We’ve been thinking about ways to make entering repair data from events into the site a bit easier. One of the ideas we’ve had is to allow you to add data from the moment you create the event, even if the event hasn’t happened yet.
What are we planning to change?
Currently, the interface for entering repair data to an event is only displayed an hour before the event starts. Here’s how it works at the moment:
Click/tap here for a text description of the image above
When you first create an upcoming event, we only display the basic information about the event (e.g. date, time, location, confirmed & invited attendees…). When the event starts, we add: places to record the actual number of participants and repairers, a way to record the items brought to the event and finally, repair statistics & environmental impact
The idea would be to display everything as soon as you create the event, even if the event hasn’t happened yet, i.e. the event page as it appears on the right in the image above.
Why are we thinking of making this change?
We’ve heard from some of you that it can be a bit confusing when you first create an event, as it’s not clear where you’ll need to enter data during or after the event. Making everything visible straight away could help make it less confusing.
We also know that many of you now use booking systems for your events, where you often ask participants to let you know what item they plan to bring. Allowing items to be added before the event would allow you to start adding information about items before the event even starts, giving you a head start on your data entry.
But what do you think?
We’d love to hear what you think about this. Do you think it’s a good idea?
While it might sound like quite a simple change, we also need to think about when an event’s stats (e.g. repair stats, environmental impact, numbers of volunteers and participants…) should be added to the group’s stats. We think that we should only add an event’s stats to your group’s overall stats after the event. Does that make sense to you?
I find the most difficult action is selecting and scrolling to the item name e.g kettle
So if the initial query box allowed you to enter iron for example then the drop down section could open the exact categories to be easily selected.
Avoiding scrolling up and down and eventually choosing the bottom " other box" because one didn’t find the item name easily.
This would allow faster entries i believe
Also a way to export the cumulative data once complete could be helpful to add to social media information. Rather than having to copy paste and editing the summary
Thanks for this Steve, good thoughts. These seem like separate issues, but duly noted
I totally get that there are a lot of categories, and agree that scrolling can be a pain. I find the fastest to choose a category is to type in the category box to filter the drop down list and press enter/return to select an option:
Do you think this would help too?
In terms of social media, we are working on letting you generate shareable cards for events, showing their impact. That should be arriving within the next couple of months.
The problem with this is that the selection is based on the start of the entry. If you type computer you don’t get any matches because the options are Desktop Computer or Laptop Computer. And Other is not displayed as an option, so if you cant find a match need to clear and select that.
Market Harborough Fixers C.I.C never book in ahead because people don’t turn up when they say. So entering repairs in advance could be time wasting and we dont know what the repair result is yet either.
If the drop down box could accommodate any query like pc and laptops its be a bit easier
I have to confess that I’ve never tried to enter data before an event (and probably won’t, unless there is a way to linking it to a booking system, due to no shows and lack of having the full data).
If it helps others, it won’t make any difference to my user experience.
Only issue I can see is that if people start to enter data and don’t come back to complete and make it accurate, then you’ve got incomplete or wrong data. Would it be quicker, cheaper and just as effective to add a line of text under the current stuff, that says ‘a section for entering data will be available here, once your event is live’. And maybe include a reminder email after the event with a link to the place to enter the data? Or a notification on the system? (May be just as much work…no idea.)
But I don’t mind either way, but don’t think the data should be added until after the event has happened.
Stuart and Steve, I take your point about being more flexible with typed terms (e.g. having ‘laptop’ and ‘desktop’ pop up as options when typing 'computer). We can see if we can make that happen.
Clare and Steve, it’s useful to know you don’t (and wouldn’t) enter data in advance in case people don’t turn up.
Everyone seems to agree that we should wait until after an event before doing anything with the data added (e.g. adding it to the group’s stats). This makes sense, so we’ll definitely stick to that plan
Clare, I like your suggestion of just adding a line of text along those lines. It would certainly be quicker to implement! That said, one additional benefit of doing this that I forgot to mention in my first post is that we’re currently building support for different time zones. Having the data entry enabled an hour before an event starts can get a bit complicated (as explained brilliantly in this old Tom Scott video), so just displaying at all times should give us fewer headaches in the future.
Point taken though
