Dear Mr Jeong,
Many thanks for soliciting my comments on your website. It shows you care about quality.
I
have been nooming now for about three weeks. I love the program, it's
reliance on facts, science, psychology and the rest. I have confidence
that it will work, because the program keeps reminding me and
reinforcing the lessons. The program itself is superb. It's what I've
always wanted. A mentor and guide. Not too pushy.
Alas, many aspects of the software are infuriatingly bad, as I'll discuss below in detail.
First, let me say a few words about myself. I am the author and project leader of
Leo,
a successful open-source software project. Leo is my life's work. I
have been working on Leo for more than thirty years. I moderate
Leo's Google group, with thousands of threads. There are thousands of issues on
Leo's issue tracker.
In other words, I know something about software, software problems, and
how to communicate about them ;-) I also know something about science. I
read Nature and Science magazines every week.
Here
is the list of problems I have with noom's software. I chat with my
noom specialist on Windows 10. My primary interface with zoom is with an
iPhone SE. Sometimes I use an iPad mini. Some of the problems below may
be specific to the platforms I use.
Problem 1: lack of pc interface
This
is a show-stopper for me regarding noom support groups. I refuse to use
an iPhone or iPad to access my group, especially considering problems
discussed below.
The lack of a fully-featured
pc version of noom is a slap in the face to anyone with any kind of
disability, including problems typing or reading. I spend many hours
typing on a full-sized keyboard and looking at large fonts I can read.
There is no way I am going to type on an iPhone keypad and squint at tiny messages on an iPhone.
Problem 2: poor group interface
The group interface looks like it was cobbled together from some chat kit. It is not anything remotely good enough for a proper forum. Imo, the following features are essential:
1. All posts must automatically
become part of a thread. In my noom group, people are posting messages
willy-nilly, without any organization at all. If I were willing to use
the group, I would encourage all messages to be part of a thread, as the
group leader has done. But this doesn't happen automatically, as in a
Google group.
2.
Any reply to a thread should raise the thread to the top, so people can
focus on active threads. Without this feature, it's impossible to see
at a glance what threads are active.
3.
It should be possible to pin certain threads to the top of the forum.
Probably this ability should be limited to group leaders.
Problem 3: problems syncing with fitbit step tracker
I am talking here about the iPhone interface. The iPhone interface re logging meals is
first rate. It is easy to use and easy to modify previous choices. The
app updates calorie counts immediately, and those counts are visible on the calorie sliding scale.
The calorie interface looks like it was developed by the A team.
In contrast, the step count
interface is absolutely maddening. It's a good thing there was a lesson
on dealing with frustration, hehe. The step count interface looks like
it was developed by the B team. Here are the problems I had with the
step-counting interface:
1. The step count takes way too long after syncing the step count in the fitbit app. There is no excuse for a delay of more than a few seconds.
2. The on-screen data (in the iPhone) is not always in sync with the apparent data (in the iPhone). For example, noom can say "you've met your step goal" while showing that the step count is below the step count. WTF! This is a bug, pure and simple.
3. The computation and presentation of the step count goal can be ludicrously wrong. That is, the step count can decrease after meeting the previous day's goal, and can increase
after failing to meet the previous day's goal. My workaround was to set
the desired step count manually, then switch back to automatic mode.
But this workaround may have further confused the app.
Perhaps
the step count is being influenced by more than one data source, say
the fitness app's step count as well as the fitbit app's step count.
Just a guess. The overall effect was similar to
Pilot Induced Oscillation
in the step goal. That is, it looked to me that the step goal was a day
or two behind the actual step count. The results are tragicomic.
4. Sometimes the step-count part of the UX would not be visible!
5.
Unlike the calorie tracker, which has an excellent history graph, there
is no corresponding history graph for the step tracker.
These
problems were, cumulatively, absolutely infuriating. I literally
screamed at the iPhone. Happily, I devised the following workaround. In
effect, I shut down the step count data flow:
- I disabled all permissions between noom and the fitbit and fitness apps.
- I switched to a manual step goal. It's easy enough to add 300 steps or subtract 100 or 200 steps :-)
Once I switched to a manual, the step-related part of the UX is now always visible. Whew. Now I actually can update the step goal manually.
Problem 4: chat software on Windows
This
is mostly ok. However, the text doesn't wrap in the reply box. WTF!
This is another infuriating bug. It means I have to type a return
manually do word wrap, which in turn means that what should be a single
message gets split into multiple messages.
Problem 5: non-syncing of different mobile devices
Yesterday
I started using an iPad in addition to using my iPhone. However, when I
logged my first meal it said that my logging streak was 1, not 38 or
so.
Huh?
Does this mean that switching between mobile devices would break the
logging streak?? I didn't want to do the experiment, so I went back and
logged the meal on the iPhone. Not good at all.
Problem 6: The iPad/iPhone interfaces do not rotate
This is an inexcusably lazy omission. It has real consequences:
- It makes typing on the iPad/iPhone screen keyboard much more difficult, because the orientation is always vertical.
- To make typing easier, I bought a separate
bluetooth keyboard for my iPad mini. Alas, the keyboard is useless for the noom app, because the keyboard holds the iPad in the wrong orientation.
Problem 7: It's impossible to avoid visiting a noom group
As
I understand it, people are automatically dropped from a noom support
group if they don't visit it for two weeks. That seems like a reasonable
policy. However, several noom lessons automatically send you to the
support group, so it looks like I'll have to be dropped from my group
"by hand". It's no big deal, but it is a bit strange.
Summary
I
refuse to use noom's support group until a proper pc interface becomes
available. In the meantime, I urge you to consider switching to
something like Google groups for your support groups.
Some parts of the iPhone/iPad UX are excellent. Other parts are execrable.
Thanks again for the opportunity to report these problems. And thanks for creating noom.
Edward
