Android Dashboard Redesign Feedback

[ErickFitbit]

Fitbit Update 04/24/2017: Hi everyone -- Our Android team appreciates everyone's feedback in this thread and are working to fully implement the new Android Dashboard in the upcoming 2.48 release.

I am closing this thread as all feedback has been captured and reviewed by our team. Thanks again for all of your constructive feedback as we continue to improve Fitbit products and services.

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Fitbit Update 10/04/2016: Hello Android Community! Some of you may have took notice that your Fitbit app has updated and you now have the option to view the new Android Dashboard (see screenshot below).

The new Dashboard design for Android is currently only available to our external closed beta group. We currently have the beta group closed, but some of you old school Fitbit beta users, were able to get in before we closed the group to the public.

For those of you in the beta, feel free to share your feedback so I can pass it along. I will have a more concrete timeline of official release to share with everyone when I get a confirmed date. We're taking our time to make sure the features are all working up-to-par. Thank you in advance for the feedback!

[Poo]

@USAF-Larry
That's my point, horses for courses means we're all different.
I am perfectly capable of knowing what I did yesterday too but I use my gadget to maintain significant weight loss and looking at my cumulative calorie deficit vs cals out vs weight vs steps was easier when I could see a day in its entirety.
I also liked to see this when I'm mountain walking to keep up with my calorie burn which increases dramatically when walking 80 miles in a week, we all use things differently. There is no right or wrong, just some who feel the change more keenly perhaps.
I'm just feeding back as requested.

[SolangeE]

Hello, @Gillean and @Poo! It is nice to see you around.  Well, in this case you can't choose a specific date to go back and check your history, you can only go back like a week and a half. This would be very useful, I agree with you, thank you for your feedback. Maybe in the next update this will be an option. In the mean time I suggest you to this directly from your online dashboard using a computer or using the Internet on your phone like Google Chrome. 

Thank you so much for your feedback, we will take in consideration and you are totally right, it does feel weird at first, every change, however you get use to it with time. If you want to switch back to the old dashboard just go to your advance settings. 

See you around guys! 

[DebbieMcPA]

You can remove tiles by hitting the edit button or with a long hold on the blank part of the page.  It will then give "minus" symbols to just tap on for those you don't want.

Debbie

[DebbieMcPA]

Hi - I like the look of the new dashboard for Android.  It has the same look as on the website.  But one of the things I would like to see is having the whole screen swipe sideways to the previous days, not just the steps.  This app is used for more than just how many steps you've done to compare with previous days.  I use it for counting calories & watching the weight going up or down, too.  It is more cumbersome to have to go into each tile to get this information instead of just being able to swipe across to see it more quickly.  I would also like to see how much weight "to go" instead of just how much lost.  You need to be able to see that you've gained, not just lost, without going into the back screen.  Perhaps you could make the steps icon smaller, or all of them to some degree, so that everything could fit on one page instead of having to scroll down to see everything, also.  Thanks.

Debbie

[Dgal]

I hate this new design. Not nearly as efficient as old. I only put it on my phone to try it with the understanding I could go back to the old one if I didn't like it and have now found out I can't.

[DebbieMcPA]

You can switch back.  Go into your account, go to advanced settings & there is a option to switch back to the old version.

[Gillean]

Why should I have to get used to it. If it was a good change it would be
easy. It it's a terrible change!

[Dgal]

Thank-you so much. When I e-mailed fitbit customer service they told me I couldn't. I know it's silly but I feel much better.

[ErickFitbit]

@Gillean In order to see your previous history for 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, or 1 year do the following:

• Click on the tile for the metric that you'd like to view
• Then click on the expanded graph at the top, which will then show the options for those date ranges.

[SunsetRunner]

Hi Erick,

I think we all know how to get to those stats, but it's just annoying having to do this, instead of having the tiles refresh to the selected days stats when you scroll through the days. Keeping the other tiles on the current day stats whilst changing the step tile is confusing.

I think all of the tiles should update to the selected days statistics for quick comparison and if you select a tile, this should have a detailed view.

[Jried]

New dashboard could be an improvement, but unfortunately it is a step backward. All of the previous days (weeks) of steps stay the same as the current day. I inquired, but evidently the developers don't think it's an issue. I was just blown off.

[LesleyJW]

@Jried I'm not certain that the development team will take any notice of what their users say about the dashboard changes.  The company has invested time and money in making this new 'modern look' dashboard.  To give their customers the option of using the old dashboard as an alternative choice would be admitting their error.  I doubt that will ever happen!

[DebbieMcPA]

Exactly, dansampayo!  It doesn't do much good to change the steps if nothing else changes & you're looking at past steps with today's stats.  It should be all tiles that change.

