New Dashboard

[DerrickS]

Fitbit Update 5/25/2017

Thank you for taking the time to share feedback. I can assure you the comments have been and continued to be reviewed and shared with our iOS team.  

As a reminder, I'm including our help article on the Fitbit app here.

Overwhelmingly, recent posts share the sentiment of no longer being able to revert back to the original dashboard and not having the option to choose. At this time there are no plans to revert access to the old Dashboard, but we always appreciate feedback on how to improve our app.

As a reminder, Please remember to keep your posts respectful and on-topic, per our Community Guidelines. This thread will be better for everyone as a constructive conversation.

Fitbit Update 8/17/2016

Beginning with version 2.26 of the Fitbit app for iOS, the new Fitbit app dashboard with an updated look is now fully implemented. You can no longer return to the old design. We're constantly striving to improve Fitbit products and services, and we appreciate all of the feedback we receive from our customers.

You can find information about the new app dashboard and how to start using it by clicking here.

Fitbit Update 5/25/2016

I'm very pleased to announce that iOS users who have updated to version 2.23 of the Fitbit iOS App are now able to opt-in to use a preview of a new design of the Fitbit iOS dashboard!

One of my favorite features for this new dashboard preview is the quick log button in the bottom-center of the iOS App. This feature allows users to quickly: track an exercise, log food, log sleep, log water, send a friend request, scan a food barcode (if you are using the US food database), log their weight, or set an alarm.

 

Users can opt-in to use the new iOS dashboard design by:

1. Updating to version 2.23 of the Fitbit iOS App, click here to be redirected to the iOS App Store.

2. Click the Account button in the bottom right-hand corner.

3. Scroll down and click the Advanced Settings button.

4. Toggle the Preview New Dashboard button at the top of the page on.

Click here for more details and let me know if you have any questions!

Moderator Edit: Edited thread title.

[PureEvil]

Hello @TheRealSTB,

Oh, goodness...  While I can attest to the fact that folks from Fitbit do read the posts here, it's very tough to gauge how severe a problem is by reading through the actual text on all these threads.  And to put it quite bluntly, it's even tougher to take folks seriously when they use words like:

• dumb
• retarded
• shoving a half-baked solution down our throats

Honestly, I myself don't typically scroll back day, but I can see how this would be irritating if you used it all the time.

All that said, the most straightforward way for Fitbit to gauge your opinion is for you to vote for getting it changed.  It took me about one minute to find a feature request to get this changed:

Ability to see previous days with all tiles on iOS app

And honestly, it surprises me that many of you who are so vocal in this thread have not voted for it.  It is far easier for Fitbit to assess the priority of a request by looking at the count of votes, than it is by reading pages upon pages of comments (many of them emotional and accusatory).

Want it changed?  Vote for the feature.  Encourage your friends to vote for the feature.

[SunsetRunner]

Generally I would agree, but the reality is Fitbit's customers are feeding back that they hate the new dashboard. The reasons they hate is almost irrelevent. They will be varied. But for Fitbit to ingore that feedback and not go back to the drawing board, yes they will go the way of Blockbuster. 

I tried the dashboard, I hated it. Why?  because I could not at a glance get the same imformation from the new dashboard as I could from the old dashboard. It failed in it primary purpose - to convey information!

That's why I hate it, and will not buy another Fitbit if they ingore their customers and force it upon us.  

[picasso66]

Anyone know how I opt out of the notifications on this thread?

Patricia
Sent from my iPhone

[PureEvil]

@picasso66,

I believe you just need to select "Unsubscribe" under the Topic Options.

I hope this helps.

[picasso66]

Thank you.

Patricia
Sent from my iPhone

[TheRealSTB]

---

@PureEvil wrote:

Hello @TheRealSTB,

Oh, goodness...  While I can attest to the fact that folks from Fitbit do read the posts here, it's very tough to gauge how severe a problem is by reading through the actual text on all these threads.  And to put it quite bluntly, it's even tougher to take folks seriously when they use words like:

• dumb
• retarded
• shoving a half-baked solution down our throats

Honestly, I myself don't typically scroll back day, but I can see how this would be irritating if you used it all the time.

