"It's time to redesign the interface."

#PokemonGO: First of all, kudos to Niantic for making the quantum leap to add so many wanted and necessary features. We all remember the challenges of the first 6 months of PoGo's existence, and the last 6 weeks have almost turned this into a completely different game.In my opinion, the day Mew and mythical research were introduced was the day PoGo became a real game. Prior to this, there was no objective - it was merely an endless scavenger hunt with a circus ring-toss component repeated ad infinium.Now, with the introduction of friends, this is truly on the way to a real social game. (I don't consider raids to be the same socialable element, in the sense that you can replicate the experience with spoofers, bots and multiaccounts quite easily.)Unfortunately, the interface has not kept up with the new changes, and now is one of the biggest obstacles players have to deal with. As an example, consider what it takes to get a friends gift to become an incubator egg:Open inventory to check if you have enough space to accept a gift (and check if you have gifts in return, and incubators to use.) 1 tap + multiple swipes.Close inventory. 1 tap.Open Pokemon inventory to see if you have available egg space. If not, swipe to Egg screen to see how much more you need to walk. 3 taps or 2 swipes.Exit Pokemon/Egg screen. 1 tap.Click on Player Profile. This is default to your friend screen if you have gifts pending. 1 tap.Find the friend you're hoping to get an egg from. Arceus help you if your friend list is 200 and you want to find that one guy from Antartica. 1 tap or numerous swipes+tap.Open the gift, hope for an egg and exit the friend interface. 3 taps.Go back to the Egg screen. 3 taps or 2 swipes.Incubate your egg and exit the Egg screen. 3 taps.TLDR; That's 9 steps, about 17 taps and 5 swipes to get ONE egg incubated. A classic example of terrible UI design.I am hopeful that Niantic will recognize a redesign is in order. The numerous features they have added will only make it more likely to introduce visual bugs and complicate the user workflows. I realize UI design is a delicate balance between clutter and function, density and depth. But I think there's a lot of room for improvement here. via /r/TheSilphRoad https://ift.tt/2NlIF2p