[TexasGraywolf]

When I updated my Samsung Galaxy 6 phone to the new dashboard for my Flex Fitbit, I now have a Giant Plus Sign in the lower right hand corner. It is very annoying and covers some of the data. Is there a way to shrink it or make it go away completely? I prefer the old dashboard because of this annoyance!

[Gillean]

Just to support what you say. How can it not be vital to check back records to see progress. I thought the whole idea was to encourage improvement so why remove the possibility of seeing improvement. They're mad. Xx

[Elena_Iv.]

@ErickFitbit, thank you for your reassurance that all feedback is getting gathered and presented to the developers. It's very important to know that one's concerns and thoughts are being heard.

A general request to other moderators of this thread: I do understand your passion about the product and that you may personally find the new design lovely, attractive and easy to use. However please try to be more considerate to the complaints of the people who don't think in the same way as you do, and please don't tell them that they just need to get used to it. This is really not very productive. We are adults who bought an expensive device for our own specific purposes and needs, and many of the users have selected this product because it was doing what they wanted it do. When this stops being the case, they have a very valid reason to air their concerns.

Now, to my more detailed feedback.

As it's been stated many times, different people have different purposes and requirement and they use their trackers in their own specific ways. Thanks to the versatility of Fitbit trackers, they help people to focus on specific things of their interest.

I own a Blaze and I use it primarily for watching my daily activity and controlling my calories intake. I don't do long walks (although I have my daily step goal) nor long excercises. Things I'm interested in mostly are: step count, calories burned and calories intake (and their balance), water intake, and hourly activity. Things I'm interested less: heart bpm, active minutes, sleep, weight . Of no interest at all: the distance (it's a derivative parameter calculated from steps multiplied by stride length) and floors (I work from home, and I rarely have to climb any floors at all).

As a result, my opening screen on the old Android dashboard looks this way, screenshot 1:

Spoiler

Old Design Page 01Old Design Page 02New Design Page 01New Design Page 02New Design Page 01 Finished

All important information for the current day is visible to me at once, and I can take it in with a single glace. By swiping left I can watch all this information for any of the previous days, in all entirety, and track my progress over the last several days.

All less important parameters, which I access less often or don't need at all, are collected on the second screen. (Old Design Page 02)

Now, in the new design, to get all the information I need, I should remove three (!) out of the five tiles on the upper panel, which will result in a following look:

Screenshot New Design Page 01.

As a result, the first opening screen contains only four out of the six items interesting to me. For two of them, I need to swipe down. (Screenshot New Design Page 02).

The huge plus sign, which partly covers the lower right tile, is very intrusive and hides important data.

I can no longer swipe left to see the whole statistics for my previous days. This has been discussed in this thread several times: firstly, the swipe has been replaced with a small arrow (need to tap instead of swiping but I can live with this); and secondly, much more important, getting back to the previous days doesn't give me the entire picture of these days, but only the data for the tiles in the upper pane of the screen. For getting the past data for all other parameters I should go through each tile separately, and I am not able to get a full picture for the selected day anyway.

In addition, removing irrelevant tiles has created a huge empty blindingly white space on my screen, which is very straining on the eyes. Even if the developers give us an option to customize the background and choose any non-white soft colors, this wouldn't remove the vast amount of empty wasted screen space. (Screenshot New Design Page 01 Finished)

Things that would make me accept and actually start using the new Android dashboard design:

1. Treat all tiles equally (no more division between upper and lower pane) and allow the users to rearrange them as they wish, to reflect the parameters they specifically need, exactly how it's done now in the old design.
1a. Allow the users to select their "main" tile, be it steps, or bpm, or calories (eaten/consumed/left).

2. Swiping left (or tapping) to view information for the previous days should display the data for that specific day on all tiles, not just the tiles from the upper pane.

I can live with tiles instead of horizontal bars, as long as

(a) I can see all info for the current day important to *me* on one screen at one glance, and

(b) I can see all info for the past day(s) important to *me* on one screen at one glance.

After several days of trying to "get used" to the new design, I reverted back to the old one, because it suits my needs better.

Otherwise, please don't push this change and allow users to choose whichever design they want to use.

P.S. Apologies for the mess with the screenshots, I haven't been able to put them in the spots I wanted them to be. Not sure how to do that, sorry!

[Gillean]

Thanks for that. I agree with what you say and like you have reverted to
the old dashboard because it does what I want. The moderators are paid to
like the new set up. I'm not corruptible and don't like it if they were
honest I'm sure some would agree. That would be so reassuring.

[Jried]

I'd it just coincidence that I have to reboot my phone to update since the new dashboard came out? I don't think so#

[Rich_Laue]

@Jried I'm not sure what you mean by having to reboot the phone?
Why do you need to reboot the phone?
Do you need to reboot it every day?
It is very possible that with any app update your phone might need rebooting.

[rw5]

New Android Dasboard (Flex) does not sync properly. It is much slower than previous, and the total steps do match those listed on the summary screen.