All that said, the most straightforward way for Fitbit to gauge your opinion is for you to vote for getting it changed.  It took me about one minute to find a feature request to get this changed:

Ability to see previous days with all tiles on iOS app

And honestly, it surprises me that many of you who are so vocal in this thread have not voted for it.  It is far easier for Fitbit to assess the priority of a request by looking at the count of votes, than it is by reading pages upon pages of comments (many of them emotional and accusatory).

Want it changed?  Vote for the feature.  Encourage your friends to vote for the feature.

---

@PureEvil

Sorry I lost my temper there for a few minutes. But you're the first somewhat "semi-official" Fitbit representative to comment on this thread since I subscribed and started watching this thread.

I assume you're a volunteer rather than an actual Fitbit employee, right? If so, please relay this thread to them.

I was not aware of the specific thread on this and I just voted for it now. Thanks for the tip.

I must clarify two things though:

1. For my original complaint, I took the time to contact support. They were the ones that sent me to this thread and gave me the impression that Fitbit development reads/responds on it so it's been frustrating to see otherwise. I thought this was one thread that Fitbit specifically wanted all new dashboard feedback to go under.

2. The biggest reason I got angry was that after feeling that I and numerous other users were being ignored, we got your comment that seemed like it was saying: "Change is progress; embrace it!". That seemed to be a strawman argument that ignored all the specific feedback on this thread.

[PureEvil]

Hello @TheRealSTB,

To answer your question, yes...  I'm just an active member of the forum.  I do not work for Fitbit.  The Fitbit folks have their id's end with 'Fitbit'.

Honestly, I wasn't originally on this thread (nor did I intend to).  I was responding to another thread where a user was having sync problems and attributed them to the new dashboard.  Once the threads were merged, I was subscribed to the thread.  And for that reason, no...  I didn't read all the posts on this thread.

I apologize if my response came off as insensitive; I'm afraid I miscommunicated.

First allow me to say that I believe the following issues are legit complaints:

• Tiles don't change to reflect previous days.
• Gauges should follow the same color scheme consistently.

Should they be fixed?  Absolutely!  There may be more that I'm not aware of...  Remember, I don't use iOS at all.  As I mentioned before, the former already has a feature request, I don't know if the latter does.

That said, if the discussion on the thread is surrounding those issues, then perhaps a more effective approach would be to point out that this dashboard deviates in its behavior from the online dashboard and thus folks will be confused.

To simply demand Fitbit to put it back the way it was (with no explanation of what they didn't like) is likely the least effective way to get Fitbit to listen.  Surely some elements of the new dashboards are better, to simply demand to put it all back omits that valuable information.

Even if Fitbit doesn't officially respond in an official capaticy, doesn't mean that they aren't listening (nor should it be interpreted that way).  There have been a number of features that suddenly appear (like the ability to sync without a dongle on Windows 10) without Fitbit responding to the feature requests nor giving a timeline to when it'll be available.  I've been on the forum long enough so that I can name many such features.

Lastly, there is going to be an adjustment for some folks.  Yes, it looks different.  Some folks have mentioned that it's tougher to read...  That they can't tell their status from a glance.  Is that because it's poorly designed or because it's simply different from what it was?  If you're accustomed to reading a digital clock and I were to install an analog clock...  Is it different?  Yes.  Is it going to take you longer to read it at first?  Sure.  Is there something inherently wrong with the analog clock?  No really.

The timer on my oven runs at minute resolution ("1" means one minute).  The one on my microwave oven runs at second resolution ("1" means one second).  Is one of them "wrong"?  No, but it still took me some time to get used to it when I first moved in.

