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Thread: Some feedback on the Starting Strength App

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Posts
    3

    Default Some feedback on the Starting Strength App

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    When you click "Today's training", the user interface for entering completed worksets is imediately visible, and you need to swipe to see the warmup weights. This makes no sense, since you should do the warmups first before even attempting the worksets.

    What would make more sense is if the warmup set weights were front and center from the start. Every time you complete a warmup, you click next set. When you complete the last warmup, "next set" takes you immediately to a screen that shows the work set and lets you enter the completed reps.

    The videos and book are referred to less often, so it makes sense that you need to swipe to see them, but it does not make sense for the warmup and workset weights to be "hidden" away with them.

    Also, the "next set" buttons are a bit small. It is easy to miss them, especially with shakier hands after doing a heavy warmup.

    The notion of graphically displaying the plates to load onto the bar is cute, but not as useful as it could be: by trying to show the weights of each plate inside a graphic of a plate on a bar, the font ends up so small that the weight number is not easy to read.

    Also, the display would be more useful if the microloading plates were also coloured using IWF colour codes, i.e. red for 2.5kg, blue for 2kg, etc.

    When you click on "warmup", you see the warmup set in a small square on the phone screen, with the rest of the screen dimmed out. This makes no sense. There is no information outside the square that you need to refer to while doing the warmup. Much better would be to bring up a full screen, then the information can be displayed larger.

    I miss having an overview of what the entire exercise would be. With the app, I see only the current warmup set weight. I would like to see the current and all future warmup/work sets on one screen; there's something psychologically gratifying of seeing what I'm working up to. I realise that the display of how to load the required weight onto the bar takes up space, but that space could be better used with an overview of the warmup/work sets to come.

    The app defaulted to a 2.5kg progression on the press. But when I clicked on "todays workout" and finished my warmups, and clicked on workset, the app warned me that my workset weight could not be made up with the plates I own. By that time it was too late to change the warmups, but I figured I could look up my previous press workset weight and add 2kg to it instead. Unfortunately, the when I clicked the "home" button, and then "history" to look up my previous workset, that caused my current workset to be overwritten as if I had already completed all my worksets of that day.

    Lastly, the choices of which metric microloading plates exist seem to be a bit wonky. 2kg is missing, but there are options for 0.75 kg which I have never seen in practice. Wikipedia says the IWF recognises 2kg, 1.5kg, 1kg, and 0.5kg, and that certainly agrees with the kinds of plates I have been able to buy. The app adds a 0.25kg option, which makes sense, being half of the smallers 0.5kg option, but 0.75kg seems to be based on just translating an pound-based plate weight to the nearest metric equivalent.

  2. #2
    shabu is offline Starting Strength App Developer
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
    Posts
    653

    Default

    Hey Pieter, thanks a lot for taking the time to leave this feedback.

    When you click "Today's training", the user interface for entering completed worksets is imediately visible, and you need to swipe to see the warmup weights. This makes no sense, since you should do the warmups first before even attempting the worksets.

    What would make more sense is if the warmup set weights were front and center from the start. Every time you complete a warmup, you click next set. When you complete the last warmup, "next set" takes you immediately to a screen that shows the work set and lets you enter the completed reps.
    I have been playing around with a better design for the whole of todays training for a while now and I agree it could flow a lot better and be a better experience for the user. Starting with a summary screen and then moving through warmups to workset is a great idea...i will play around with that for a future update.

    Also, the "next set" buttons are a bit small. It is easy to miss them, especially with shakier hands after doing a heavy warmup.
    Generally I tried to make everything in the app as big as possible for the shaky in between sets hands, will look into making these bigger though.

    I miss having an overview of what the entire exercise would be. With the app, I see only the current warmup set weight. I would like to see the current and all future warmup/work sets on one screen; there's something psychologically gratifying of seeing what I'm working up to. I realise that the display of how to load the required weight onto the bar takes up space, but that space could be better used with an overview of the warmup/work sets to come.
    Agreed, I think its lacking in the current app. Unfortunately the warm up calculator was an after though in the original version which is why its a bit messy now.

    The app defaulted to a 2.5kg progression on the press. But when I clicked on "todays workout" and finished my warmups, and clicked on workset, the app warned me that my workset weight could not be made up with the plates I own. By that time it was too late to change the warmups, but I figured I could look up my previous press workset weight and add 2kg to it instead. Unfortunately, the when I clicked the "home" button, and then "history" to look up my previous workset, that caused my current workset to be overwritten as if I had already completed all my worksets of that day.
    In the new version its possible to go back out, change your settings and go back into todays training without losing your progress.

    Lastly, the choices of which metric microloading plates exist seem to be a bit wonky. 2kg is missing, but there are options for 0.75 kg which I have never seen in practice. Wikipedia says the IWF recognises 2kg, 1.5kg, 1kg, and 0.5kg, and that certainly agrees with the kinds of plates I have been able to buy. The app adds a 0.25kg option, which makes sense, being half of the smallers 0.5kg option, but 0.75kg seems to be based on just translating an pound-based plate weight to the nearest metric equivalent.
    Thanks, will look into that.

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