Tag Archives: Sports

Feedback to Polar Regarding UI Design

There are many great things I could say about my Polar Vantage M watch. I like

  • it’s clean, rounded physical design (as its an early model it does not ever have any ugly logo on the front),
  • the fact that I can use it with different wrist bands,
  • its battery life,
  • and much more.

But there are also a few things that really bother me a lot. Here are the top two things that I think need improvement and that could be improved easily via a software update

1) UI Aesthetics

Here’s an example that annoys me every day. Have a look at the following two versions of a watch screen.

Look left, look right, look left, look right. Which one feels right, which one feels wrong?

To me its the left one that feels wrong. Sure the icon as a whole, which is a stopwatch with a heart at its center, is centered. However, I think it should be the keyline, the circular outline of the stopwatch, that should be centered instead.

Polar if you are reading this: Please make the screen I see when I press the “Menu/Back” button look like the right-hand side image! Center keylines and not complete icons.

2) UI Inconsistencies

Here’s the most annoying: Cycling through menus workings differently depending on where you are.

When I enter the main menu I can press up to get from the first menu item to the last, which is settings. Once inside the settings sub-menu I can not press up to access the last menu item on that list? Also, the way the list of items is indicated is different (dots vs. just one dot and a line)? Why, oh, why???

Polar if you are reading this: Please let me get to the last entry of every list by scrolling up from the first entry!

The cherry on top: The sub-menu item I use the most (changing the alarm clock) is at the very bottom of the list. Polar: Have you evaluated how your users use the UI, e.g., which settings they use the most? Do you think people access their “General Settings” or their “Physical Settings” as often as their “Alarm Settings”?

Polar, I think you are a great company and you can make this one right by just one software update. Thanks!

Winter Kayaking in 2020

Still Kayaking. What a better day to start kayaking in 2020 than January 2nd. When everybody has sobered up.

Actually, it was just a trial run for more winter tours to come.

Lesson learned:

  • invest in shoes
  • long johns may prove to be comfy
  • no special kayaking jacket needed
  • plan an extra 15 minutes for set-up and wrap-up
    • mounting the cockpit takes 15 minutes
    • inflatable kayak becomes very stiff at sub-zero temperatures.

Other than that everything went fine. I think we are now ready for more adventures!

Kayaking

We just traveled Canada for three weeks and there’s one thing that became clear to me: I need a Kayak! The whole concept of hiking on water resonates with me on so many levels.

Getting from A to B at a steady pace while enjoying beautiful landscapes is pure pleasure to me. Kayaking has all of that, plus it lets me experience lakes and rivers in an almost meditative fashion. My favorite book is Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and I think that my fascination with water plays a role in that.

Last weekend we did a day-long Kayaking trip from Ebensee to Gmunden. Makes you feel like Huck for a day …

Active for 30 Days

Another 30 day-project: I bought a new gadget while I was in the US 4 weeks ago, a Misfit Flash activity tracker. The idea: It costs only 30 USD and if it would motivate me to stay active for 30 days in a row, this would mean a cost of 1 USD per day. In other words way less than your average gym membership. And I did it – I achieved my activity goal for 30 days in a row.

image

Misfit measures activities in points and I set my target to 1200 points (roughly 12000 steps) per day. While achieving this goal was never physically demanding, I had to schedule additional walks regularly. Especially on days with no other workouts (I run and swim about 1-3 times a week), and on days that were filled with meetings or travel.

I think I’ll move back to using Polar Flow as my primary activity tracker, because in addition to activity in general it can also track running, swimming, cycling, hiking and more using GPS and heart rate sensors. However the idea of tracking my activity and trying to avoid days without activity should stick.

Running

Usually I swim during the winter months and run during the summer months. I’ve truly neglected this habit since December, but I’ve picked it up again a week ago. And as we never really had winter this year in Austria (well it’s here now), I decided to start running again. Here’s the workout I tracked:

It was slower than usual a) because I am out of shape and b) because it was more like running on ice. I was even passed over by a cross-country skier on the running track!

What I find funny is that while it is still the same track that I’ve been using for years now, it does not get boring. I even thought about marking some spots along that track about things that have happened to me in the last couple of years. But as I am not much into nostalgia (that’s probably for later) I ditched that thought again.

Keep on Running!

Jetlag and the cold I caught on the airplane from New York delayed it a little bit, but finally I got there: Yesterday I went out for a run, the first time since im back to Austria. What a delight with the new running shoes that I had bought in NYC!

In addition to the new running shoes I tried something else that is new and exciting. As I have a data plan for my mobile now, I downloaded a free program called Sports Tracker that tracks your training! What a fun way to use technology to enhance an every-day thing like running! Check out the stats of yesterdays run at http://www.sports-tracker.com/#/workout/chschmid/cb45v6bpoe3rahf1