Again, apologies for coming off as dismissive.

[LuvSk8ing182]

Comparing Blockbuster's somewhat late change from being a physical store
to a virtual store online (Blockbuster On Demand) is NOT THE same as
comparing a user interface of a product that HAD its own look and feel AND
was working efficiently. Fitbit has taken something that had no errors to
something that they have designed to lack functionality.

If you read this thread in full, you would have noticed that the aspects
lacking in functionality have been listed a multitude of times throughout
the thread. However, it seems that you have only been hung up
on nitpicking terminology instead of seeing past that and understanding the
overall content. Who cares if it's not called "iWatch"? That's an Apple
thread issue, not a Fitbit thread issue. Also, it's Apple fault for not
copywriting iWatch sooner. Unfortunately, someone in Europe already
trademarked it. Again, who cares? Since you're so concerned about the
name, you can follow this link to see that at some point, Apple did call it
the Apple iWatch. www.smartwatchnews.org/apple-iwatch-martin-hajek/

Ranting and raving on this thread is all wet can do, since Fitbit directs
us to this thread instead of anywhere we can make an actual difference. As
for the new also being compared to Apple products and Microsoft products,
get over yourself, it's the same thing. Shortly after XP AND Vista,
Microsoft started following suit and began slightly mimicking Apple's
interface. This was first seen in the way the menus in Microsoft Word
changed to be more simplistic like Apple's word document program. The only
difference is that Apple tiles tend to be more rounded whole Microsoft's
are boxed. You can also see Microsoft's utilization of Apple's concepts in
the way the desktop on computers are. All of the desktop icons used to be
boxed, now they are circles...just like Apple.

Now, if we're done with the history lesson and the nitpicking of who copied
whom, can we get back to the fact that Fitbit had ruined the old
dashboard? If you had read the thread in its entirety, you would have seen
a breakdown of all things wrong with the new dashboard. But since you pick
and choose what you read, let me just list them out for you again:

The old dashboard:
- Iet you prioritize categories based on you personal goals. For example,
pounds life to lose or amount of water you drank could be the topmost bar.
- let you see the previous days' information for ALL bars, not just the set
5 categories.
- took up less space, making it easy to keep all important things on the
first page.
- motivated you with different colors the closer you got to your goal.
- allowed you to swipe to add to individual categories.
- had no flaws!

The new dashboard:
- forces you to prioritize the 5 tiles they pre-chose for you. Many people
don't care how many floors they went up, but would rather prioritize their
caloric intake. Nope, can't do that anymore. Everyone's fitness goals are
different. Fitbit used to understand that. Now we ate forced to
prioritize aspects of health and fitness that are not our individual
properties. This issue on its own is enough to see that the new dashboard
is useless.
- wastes a lot of space and makes many tiles very small at the
same time and is blindingly white because if that.
- does but let you see previous days' logs for the bottom tiles, which
were deemed unimportant by Fitbit, when you press previous day. Fitbit has
stated that this is NOT a glitch and has been set this way by choice.
- makes you click on each tile to see more information on it.
- has made it less efficient to add data to each category by removing the
Swipe To Add feature.
- does not motivate you by changing colors as you progress throughout the
day. Making those used to the color changing think you still have a long
way to go. Not motivating those not used to the color changing either. On
a psychological standpoint, colors significantly affect people. Which is
why restaurants choose colors that increase appetite and hospitals choose
colors that comfort.
- is NOT an improvement on the old dashboard. It is a disgrace to it.

So no, it's not about being comfortable with the old dashboard. It's about
having the freedom to prioritize the things you monitor and about being
concerned when seeing flaws added to a seemingly flawless system. We are
not saying that all updates to this app are useless. I absolutely loved
when they added the ability to scan foods into the food log. It is this
dashboard that we despise due to its removal of functional aspects.

 

Moderator edit: removed personal information.

[TheRealSTB]

---

@PureEvil wrote:

Hello @TheRealSTB,

....

