Honest Feedback on the Android App

[mracko]

Dear Navigraph developers,

I’ve returned to your product after a brief subscription two years ago. I really liked the idea of having all the charts in one place, but due to my busy work schedule, I’ve had very little time to really use it. So I cancelled my subscription. Since then, things have changed and with the release of MSFS, I’ve decided to give Navigraph another try.

Unfortunately, I have to admit that I was quite disappointed. The desktop app is great, MSFS integration works flawlessly, but the most important part for me personally, the Android app, is mediocre at best. I’m a developer myself so I know how hard multiplatform development is. But I consider Navigraph as a mature product. It’s been around for a while so I would expect certain features or bugs to be ironed out.

Since I want to see Navigraph grow, I’ll use this forum to give you a couple of tips and ideas that would, in my opinion, greatly improve the Android version of Navigraph. Some are minor and could be fixed relatively easily and some would need a bigger UI change:

1. App doesn’t remember your last location. It always starts in NYC. Please allow the app to remember your last location.
2. The Android back button closes the app. Instead it should work like a back button inside the app - ie closing the chart window, closing charts, etc.
3. App is poorly optimized for use in vertical mode. The issue is most noticable when opening the chart selection panel. This panel opens from right to left and uses 80% of the screen leaving only a tiny unusable preview of the chart. My suggestion would be to rearrange this panel in vertical mode so that it opens from the bottom and uses much less space. That way you could still have a usable chart preview.
4. Changing charts for the same airport is not intuitive. You have to open the chart selection menu, select the chart category (because it always opens with the STAR category), select the chart and finally close the chart selection menu. That’s 4 clicks too many in my opinion. Instead, I would add the option to swipe left/right to change charts. This would be especially helpful for airports that have only a limited number of charts.
5. Tapping the map should close or minimize the airport and/or chart selection panel. Much easier and more intuitive than closing individual windows.
6. The Search Results window (opened when touching an area for 1 second or so) should close after selecting an item.
7. The Flights and the Map Selection icons overlap on my Huawei P10 making it almost impossible to select the Flights menu. I don’t have this issue in the cloud/browser version.
8. I’m missing a simple switch button between current chart and map view. I know you have the chart overlay option where you can display both at the same time, but I would mostly prefer a simple switch button.

I hope my suggestions will help with future development. It would be great to hear your feedback on the individual items I’ve listed - whether it’s planned or not and why.

Thank you and keep up the good work!
Martin

[Ian]

Hi Martin,

Welcome to our new forum. You are our first poster .

Welcome back to Navigraph.

Thank you for the comprehensive report on Charts Android. We shall review this and respond.

Much appreciated.

Cheers
Ian

[stephen]

Hi Martin,

Thank you very much for your honest feedback, which has been duly noted. Most points, specifically 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8, can be attributed to the fact that the app was developer with tablets as the focus form factor. We decided not to only release it for tablets because it still has some use, but optimizing for mobile was not a priority. It is work still in our backlog. For iOS we decided to only release the app for tablets. So that is the bigger picture. To the details:

1. Agree, but when using the Flights function which the app focuses on, it loads with the flight centered in view.

2. On the backlog, but it is tricky due to the app not being hierarchical but flat with many different states.

3. As per above, not optimized for phones.

4-5) As per above, on tablets the left panel can be kept open while reading charts.

6. This is by design, as it is supposed to allow you to toggle between the search results to find what you are looking for before committing and closing the panel.

7. As per above, not optimized for phones.

8. As per above, on tablets the left panel can be kept open while toggling charts/enroute map.

Again, thank you for the feedback and interest in a more mobile optimized version which has been noted.

Kind regards,

Stephen

[mracko]

Hi Stephen,

thanks for taking the time to give answers to all my points. I fully understand how the current design was created and why it’s focused on tablets. I would have most likely done it the same way myself. It’s true that the experience is somewhat improved on a tablet, but unfortunately, the improvement is not good enough. I still think that UI is not suitable for vertical viewing - on both tablets and phones.

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, I’ve made a little mock-up of a vertical mode in PowerPoint:

I hope my suggestions are clear from the picture. FYI: the app was showing DEMO charts for LZPP yesterday for unknown reasons. Everything is fine as of today.

I would also like to point out my issue with the Search Results window:

The famous Enzo Ferrari once said that “the client is not always right”. So, I might very well be wrong. But I strongly believe, that implementing these proposals (in one way or another) would greatly enhance the quality of your product.

Thanks,
Martin

PS: I’m starting to “learn” not to press the Android back button while using Navigraph. Nevertheless, it still happens and is very annoying as you can imagine. I’m sure other new users have the same issue.