How can I get Garmin engineers to consider some UI changes to make the 700 useable?

This is a peer to peer forum, not a support or enhancement request channel. If you want to bring these things to Garmin's attention, submit them here: https://www.garmin.com/en-US/forms/ideas/

Some of these do seem to be well-taken. However, a lot of them are specific to your particular use case. The result of implementing all of these would be to make the device significantly more difficult to use for other use cases. This is particularly true of the idea of removing the favorites bar across the bottom. (IMO - it's all subjective, of course.)

I would say these are more common than not.  I'm not sure Garmin actually appreciates real world use cases in the riding arena if you think these are particular to one person.  

For example I can't count the times when alone or trying to lead a group of riders (who don't care to be part of the routing so you have been volunteered), dirt or tarmac, where I have been hunched over my Garmin 680 at 50+ mph on twisty roads zooming in and out to find an alternate route or prepare for a stop or get back to camp or some other reason.   Zoom buttons + and - should be kept alone and in an easy accessible area when your throttle hand is otherwise occupied on a bumpy or curvy road.  Or you are sandwiching the team and you catch up to your buddy who is also on his Garmin and you are trying to coordinate and speak quickly about the next plan while barreling some road that you ended up on because of construction on your main route.

The multi - buttons on the bottom are also problematic.  Who thought this was a good idea for someone who moves more than a few miles per hour with gloves on?

The only part of this that is an enhancement request is that maybe Garmin needs to spend some time with real riders that actually go places if they want to cater or cross-over to the moto community.  Give some of your product managers a plane ticket, some gear and a bike rental and have them meet us in Utah or North Carolina and we'll show them how these units really get used.

twolpert - I'm not counterarguing you or intending to be difficult to you so apologies. I have had many Garmin units over the years in a few activities so I feel semi-literate in their use at least. Perhaps just venting at Garmin into the ether, that as a company that has all the potential to bring out a true multi-user device for the vast majority of people who really pay attention and use devices in the real world, just keeps missing the mark in small important ways. Granted, the human-machine connection is a difficult one at the best of times.

I can only reiterate: Make suggestions here: www.garmin.com/.../

I submitted my very detailed, 4-page writeup (https://tinyurl.com/bzsem9dk) and got the expected crickets from Garmin.  They simply do not care what users think and that shows in their product UIs.

Yes, dust in the wind.  

This Montana 750i is likely going to be returned. My 680's still work fine and the 7x0 is not enough of an upgrade at this point.

I doubt that Garmin responds to individual enhancement requests. From what I know about the firmware update cycle, I would not be discouraged by the lack of immediate (next release or two) attention to suggested enhancements.

Hi,

It was interesting to read how you use(d) your Montana for off-road motorcycling.

I would have thought that anything requiring you to interact with the device whilst rising would be extremely difficult, especially on rough terrain.

In a previous life I was an instrument-rated commercial helicopter pilot in the UK. Cockpit management was challenging and you really had to be on top of it, especially when flying by reference to instruments. This was with very expensive, specialised equipment with clear interfaces that I spent hundreds of hours using . A device such as the Montana can be used by anybody for virtually any navigation purpose on land, sea or air. As such it is going to struggle to be all things to all people, despite what the marketing material claims.

Do Garmin allow third party devices to interface with their devices? I wonder if somebody could develop, let's say, something like steering wheel controls.

Just my two penn'orth...

Chris. 

Chris, thanks for the input.  Every issue I brought up is very easy to fix with simple UI thoughtfulness and changes.  Designing text that's so small as to be unreadable by average people even when not moving in inexcusable and so easy to fix.  Designing in easy, visible feedback is trivial (and can be configurable).  Making it so buttons are bigger than 1/4" square - well, how hard is that.  Putting two options on the screen (such as RESET and CANCEL) at opposite ends of the display - easy (and, I see on some devices they do this in some cases (but strangely, not others screens)).  In short, Garmin UI people are not present and accounted for.  They don't test/use their products in the real world and Garmin, on the whole, cares nothing about customer input.  This has been my experience is using their products for 20 years.  If there was any option, I'd use it.  Do I care if I insult them?  No - they are beyond insults - when they won't respond in any way to people, why worry about offending the un-offendable.  They are basically like Apple and most other large companies.  Tone deaf.  Their latest insult is on their brand new Zumo XT they take 20% of the display when you are not navigating with a bright green banner that says "READY TO NAVIGATE".  No way to turn it off.  What a joke.