First allow me to say that I believe the following issues are legit complaints:

• Tiles don't change to reflect previous days.
• Gauges should follow the same color scheme consistently.

Should they be fixed?  Absolutely!  There may be more that I'm not aware of...  Remember, I don't use iOS at all.  As I mentioned before, the former already has a feature request, I don't know if the latter does.

That said, if the discussion on the thread is surrounding those issues, then perhaps a more effective approach would be to point out that this dashboard deviates in its behavior from the online dashboard and thus folks will be confused.

To simply demand Fitbit to put it back the way it was (with no explanation of what they didn't like) is likely the least effective way to get Fitbit to listen.  Surely some elements of the new dashboards are better, to simply demand to put it all back omits that valuable information.

....

---

Apology accepted.

To clarify, personally, I was asking Fitbit to put the preview dashboard back to the way it was, not go to the old dashboard. The preview dashboard DID use to change all stats as you flipped thru days.

You do have a great point -- the online dashboard, which I don't use -- also changes all days as you flip thru days. So really Fitbit should see the light and make the preview dashboard behave like the web site, the old dashboard, and earlier releases of the preview dashboard.

[wellsmc]

Touché. Very well said and an excellent summary of all that has previously been articulated to no avail.

Sent from my iPhone

[wellsmc]

I am so tired of some people making excuses for Fitbit. Trying to redefine what has already been articulated in a positive way to excuse Fitbit is simply not useful.

These issues that we all have articulated many times simply must be fixed or Fitbit will lose many of their long time users. That's the bottom line.

Sent from my iPhone

[PureEvil]

@wellsmc,

As I mentioned before, the most effective way for Fitbit to gauge your opinion is with your votes on feature requests.

If you feel so passionately about this, dare I ask why you have not entered a feature request to get it changed nor have you voted for the existing feature requests that outline how it should be changed?

[LuvSk8ing182]

Why don't thou go look at all of the votes on the feature request link that
wad posted earlier in this thread and then ask those questions? Many of us
have voted on countless feature requests. Most of us have come to find
throughout the years that even if something is voted on in abundance,
Fitbit will only take it into consideration if it was already on the
agenda. Fitbit stopped being a "For The People" company a while back.

--
Sincerely,

Ami Sanathara
(714) 728-8456

[picasso66]

Very well said.

[summers91]

The size of the text is very small after I applied the update. I can change back to the old dashboard but the text stays tiny. Too small to read.

[Mashleyy]

I love the look of the new dashboard however I have one HUGE problem with it. You used to be able to go to yesterday and it would show you all your stats from yesterday. Now, it keeps your most recent information for the "tile" stats instead of showing you your previous info. For example, I just want to be able to see how long I slept yesterday by going back one day. I like looking at the stats in terms of the day as a whole. I don't want to have to go look at the sleep graphs to see how long I slept. It's actually really stupid

[SunsetRunner]

I have been using Fitbit for a number of years.
I chose it over Jawbone primarily because of the user friendly app and the clear and precise overview it provided.
Now being in IT development myself I do appreciate the need for UI upgrades, however...
It is simply bad form to force a new version on users - especially if it (as is the case with the new app dashboard) provides a lesser user experience than the version it is replacing.
While it may be subject to personal preference if you prefer lines, grids or tiles - you should at the very least be able to expect access to the same level of detailed information.
The new dashboard only offers limited comparison between 'today' and other days.
If you flip between days your steps, distance, calories burned, floors and active minutes will reflect the relevant day, but the tiles (calories in, water, sleep etc.) all only reflect today. This makes comparison a lot less intuitive - not being able to compare all values at a glance and in stead having to drill through graphs for the information.
Add to that the fact that the banner for the new dashboard cannot be removed and that the new, limited functionality dashboard will very soon be forced on all users.
All polite conversations with Fitbit simply leads to a rather arrogant reply of: We encourage you to explore the options in the new dashboard. No reply as to how to address the limited functionality.
I am no longer a happy customer, but rather a very disappointed one.
Fortunately other suppliers are popping up all over the place offering better build quality and waterproof devices.
Their calorie tracking may be less impressive, but several 3rd party apps can take care of that.
Dear Fitbit... Should I simply take my 'business' elsewhere?

