Release Notes (Website: Attributes) - March 5, 2018

[+Geocaching HQ 401]

Release Notes (Website: Attributes) - March 5, 2018

With this release, the visual look of attributes on website cache pages will match those in the Geocaching® app.

The names and meanings of attributes have not changed. For example, “Recommended for kids is still “Recommended for kids.” However, that attribute, which used to look like this  now looks like this .

Another example is “Needs Maintenance,” which changes from to .

Most of the changes are not as significant as those. For instance, “Scuba gear required” changes from to . (If anything, it more accurately reflects the diving angle required to find a geocache. Otherwise, it’s not much of a change.)

The “new”-look attributes have appeared in the Geocaching® app for several months. When our team began working to add attributes to the app, they found that the existing attribute images were not big enough, due to changing technology since the attributes were originally created. As a result, they had to recreate the imagery, and used it as an opportunity to clean up the images. Most attributes are now the same color, objects such as people, animals and vehicles face the same direction, divers dive the way they should, that sort of stuff.

Matt E (CompoundMatt) from HQ's Product Design Team is watching this thread to answer questions whenever possible.

Any posts in this thread should relate to features in this release. Comments unrelated to the release may be removed. Please direct unrelated comments to other appropriate threads. Thanks!

[+cghove 14]

Some caches have "blank attributes" after this change

example https://coord.info/GC2ZDAB

[+SoDakZak 5]

Popular reaction I’m seeing from Cachers online: Why is GCHQ worried about these small attribute changes when there are so many bigger issues in the game to fix? GCHQ has done a great job this past year in building a base to change the game for the better with moves like Virtuals coming into being and the new Friend League. What about things like improving the Wherigo app? What about fixing the challenge cache guidelines so they aren’t just “reward caches”? Love the work you’ve done in the past year; but we are seeing people ask why this is a focus right now so I thought I would pass it along here.  

[Frau Potter 347]

1 hour ago, cghove said:

Some caches have "blank attributes" after this change

example https://coord.info/GC2ZDAB

Try a hard refresh. It should go away after that.

[+Gill & Tony 357]

9 hours ago, SoDakZak said:

Popular reaction I’m seeing from Cachers online: Why is GCHQ worried about these small attribute changes when there are so many bigger issues in the game to fix? GCHQ has done a great job this past year in building a base to change the game for the better with moves like Virtuals coming into being and the new Friend League. What about things like improving the Wherigo app? What about fixing the challenge cache guidelines so they aren’t just “reward caches”? Love the work you’ve done in the past year; but we are seeing people ask why this is a focus right now so I thought I would pass it along here.  

I agree.  Yet another trivial change for no real gain, when so many things are neglected.

[+Harjus 0]

What's the correct scuba attribute as Geocaching.com webpage shows scuba-attribute like this: 

 

In the forum posts scuba attribute is a diver.

[+Team Microdot 989]

1 hour ago, Harjus said:

What's the correct scuba attribute as Geocaching.com webpage shows scuba-attribute like this: 

 

In the forum posts scuba attribute is a diver.

And what does a game console controller and a walking stick have to do with scuba?

[+cerberus1 3453]

I particularly like the "Recommended for kids" now showing that adult supervision they should always have.   Thanks. 

[+IceColdUK 1098]

No big deal, but I thought you might have taken the opportunity to make the 'tool tips' on the cache page consistent with the descriptions on the attribute descriptions page (https://www.geocaching.com/about/icons.aspx).

[+Viajero Perdido 916]

[snork]

Uh, "Available at all times" implies all times of year too, but there's a separate attribute for that.

And why a two-syllable word "during" when a shorter "in" works just as well?  "Available in winter."  I'm not being petty; your eyeballs can skim over the short version faster.  Multiply by millions.

And maybe I'm just being dense, but...  That large-person-beside-[squint]-small-person-with-red-slash image, the red slash clearly means no, but it takes a bit of thinking to figure out, no what?  Without peeking at the text of course.  No grownups?  No holding hands?

And IMHO, this , when shrunk to website size like above, is less clear than the previous version.  Takes a bit of visual parsing.

