Related
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

How to fix Garmin's absolutely Horrible and Unusable Software

9491717
over 4 years ago

Friends, you make BEAUTIFUL hardware. I have the Garmin Mini and love the size and UI on it. 

But, speaking as someone with more than 20 years in Silicon Valley, the overall software experience around it, from needing four different conflicting confusing pieces of software to synch and update the device, to planning trips, to sharing the route afterwards with friends, is truly, absolutely, objectively, horrible. 

You need to bring in a 3rd party company like IDEO, go through the user experience, THROW EVERYTHING AWAY, and start over. 

Examples? I just downloaded the new version of basecamp because I wanted to show the off roading trip I just took with friends. I had tracked the route with my mini. I had to plot it again because between Garmin Express, inReach, the InReach web site, Earthlink, and Basecamp (which should not be five pieces of software) I could see the tracking I had recorded but there was no way to just select them and show them like I wanted on the shared map. 

So I downloaded the new basecamp hoping  to create a new trip showing the whole route. It asked me to enter the starting point and I entered my home address. It gave me a LISTING OF YELP locations nearby to enter. Huh? I could not select my home as my starting point, but I could select Taco Bell in a nearby town.  For my destination instead of being able to search for the national park I went to, it only offered Yelp locations again (more taco bell). 

I got around that and entered points of interest instead and wasted a good half hour trying to set up a series of points for what was a very strait forward trip. Then I gave up. 

This is the experience for 90% of your users. Yes, I know you have some loyal long term super users who tell you they love your stuff because they have always used it. IGNORE THEM. The things people want to do with your devices is not actually that hard. You need to throw out all of this legacy stuff and rethink the UX from the ground up. The people who love your old stuff will like it even better after about 30 seconds. 

Otherwise, within the next couple of years smart phones GPS will be good enough and your whole differentiation will collapse. You make good hardware, we don't want that to happen to you. 

FIX IT. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 7610778

    Well you can but like most software you need to learn to use it first. I have no problem using it to create routes etc. If you don't want to do that you'll need to wait until someone invents a way to transfer your thought waves to a device.

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 4 years ago

    I've just started playing with basecamp and it's the worst software ever.  The cries of "it works for me!" are worse than useless.  Seriously, I've been working in tech for... 30 years now?  I think I can figure stuff out, but at this point I've given up on this garbage software.  

    I should point out I'm doing such advanced things as "finding an address" and trying to manage my device's waypoints via the PC instead of doing it on the device itself.  Crazy stuff I know.  I search for a specific address and it gives me results with the wrong house number, the wrong STREET... I mean come on.  Who wrote your pattern matching?  The fact that any characters match is good enough?

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Well if it works for many of us you must be doing something wrong Thinking

    Address search depends on the map you have selected, clearly BaseCamp can't find an address if it's not in that particular map. So ... which map?  And post an address you're having an issue with? I'll then check it out for you.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to SUSSAMB

    Here is another prime example SUSSAMB of another unhappy customer and he's another Tech guy.  If it works so well "for many of us" as you claim, why is there "234 Pages" of complaints and/or questions on how this product works? 

    I am slowly figuring my way around the glitches but I should not have to.  It should be clear and concise and it is obviously not from all these complaints.  It's people like you with the "well if it works for many of us" attitude that don't move forward in life.  I expected more from GARMIN than "Well that's good enough, if it works for some people".  They should be proactive and listening to their experts, namely "Their Customers", and fix some of these issues and streamline their program to make it more user friendly.  If you work for GARMIN as their Moderator, that explains everything.  

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 7610778

    Not sure where you get the 234 pages of complaints from, or do you mean queries? There are millions of BaseCamp users so a few with issues isn't surprising. BaseCamp is no longer being developed so it is what it is, if it doesn't do what you want then you'll need to find a third party program that will, but I've never found one that comes close to what I need from a mapping program Slight smile

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to SUSSAMB

    I must admit though that I have reverted back to Mapsource, which I know and which does most of what I need, apart from Geotagging. This I do with Geosetter which sofar is the only program I found that does Geotagging satisfactorily. I was hoping BaseCamp would do this, but it requires me to manually find every photo on the map by comparing the time of the track with the time of the picture. What would I have bought a computer for? to do the job myself?? :-D

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Funny how the "Basecamp is a terrible piece of software" thread was just locked.  The fact that it wouldn't even find the city on my route is inexcusable, as is the EARLY '80's-era graphics.  Blech.  I made the route I wanted on my AllTrails subscription (which has it's faults but nowhere near Base Camp), then exported it as a GPX Route (NOT GPX "Track"), which my new Zumo XT then took fine.  The "Track" came in simply as a series of separate, disjointed waypoints that I would have to string together to make a "Route".  So, I imported the Route to my Zumo and had to rename it (came in really weird and long) and I was easily able to call it up as a Trip and it's a continuous line just like I wanted and expected.

    So, yeah, probably not even going to use Band Camp, er, BASE Camp...  Hopefully they'll trash it and completely redo it so it's usable and user-friendly.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member

    I agree.  EARLY '80's era graphics AND it wouldn't even find or even SHOW the city ON A MAIN INTERSTATE HIGHWAY(!!!) that I was looking for.  I made my GPX Route on AllTrails since I'll be riding steat and dirt on my KTM 890 ADV R.  As for those defending this garbage, well, a Harbor Freight cheap chyna-made screwdriver "works" too, but I don't want that garbage in my toolbox.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 7610778

    I'm sure he IS an employee, it fits...  Heck, probably one of the code-jockeys who wrote it.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 3495475

    If you're having issues using it try this tutorial as it's helped many

    https://www.newenglandriders.org/learn-basecamp/

    Having done so if you're still having issues feel free to raise a separate thread describing your particular problem so it can be answered, finding cities etc is easy but like most software you need to learn how to use it.