Tomtom Mydrive etc. These sites all have pixel perfect graphics and their sites look 2021 instead of 1995.

So it's not even about taste. That is my professional opinion and if you don't believe me just ask any graphic designer.

[Nick Carthew]

@Purrrist Your thoughts and suggestions are always welcome and I’m sure that the development team will take all this onboard.

[Hans van de Ven MR.MRA]

@Purrrist

And the design is being worked hard behind the scenes, in accordance with the roadmap, and as Nick said, come up with ideas, but not with something like look at Kurviger, MyDrive etc, because anyone can copy something (and they usually have the most commentary). MyRoute-app has something unique and they continue to build on that together with the community.

[Steve Lynch]

@Purrrist

No complaints from me with the current visual functionality.
Take the Route Lab page as an example.
From that single page I can access everything I need, with regards to creating, planning or editing routes.
I can select any of the last 8 routes I edited with 1 click.
Upload a route a couple of clicks and its uploaded.
The big square buttons are perfect for those of us that use iPads and prefer to use a browser rather than the App.
New Route, 1 click name it and I’m creating.

And if I need to jump elsewhere everything is available from the top level single click buttons.

[Jack van Tilburg]

Maybe it's not the most fancy user interface.
But for me, functionality and intuitiveness go way above design.
But I look forward to @Purrrist's suggestions for improvement.
"(see what I did there ;-))" sounds very promising. Make it come true.

[MyRoute-app community]

@Purrrist

When we started 8 years ago, I was hired as the general purpose graphics designer. No experience, and no schooling. Truly, the original argument really was "I like the doodles you scratched into the school desk". 8 years ago, MRA was nothing more than a nice idea.

Back then, the feedback was that we were one of the best looking systems out there. That's easy, compared to classic Tyre and Basecamp. But times have moved on, and so has the competition. My school-desk-scratching skills aren't always up for the task anymore and there's no shame in admitting that.

Even before people started complaining (which honestly is a pretty recent thing happening, especially with the icons), we were already trying to create more room to hire the right kind of talent to once again blow the competition away with a visual design that matches the awesome functionality.

These days I try to stick to Functional Design and User Experience Design, whilst leaving the visual heavy lifting to others. It's a transitional period, but I'm certain you'll like the end results when they start being slapped over the old.

As for those who are satisfied: it is exactly why I keep control over the FD and UXD processes; our community has specific wishes that need to be taken into account regarding functionality. And while I will concede that the visual design could be better, I strongly believe that we have great functionality.

[Steve Lynch]

@Timo-Martosatiman-MRA said in Windows 95 design:

And while I will concede that the visual design could be better, I strongly believe that we have great functionality.

Couldn’t agree more regarding the Functionality.

And to quote Thomas Bertram Lance from May 1977 whilst working for Jimmy Carter.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”