Don't just roam, WANDER!

#41

[in response to stats screen improvement suggestion that roaming Blocked/Allowed be displayed] Or Roaming is currently:Enabled/Disabled.

the current stats screen clearly isn’t clear at all

Alternatively the language on the Setup screen could be changed from disabled to blocked but my personal preference is Enabled/Disabled with the two screens having a lingual correspondence.

the two screens have very different intents though:

SETUP: indicates whether the Wander app is enabled or disabled (that is, whether it will actively control your settings or not)

STATS: indicates whether your mobile data has been disabled (android’s term) or not.

the key difference here: if Wander is ENABLED, but you aren’t in a roaming area, then the stats screen should indicate that mobile data is NOT BLOCKED (or whatever terms we end up using here).

as mentioned earlier, the stats screen was initially just a place for me to see some indication of the inner workings of the app during development and i foolishly (?) retained the “feature” when publishing the app. it is very poorly written as of today.

Edit: If you feel compelled to explain this to me then either I am dense or the actual state is unclear.

and if the actual state is unclear, then the developer is dense!

i’m leaning further and further towards just disabling this feature for now. it is “interesting” at best, and misleading/confusing at worst.

#42

billg wrote:

Or Roaming is currently:Enabled/Disabled.

I would actually go the other way, since Enabled/Disabled is already used on the settings screen to express whether Wander is active, I intentionally suggested different language here to avoid too much association of these 2 distinct concepts.

billg wrote:

Edit: If you feel compelled to explain this to me then either I am dense or the actual state is unclear.

I agree, I wasn’t trying to say that you’re wrong, just explaining why they aren’t the same thing.

#43

billg wrote:

Aren’t the stats provided by the Republic app sufficient? Seems to me they are.

They’re different things. The RW app reports how much roaming data was used, this Wander stat is (intended) to report how much roaming was avoided due to the use of the app. They are using different metrics (bytes vs time) but I don’t think you could really figure out how many bytes were not used from what Wander could reasonably do. I think it’s really just meant to be a warm fuzzy, “Hey, I’ve saved about 60% of my roaming with Wander”.

#44

mchasal wrote:

“I would actually go the other way, since Enabled/Disabled is already used on the settings screen to express whether Wander is active, I intentionally suggested different language here to avoid too much association of these 2 distinct concepts.”

Wow, am I confused. Are you telling me “enabled” (in the language near the top of the screen) does not correspond with “Service is ON” at the bottom of the screen?

Bottom line from my perspective is this: All the casual user (not a programmer) cares about is having control over roaming data consumption. They could care less whether or not a service is running. The app gives them this control if they can figure out whether or not the service is actually running.

Maybe “Managed” and “Not Managed” are better terms than disabled or blocked since the app allows us to manage data consumption, not necessarily block or disable it.

#45

The stat area would be nice to have to see how much roaming data you avoided which in return should compare/reflect the roaming data in the RW app. In theory should say lesser roaming data usage in the RW app and more roaming data that is avoided in the Wander app.

An example:

The stats would show: 500KB of Roaming data was avoided today, and 3MB of roaming data avoided for the month.

If this is possible to create, then it would have a better understanding in the interface how Wander really works.

#46

billg wrote:

Wow, am I confused. Are you telling me “enabled” (in the language near the top of the screen) does not correspond with “Service is ON” at the bottom of the screen?

No, I’m saying that the “button” on the stats screen (Roaming data block) doesn’t correspond with the button on the setup screen (Service is On/Off). I don’t think the same language should be used for those 2 items. I thought you were suggesting that those 2 screens share the same language. It’s not a major issue, and if Bit pulls the stats screen it doesn’t matter.

Incidentally, I’m thinking that’s the best approach. I’m not sure the time counter on the stats screen provides much value even if it were working correctly. Given that it’s giving Bit problems, I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. I would like to see the current roaming state preserved on the main screen though. That doesn’t seem to be problematic and does provide a confirmation of what Wander is doing at the moment.

billg wrote:

Bottom line from my perspective is this: All the casual user (not a programmer) cares about is having control over roaming data consumption. They could care less whether or not a service is running. The app gives them this control if they can figure out whether or not the service is actually running

But that button (Service is on/off) is the one that controls whether Wander does anything. Users need to be able to turn Wander off when it is blocking their roaming and they don’t want it to do that. Otherwise, they’d either have to force stop or uninstall Wander.

billg wrote:

Maybe “Managed” and “Not Managed” are better terms than disabled or blocked since the app allows us to manage data consumption, not necessarily block or disable it.

That could work, or maybe instead of an on/off button, just a check box “Manage roaming data: check/uncheck”

I also suggested to Bit earlier that checkboxes could be used instead of the current buttons for the allowed apps. Seems that more text based/clean interfaces are the current fashion.

