Connect IQ documentation and user guides

A few days ago I posted about users complaining that they couldn't uninstall our apps. It's clearly "their" fault: they are try to uninstall the app while it's running on the watch, which is not allowed by the system. In my post, I concluded that it's actually Garmin's fault (or bad engineering), since they can install the app (actually a watch face) using only Garmin Connect Mobile without touching the watch, but to uninstall the app they must touch the watch (in order to unselect the watch face) before they can uninstall. Furthermore, the error message displayed on GCM doesn't provide enough information to them about how to proceed.

Now I'd like to extend my complaint about how Garmin is managing the store and the Connect IQ environment.

We often get messages from users who "can't find" the apps on the watch (especially data fields) or who don't know where the app settings are.

Remarkably the download pages of watch faces developed by Garmin show a link to a (outdated) forum post "how-to app settings" - which wasn't even written by Garmin. Shouldn't there exist some official documentation/user guide??

I personally think Garmin should put more effort in instructing users on how to use Connect IQ. On the official Garmin channel on YouTube there are some videos on it. Maybe they should be better promoted/advertised?

Or is Garmin just counting on the community to take these "tasks" over?

From my experience, I noticed a strong improvement in "user engagement" since I invested more time in documenting and writing instructions for my apps. I feel I still have to do much more in this sense, and I think Garmin should also do the same.

In general, only a few users really read the instructions. But when they have questions, it's much easier to point them to "official" pages than explaining everything again and again.

Cheers!

PS: will the "hero image" ever be used?

peterdedecker over 6 years ago

Regarding documentation on the app page, i agree it does help to decrease support requests but I'd wish the "more" button was not there (or that it actually is a button instead of a text link), the fact that It's a text link makes writing documentation go in vain for many users (even if you write that you have to click on more to see the full description)

ekutter-dnu over 6 years ago

I'm in the process of setting up a web page for my documentation, so pretty much the only thing I'll have in the description text, other than a quick one liner about what the app does, is a link to my own page which I then have full control over the layout. Not to mention shared links in all my apps to a single "how do I use settings" and "how do I use a data field vs an application". The Garmin store pages definitely don't help with people NOT reading the documentation. Not to mention that you can quickly run into the size limits.

Having links I could use for some of this to standard pages on how to use apps and settings, etc, would be really nice. Rather than every developer having to re-invent the wheel.

FlowState over 6 years ago

I will add that on reddit (r/Garmin), ppl posted that they had no idea about the difference between device apps, widgets, and data fields, or how to install a data field.

If this is supposed to be a premier feature of Garmin watches, I wish it was documented more comprehensively. If devs are linking to a howto written by a forum poster and not Garmin, maybe that’s an issue.

I also don’t like the way “More...” breaks links, although I’ve already filed a bug report.

I get why More is there and it’s kinda nice that users can see both the Description and What’s New at the same time, I guess. But as I posted elsewhere re: Contact Developer and missing emails, if developers have to post a special notice telling users what to do, then something has gone wrong with the UX. It should be obvious.

r.485 over 6 years ago

Having links I could use for some of this to standard pages on how to use apps and settings, etc, would be really nice. Rather than every developer having to re-invent the wheel.

I'm glad I'm not the only one seeing the problem. I hope Garmin sees how important it is to act in order to improve developer and user experience, and consequently explore the potential of Connect IQ much further.

Sometimes tech people overestimate the ability of users to understand the way things are implemented or organized. For example, as a user I don't find it very logic that widgets are now found under "Appearance" on GCM. If this would at least be documented somewhere...

FlowState over 6 years ago

I hope Garmin sees how important it is to act in order to improve developer and user experience, and consequently explore the potential of Connect IQ much further.

+100000

It's sorta like how users will close a webpage if it takes longer than 2-3 seconds to load. With Garmin Connect IQ, you have to be willing to put up with a lot of annoyances as a dev or user to participate in the ecosystem.

- GC Mobile (iOS) automatically quitting from the app settings page, causing you to lose your settings
- Settings not being transferred by GCM
- Invalid settings being silently changed to null, causing app crashes or unpredictable behaviour
- Store issues
- Lack of search function in the GC app. What if users could just tap Search and type Widget?
- Settings rendered differently on different platforms:
-- GC Express shows newlines in labels
-- GCM iOS does not
So there's no way to write even short help text in the settings which looks good and consistent on all platforms. There's also no way to separate groups of settings, not even with a simple horizontal rule that will render predictably and not cause the app page to scroll horizontally
- Store lets users send support request with no return email

etc., etc.

ekutter it's interesting that you're moving your docs off of the store. Obviously for some apps of certain complexity, the store is not suitable for documentation at all. But for one app, I'm actually considering moving all my settings out of Garmin Connect, because of all the issues. Not just poor UX, but the insanely high memory consumption, not just for the settings dictionary, but also for all the settings strings, which are not used by the app at all. And the memory usage for strings goes higher if you load even one resource at run-time....

Coleman.Apps over 6 years ago

Replying to the original post:

...I concluded that it's actually Garmin's fault (or bad engineering), since they can install the app (actually a watch face) using only Garmin Connect Mobile without touching the watch, but to uninstall the app they must touch the watch (in order to unselect the watch face) before they can uninstall. Furthermore, the error message displayed on GCM doesn't provide enough information to them about how to proceed.

This too would be my preference. We have several tickets open on this topic. It would be a device level fix if it's accepted.

...Shouldn't there exist some official documentation/user guide??

Yes. We have plans to get this set up for our Product Support Channels.

I personally think Garmin should put more effort in instructing users on how to use Connect IQ. On the official Garmin channel on YouTube there are some videos on it. Maybe they should be better promoted/advertised?

All of that sounds great. It's really just a matter of resources.

Or is Garmin just counting on the community to take these "tasks" over?

No, but we do love our developer community and much of quality of our entire platform is driven by you! :)

In general, only a few users really read the instructions. But when they have questions, it's much easier to point them to "official" pages than explaining everything again and again.

Agreed. I will work to get this better attention and put the small amount of heat I have on the issue.

PS: will the "hero image" ever be used?

Yes. In due time...which has admittedly taken longer than we had intended.

Thank you for all of your feedback!