Edited March 6, 2018 by Viajero Perdido

[+icezebra11 124]

20 hours ago, SoDakZak said:

Popular reaction I’m seeing from Cachers online: Why is GCHQ worried about these small attribute changes when there are so many bigger issues in the game to fix? GCHQ has done a great job this past year in building a base to change the game for the better with moves like Virtuals coming into being and the new Friend League. What about things like improving the Wherigo app? What about fixing the challenge cache guidelines so they aren’t just “reward caches”? Love the work you’ve done in the past year; but we are seeing people ask why this is a focus right now so I thought I would pass it along here.  

To be fair, this just seems to be normal agile technology development (i.e., eating the elephant one bite at a time).  I'm sure GS has a lot of initiatives going on simultaneously.  Releasing these small changes doesn't necessarily mean there isn't work on "bigger issues" in progress.  

[+barefootjeff 4106]

Just another minor thing I noticed. The takes less than 1 hour attribute used to have the clock face at one o'clock, so it's one hour, right? But the new one has it set to nine o'clock.

[+thebruce0 2571]

2 hours ago, Viajero Perdido said:

That large-person-beside-[squint]-small-person-with-red-slash image, the red slash clearly means no, but it takes a bit of thinking to figure out, no what?  Without peeking at the text of course.  No grownups?  No holding hands?

That's a good catch. The child head was much more clear that it's a child; the line through the two people has no indication of what exactly is being denied by the scene. The head is a thing, a noun; the two people is a story, a situation.  A noun allowed or disallowed is much more clear than a situation that needs a context. Of course, I don't have any suggestion for a better icon design that works with and without the slash and universally emphasizes children.   Maybe one similar to the 'children at play' traffic sign. A running silhouette, larger head, with a ball? Though might imply 'no playing' more than 'not child friendly'

[+The A-Team 1864]

1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:

Just another minor thing I noticed. The takes less than 1 hour attribute used to have the clock face at one o'clock, so it's one hour, right? But the new one has it set to nine o'clock.

There's some strange stuff going on. On the Attributes article, the icons are shown as 30x30 SVGs and they don't look very good (the "Bicycles" icon seems to fade away). On the cache edit page, they're 40x40 SVGs and look pretty good. On cache listings, they're 80x80 PNGs that are downscaled to 30x30, which unsurprisingly makes them look very poor (you can't even tell that there are waves on "May require wading"!)

As for the "Takes less than 1 hour" attribute, I see 9:00 on cache listings, but 1:00 on the article and edit pages.

It would be nice to have things be consistent across the board, both in the content and the file type.

Another note: the red crossing line in the "negative" attributes is poorly placed on some of them. For example, on the "Not stroller accessible" icon, the line cross right over top of the push handle on the stroller. Also, on "Not recommended for kids", the line covers the child's upper hand. Both of these make the icons less recognizable. They should be modified such that the crossing line doesn't cover any important parts of the icons.

Edited March 6, 2018 by The A-Team

[+Mockingbird559 11]

4 hours ago, Viajero Perdido said:

[snork]

And IMHO, this , when shrunk to website size like above, is less clear than the previous version.  Takes a bit of visual parsing.

Around these parts, some of us refer to the shrunken websize image as "Don't forget your purse"

[+fizzymagic 749]

On 3/6/2018 at 0:32 PM, icezebra11 said:

To be fair, this just seems to be normal agile technology development (i.e., eating the elephant one bite at a time).  I'm sure GS has a lot of initiatives going on simultaneously.  Releasing these small changes doesn't necessarily mean there isn't work on "bigger issues" in progress.  

Incorrect.  As far as I can tell, they are implementing Agile without the follow-up steps. Go back and count how many of the serious issues with previous releases have been addressed.  Answer: almost none. Example:  solution checker released last October (that's almost 5 MONTHS ago) has not had almost-trivial fix implemented.

Fixing bugs and addressing customer feedback is supposed to be the core of Agile development.  Since we have seen practically zero of either of the above, one is forced to conclude that Groundspeak is not, in fact, doing Agile development.