ETA: Here’s a quick mockup:

Screenshot from 2014-09-16 12:52:18.png

The “Current roaming state” line is non-interactive, so that slider widget isn’t the best, but it’s what I could find.

Unchecking “Manage Roaming Data” would grey out all the other checkboxes.

The last 2 boxes would always be greyed out and checked since you can’t disable them.

#47

jimmyk wrote:

An example:

The stats would show: 500KB of Roaming data was avoided today, and 3MB of roaming data avoided for the month.

If this is possible to create, then it would have a better understanding in the interface how Wander really works.

I don’t think this is possible. Wander simply turns off the access. So say Gmail goes to sync, but data is blocked. There’s no way to know “Gmail wanted to sync your mail and it would have been 300KB”. It’s just not information that’s available without actually doing at least the handshake portion of the sync.

#48

billg wrote:

bitflung wrote:

i’m considering just removing the stats screen at this point (or hiding it till i get things working better there).

Aren’t the stats provided by the Republic app sufficient? Seems to me they are.

they show vastly different info, but sure, for some given purpose they could be sufficient.

one shows how much data you’ve used (some number of bytes) and the other shows how much TIME your mobile data was turned off so as to prevent use of roaming data…

it’s arguable that the stats in Wander aren’t needed for anything more than idle curiosity’s sake, and therefore aren’t sufficient for anything, really. they are just there to give a sense of accomplishment. i should have just removed the feature before publishing…

#49

An example:

The stats would show: 500KB of Roaming data was avoided today, and 3MB of roaming data avoided for the month.

If this is possible to create, then it would have a better understanding in the interface how Wander really works.

this would be AWESOME but sadly it is not possible.

without allowing the data connection i can’t determine how much data would have been transferred.

as an example using money: what you suggest would require that each data transaction were the equivalent of a financial transaction where you know how much you will spend before actually spending anything. instead data transactions are more like allowing/forbidding a person from taking your whole wallet with you to a store, otherwise unsupervised. you don’t know how much money they will spend, so you don’t know how much is saved by refusing to let them enter the store.

#50

I figure it might not be possible due to the unknown factors. But I am glad you made this app @bitflung it sure will help trim the roaming data.

#51

That’s a good representation of the mock up, it would be interesting to see this

#52

Great. You nailed it. Intuitive and it corresponds with may other app settings.

Edit: You might consider changing “Current Roaming State” to “Wander Is: On/Off” Since current roaming state seems to be asking whether or not the phone is roaming at the moment.

#53

billg wrote:

Edit: You might consider changing “Current Roaming State” to “Wander Is: On/Off” Since current roaming state seems to be asking whether or not the phone is roaming at the moment.

Yeah, you’re right, that’s not an accurate label, though “Wander Is” isn’t either. The “Manage Roaming Data” is what turns Wander on and off. That first line is “Is Wander currently blocking roaming data”, so we need a label that says that.

  • Data Blocked: yes/no
  • Roaming Data: enabled/disabled
  • Data Roaming: allowed/disallowed
  • Something else??
    Might be getting a little too deep in the minutia for the moment, Bit will have to decide what direction to take it in. It might not even be worth having that indicator if it just adds more confusion. The state of data blocking is already indicated by the notification that Wander puts up, so it is somewhat redundant.
#54

How about “Management Enabled: yes/no”

#55

For the first line?

The 2nd line “Manage roaming data” is what turns Wander on and off. To me “Management enabled” is the same thing. Even if Wander is not actively blocking roaming data at the moment, it’s sitting there watching it. That says “management enabled” to me even though it’s not currently affecting anything.

#56

i’m glad you guys are hashing this out and finding it difficult to communicate the concept with precision: it means i shouldn’t feel bad for failing to convey it well on my first pass

#57

OK, delete the second line and change the first line to “Manage Roaming Data: on/off”

#58

In the RW Roaming Data FAQ it notes that if you disable data you may have trouble making calls,texts, etc if Roaming data is turned off. Does anyone know if inbound is affected or just outbound?

#59

billg wrote:

OK, delete the second line and change the first line to “Manage Roaming Data: on/off”

Like so?

Wander mockup - New Page.jpeg

Looks good to me, just not sure if Bit is ok with the indicator of the current state not being there.

#60

farlicimo wrote:

In the RW Roaming Data FAQ it notes that if you disable data you may have trouble making calls,texts, etc if Roaming data is turned off. Does anyone know if inbound is affected or just outbound?

That’s a good question. I don’t think inbound calls will be affected, and SMS should fall back to cell, but MMS might have trouble. @bitflung?