Championship Mobile App - Can it be better?

[sanddrag]

I'm just leaving Autodesk University in Las Vegas, an awesome 4-day event with about 10,000 attendees in the huge venue here at the Venetian hotel complex. They have a really great app for the event that apparently was developed by this company: http://doubledutch.me

At the FIRST championship last year, the app was sort of useable, but really fell short of what it could have been. Is anyone at FIRST looking into doing better with the Championship event app?

[Bryan Herbst]

Yes, it can be a million times better. Full disclaimer: I am a professional Android developer, so I have relatively high standards for Android apps.

I am disappointed by the championship app every year.

From a design standpoint, the app follows almost none of the Android design guidelines. It is very clearly not designed for Android, and every year that more apps begin following the latest design language makes this app feel more and more out of place.

The navigation is atrocious- there is a set of tabs stacked on top of an "app bar" that has a navigation drawer, above an ad, above an announcements bar above a grid containing links to all of the navigation items, some of which are already available in the tabs up top.

There are a number of design features that would be fixed by literally changing a single value in the code. This value would allow the app to at least default to using the latest styling for things such as progress bars in dialogs.

The core issue is that FIRST chose a pretty terrible one-size-fits-all platform that uses the same re-skinned codebase for every event they partner with. here's their website and here is a list of apps that are their victims- notice anything familiar in the other apps?

This also means that sometimes the app has functionality (such as the attendees list) that simply don't do anything. Some wording also just doesn't make sense in the app because it wasn't really designed for our use. It also means that I am incredibly concerned about what the app is doing- what data is it accessing and sending back to this third party?

I can understand saving cost by choosing a partner that plans to reuse code from an existing app, but in this case the core codebase is a far cry from what I would consider acceptable. FIRST is unfortunately rewarding this company for extremely lazy development.

So yes, I agree, FIRST can and should do much better. As a company promoting STEM to high schoolers, they should take pride in their technology offerings.

[FrankJ]

To be honest I have not found a use for it. Cell phone band width is a precious commodity in the pits. The app sucks down too much data & non of it is particularity useful. What I need most is team standings, scores, and an up to date match schedule. There are several apps that do that well but they depend on the first servers having current data.

[Alex Webber]

I agree, the app is a train wreck. It is confusing, unreliable, and is not showcasing first in a super awesome way.

I feel like FIRST should have a survey about the championship app. I would say that FIRST Teams could make a better app for championships. There is stuff on the app that is great, but most of it is super pointless, and does not help anyone.

[ttldomination]

I remember downloading the championship app; I don't remember using it very much.

As a visitor at champs last year, I was hoping for a nice way to find out the various events, conferences, and displays that are going on at a given time...

...IIRC, the app provided that information, but not in a very intuitive way. Ultimately, I gave up and hung out with my old team, but the point remains that the functionality was lacking.

At the same time, I wonder how much of FIRST engineering is dedicated to these kinds of things. Between the various systems that need to be maintained and a new website being launched (that's less than friendly on mobile), I wonder if FIRST even has the appropriate resources to dedicate towards such an app.

- Sunny G.

[AJCaliciuri]

Yes! I'm so glad someone finally brought this up!

I agree with everyone above, the Championship app could be so much more than it is now. Theoretically, it should be the app that every team member, mentor, volunteer, visitor etc. has on their smartphone to find out what's going on where, along with other important information about the competition.

Being an Android user, the app consistently feels like a repackaged iOS app, and looks like something from 2010.

With an army of talented, motivated, and skilled students at their disposal, who (might) do it for free, I don't see why they wouldn't turn it into a competition. At the very least, they should ask for community input.

I hope that this changes soon. I've been to Championships with my team every year since 2010, and ever since the app has existed, it just isn't worth the download.

[Rosiebotboss]

I am sure FIRST appreciates the feedback. I have 2 questions:

Who has sent their feedback to HQ directly? (frcteams at firstinspires.org)

Who has volunteered to help them design a better one? (Don't take this the wrong way. HQ is always looking for help, especially in areas in which they have little to no expertise.)