Screen space usage optimalization.
Answered
I think screen layouts can be optimised, please check on photo how many of free space is wasted. You can use this space to prepare for example bigger elevation graph which is hard to read during ride. 
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I second that. Or at least make the data font bigger to use the maximum data field space - to be honest both Hammerhead and Garmin can learn from Wahoo in that department - look how much wasted space there is on Karoo and Garmin screens. It’s small details like this that can make huge difference
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I third that :-) Made the exact same input to the devs already. Can'T see any improvement so far. Maybe they want to save battery capacity by allowing a limited canvas for map display only, or font scaling is too difficult to make fit to both Karoo 1 and Karoo 2 screens with the same scaling algos. Anyway, I think we deserve a decent, economic space utilization on our Karoo 2's, instead of this huge waste of free space! Pleeease, devs, why do you not implement these low-hanging fruits - it's obvious your screen spacing of data elements is far inferior to the likes of Garmin, Wahoo, Polar, ... :-(
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Hey Guys,
Thanks for posting and weighing in here :)We have received similar feedback on this topic and we have voiced them out to our teams for improvement of the UI/UX. We did choose to go out with the present layout based on market research and usability factors such as viewing angles and font size. However, we have made note of this :)
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Hey Akhil,
pls explain to us: Why aren't we representatives of a market research group as well, unanimously proposing to NOT waste screen real estate the way you do? Pls do not brush it off with a standard statement 'market research', this is pretty worthless. Pls do explain what is the benefit of wasting this much space and what other users appreciate about it. I can't imagine anybody being happy about a tiny map display which has to be squeezed into the remaining screen real estate that the overly generous data fields leave. And people have it as a major if not main use case that they want to see map AND most important data fields at the same time. Sry to say, but pls refer to screen utilization of your main competitors - seems they have understood what makes sense and what not... thank you for considering a quick update here, maybe offering it as a non-default option, then you can stand by your assessment that many people love the wasty way of displaying data... they just have to keep the default then. -
Hey Reinhard,
I may have understated the fact this is going to be changed soon as a part of the UI/UX overhaul. When I mentioned Market research I meant our community and all our users who are riding with the Karoo and that would include new and old folks alike :)
While our approach was to ensure that the data displayed on the Karoo is present in the rider's field of vision, so as to not completely distract the rider from the road but also be intuitive enough to register the content. We do agree that our competitors have found a good tune here and I do assure you that we are doing our best to give it a zing of our own!
If you would like to make a stronger impact on your suggestions, you can book a time on your calendar to speak with our Product team. Their calendar is visible publicly and it is provided at the bottom of every software release email that we send out.
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Hey Akhil,
Thank you for this prompt and comprehensive reply - maybe I took your first statement with a grain of salt for no reason. Pls have my apologies. I appreciate being offered the chance to chat with the product team, I will look into it. In general, however I feel we made our proposal quite clear - reducing borders around data fields considerably to leave more screen real estate for more data or for a map. Font size seems perfect to me, however there might be other riders opting for a small/medium/large font size setting option.
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I have to agree, the font sizes are too large for me and there's a lot of empty space. I'd much rather text was smaller and the empty space was tightened up so that my map (when using 4 data fields at the same time) was a little larger than 1.5" square. Or so that I could see more than a word or two from phone notifications or directions.
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I disagree with the font size being too large, though probably it makes sense to scale the fonts in a better way. In case you crammed lots of data fields on one screen the font size can be reduced.
In all cases the font size should be efficient. The data field should be used in an efficient way, eliminating useless empty spaces as much as possible.I don't think Hammerhead should re-invent the wheel. A vendor such as Wahoo is already mastering this. Hammerhead should do this in a similar way.
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I certainly noticed on my first use of the device today that some fonts were too small for my 49 year old eyes to see. I also had a problem with the tiny icons in SLS - I could not tell whether I was chasing the Wolf, carrot, or my PR. Could these icons be a little bigger? At least optionally.
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omg, today's update seems to have shrunk down font size even further. Now unused border area around datafields seems to be about same size as the data fields themselves. What a waste of screen real estate! Can't believe what I see... pls finally fix this, we want to be able to have more data fields and/or more screen real estate left for map display. This is getting ridiculous!
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Yeah I agree Reinhard! The texts (Speed, Avg Speed and so on) aren't uppercase anymore and much bigger so it looks more messy now and there's less space for the things you really want to read: the data fields! And why don't they delete the useless icons????? (I mean behind speed, behind Distance and so on)
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I don't think that's fair, the software is far from being rubbish. It's just not that evolved yet. There is very much low hanging fruit that could be targeted and be implemented with not too much effort though, just order the forum topics by votes and the same things come up over and over - and its not the big features that are missing, it's the little things. I love the new climber feature though ;-)
Cheers
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Dear Karoo dev team:
Pls take 5 minutes of your valuable time and check the votes in this community forum that can be associated to the topic of 'waste of screen real estate for huge borders instead of offering decent data field spacings and maybe also font size settings'. You will find that this topic is spread over 7-8 different posts about spacing/readability/borders/font style, and that the total # of votes has grown to >100 (!!).
To keep ignoring this strong user request and arguing that there are so many more important things to do drives us crazy and is leading to lose confidence in our Hammerhead bike computers. First users are jumping the boat already, and I'm considering shifting over to Garmin or Wahoo as well now... :-(
What's the point in introducing a voting system if you don't consider it as a guide for prioritization of software dev? -
Hey All,
I would like to assure you that our team has been made aware of the current improvements that can be done on Karoo's UI/UX. We do have plans on putting out the fixes to these soon however our present focus is to improve the core stability of the software while optimizing the existing feature & resolving the bugs.
We do have aggressive plans to tackle the visibility & legibility aspects of the Karoo in the coming quarters of this year.
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Sometimes what counts is more about actions than words... we have been hearing words for so many months now... indicating in plural that we are still talking quarterS before anything happens to this regard is rather frustrating... :-(
'Aggressive plans' are somewhat different by general definition, I'm afraid... -
I dont mind the font size when there are two different fields in the one line but if you have only one field in each line it should be bigger (because it's obviously more important which is why you chose it to be the only one on that line). Also it being in the centre would be nice.
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Is it only me that’s annoyed that the numbers aren’t centred in the actual field..? If I have for instance speed as a single field on top and then two fields showing hart rate and distance I would like these numbers to be centred in the middle of there fields. I find it especially annoying on single field layouts!
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TO ALL who want to support this request: Pls focus your votes on this request: https://support.hammerhead.io/hc/en-us/community/posts/1260803144990-Use-the-Space-How-it-is-vs-how-it-could-be-
Otherwise votes are diluted over many different low-vote requests, however they all target the same big issue with the Karoo software: Waste of space and missing flexibility for data fields formatting / screen real estate economy... The link takes you to the top-rated request regarding this weakness, so let's combine all our votes on this one to finally make the dev team moving - after TWO years of ignoring us...
Thank you! :-)
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