[picasso66]

Very well stated

[PureEvil]

@LuvSk8ing182,

I got merged in to this thread right around page 15 of the 18 pages so far.  So no, I had not read through all of the previous posts.  Though in the interest of fairness, I did skim through them and found one other post which had a link to a feature request and found that you indeed had voted for it.  Kudos to you.

I've said before on my posts.  If you simply want to vent, please feel free to disregard.  If you want to affect change, then read on.

There are some folks who are very vocal on this thread that had neglected to vote on any feature request.  If you look at folks' profiles, it lists all their posts, votes received and votes given.  As vocal as folks like @wellsmc are on this thread, he has not voted on any posts nor on any feature requests.

Factoring out the issue with "tiles don't reflect previous days" and "colors don't change as you get close to goal", there have been many positive responses about this new dashboard on this very thread:

• "LOVE THE NEW IOS DASH!!!" by healthy17
• "Love the new dashboard. Looks much more modern and matches the revamped iOS! Great job, FitBit design team." by CourtneyHK
• "I like the new dashboard but please enable colour changing for progress advancing (blue--yellow--orange--green)" by Petrinho
• "Agreed! I like the new app but please incorporate the colors for progress!" by FLJeff
• "I like it better than the old layout. I find it intuitive and very easy to read." by Nolander
• "Love the new layout." by hawkyou
• "I like the new dashboard, but it's annoying that going back to previous day's doesn't show historical data for the bottom tiles." by Tomcapp
• "@Tomcapp I agree! I thought this might be a glitch only I was having but apparently not! Would definitely use if I could see previous day's data in the bottom tiles but as I can't I'm switching back to the old dashboard for now." by FiW
• "Nice layout i like it" by Troublemaker
• "I absolutely love it! Thanks for the update! Awesome job team Fitbit!!" by Rebeccaky
• "Love the new dashboard, thank you Fitbit!!" by SheBFit
• "I downloaded the updated yesterday and at first I really didn't like the new look. However, having used it for a while I am loving it. A couple of suggestions..." by GadgetMOnster

Etc.  I stopped collecting after page 3, but you get the point.  While I understand that you prefer the older dashboard for a number of different reasons, to simply revert to the older dashboard means that these folks will no longer have the dashboard that they prefer.

I know some folks have suggested keeping the old dashboard around as an option, and Fitbit may elect to do that.  However, it does not come for free.  Having two separate dashboards involves maintenance costs:

• At a minimum, bug fixes with that dashboard.
• When Fitbit introduces new features (like "hourly steps"), they have to add it in two places, not one... or simply not offer it on the old dashboard (which will have other people screaming).
• Consistency between different versions of the dashboards.  The online dashboard, and Windows dashboards have already moved to the circular gauges.  It reduces confusion, customer service time, responses here in the forum, etc. if all the dashboards behave similarly.

You had a previous post where you had outlined the elements that you didn't like.  I would encourage you to make sure that these have been entered a feature requests and vote for them.  If they haven't been, then by all means create your own feature requests and encourage others to vote.

By all means instruct Fitbit on how they can make the new dashboard function even better than the old dashboard.  That said, to continue to post on this thread simply saying that you want the old dashboard back and use words like "ruined" and "disgrace", while I'm sure makes you feel better in some respect, is not really helping your cause.

Just my 2¢.

[wellsmc]

Dear Fitbit. I took action yesterday. Tired or excuses, arrogance and I attention to user feedback. I for one will vote with my feet. Goodbye!

Sent from my iPhone