Improvement Ideas

[MaxNoetzold]

Hey, I have some ideas to improve the app and make it more accessible to a wider audience, including friends I’d like to refer it to. 😃

When launching the app for the first time, there’s no information explaining its functionality. It’s not immediately clear what the "Mark" button does or how to edit entries afterward. I’d like to add an onboarding guide for first-time users and make this information accessible in the menu later.

The calendar view is also not very intuitive for new users. I suggest adding tooltips for different entries (currently "period day" and "ovulation/pregnancy chance"). Additionally, I’d like to refine the display of ovulation and pregnancy chances by marking possible ovulation days with a dedicated symbol while keeping the current approach of coloring numbers for high pregnancy likelihood.

Moreover, I think it would be beneficial to expand tracking options. Right now, users can only track period days, whereas most other cycle-tracking apps allow tracking additional factors like period intensity, mood, pain levels, sleep quality, and energy. We should explore adding these features, as my female friends expressed strong interest in them. I believe we need to rethink how cycles are stored to make it easier to add new features in the future and to allow to store a higher number of cycles.

Let me know what you think! 😊

[IraSoro]

Hello @MaxNoetzold ! Thank you for your detailed feedback and ideas. Here are my answers:

1. User guide
   Can you tell us what exactly is unclear when you first use the app? How do you see the guide – should it be a step-by-step tutorial, pop-up hints, or a separate section in the menu? We want to make the first experience easier for users.

2. Tooltips and ovulation probability
   We are now working on improving ovulation and pregnancy chance calculations. Here are the links to the issues: Improve ovulation calculations #355 Complete the chance of getting pregnant calculations #356. What kind of tooltips do you mean? Can you give examples of text or design that would be helpful?

3. Tracking more details
   Many period tracker apps allow tracking mood, pain level, sleep, and energy. However, according to our survey with real users, this is not the most useful feature. Most users track these details for a few cycles but then stop because it takes too much time or they don’t find it very helpful in the long run. Right now, we are working on other things, but we may think about it in the future.

Thank you again for your ideas! We are happy to discuss more.

[MaxNoetzold]

1. I would have loved to show the app to some friends first before answering here again. However, since the app crashes on opening, this has to wait. I think part of my problems were due to the fact that my first point of contact was the public demo which already has periods in it. Here, I did not understand what anything meant (also because of the missing 2nd point). I would have liked a short step-by-step tutorial in the menu (and maybe for the demo every time you open it), with short explanations of what you mark and what it means. The most confusing part was marking on the current day, because it was always marked with a solid line and when I click it the line gets dotted and when I click again its solid again and so on.

2. I made a mockup of my idea to hopefully make it more clear:
   
   So I want to be able to tap on any day to get a short explanation of the displayed value. Furthermore, I thought about adding a legend at the bottom to explain all icons, which would probably make the tooltip redundant. This might actually already be enough to also solve the first point, together with the already existing popup to mark your first period.

3. This was actually very interesting for me to talk about with my friends. You were right that none of them use those features in the long run, but at the same time they value them highly, which might also be due to the fact that you feel like something is missing because all other apps have it. However, they all used these features extensively for a few months to understand their own cycle and themselves better. So I would still say that it is a valuable feature, but I totally see that it does not have the highest priority right now.

Sorry again for not answering for so long. As I already wrote at the translation PR, I expected to have more time to help here than I actually had/have.

[IraSoro]

@MaxNoetzold

1, 2
As I understand, it's not very clear what each day means. Usually, when we talked to real users, they didn't have any difficulties. But yes, I agree that for some users, it might seem confusing. You suggested good ideas on how to make it clearer. Thank you! We will also think about how we can explain it better. I will create an issue and attach it to this discussion once we find a solution.

I'd also like to ask if the page with information about the current day of the cycle helps to understand it better?

3
Right now, we follow the principle "Less, but better." Maybe we will add this feature in the future.

P.S. At the moment we are testing the PWA version of the app. It is still in beta, but you can try it - https://peri-jade.vercel.app. To install this you need to do the following.