I recently secured an iPhone 5S and have been playing Go Eye on it for quite a while. I am mainly giving suggestions to the developer, but the article also contains a number of user tips which may be of general interest.

Before I start, my first point is not specific to Go Eye, but indeed to any IOS Go apps. The screen size of iPhone is just not big enoug for any Go apps when showing the full 19x19 board. To give you an idea, my index figure is about 6 cells wide. This will of course be a problem for fine operations on the Go board. If you are lucky enough to have an iPhone 6 or 6 plus the extra screen estate is clearly a big bonus.

Now my comments and suggestions:

* Settings > Show coordinates: this is something really useful when reading game commentaries. Given the small screen size, would it be better if coordinates are only shown at the right and bottom sides of the board for iPhone?

* Settings > Stone sound: I really want a faster way to turn on/off the sound as I often sneak into the kitchen of my work place to quickly go through a game. How about adding a 'speaker' icon somewhere around the Go board so that sounds can be switched on/off without leaving that view?

* The docking behaviour when viewing a game. See the two screen captures below:




The first image shows the default behaviour of Go Eye. One can pull the board down so that it docks at a lower position, showing the game information as in the second image. I think the second should be the default. It is often helpful to have the number of dead stones visible. Only iPhone 5 and following, there are still space below the board to show some comments. For older models with shorter screen, it may not be obvious if there's any comments. So I understand why the docking behaviour is there. Maybe this is a situation for Go Eye to have some device dependent code.

* Related to the above, if users pull the board down, the Auto mode should respect that. Now in the Auto mode, the board will be moved upward after a while, which I think is strange.

* I can use the + and - button to navigate games without any problem (A tip to users: hold the + or - buttons for a few seconds the navigation will speed up). However, I always feel that the slider is lacking responsiveness. Don't understand why.

* I expect fewer people use Go Eye on iPhone as an SGF editor because of its screen size. I actually quite like Go Eye's handling of input - tap and hold for a while, you get a horizontal and a vertical line to guide you to place stones at the correct location. On iPad, user can go to Settings and select 'Single tap to add a stone' to place stones much faster (given that any misclick can be fixed quickly). For Go Eye developer, the same input mechanism should be available in scoring mode so that users can more easily mark dead stones. Lacking this, the scoring function is not very useful on iPhone now.

* Another point on scoring - it is really only useful for finished games. I know this isn't easy, but for ongoing games, there must be some other algorithms to give positional judgement, as implemented on almost all Chinese Go servers. Maybe this is something for the future.

* For new users, it is not obvious that Go Eye has an integrated web browser which can be used to access Go resources online, e.g. go to Sensei's library to view the Go problem collections there. Tip for users: everything you visit is kept locally on your device and you access games/go problems natively (not via a web interface!). To make this obvious, for new installation why not populate the home page with some popular Go website (Sensei, lifein19x19... plus Google)?

* In web mode, I often tap the 'back' button on the top left corner which takes me back to Go Eye's main menu screen, when my intention is actually going back to the previous web page. So maybe it is better to bring the navigation bar to the top?

* Having used Go Eye to visit some web pages, its home page will be populated by the thumbnails of those pages. Please provide a way to delete unwanted pages (maybe long tap to activate a delete icon, something like that). Keep the most frequently used sites at top positions.

* For the Go4Go integration, add a tip to highlight the importance of the search function (the magnifier icon at top right corner). The search function is actually very well implemented with auto completion and kept history.

* Live broadcast mode: this can be more useful for many if player names are translated to English. For those sina.com.cn games, translation can be done easily by query the Go4Go database - I can supply another web service if needed.

* For image recognition, while it works well most of the times, there are still some sensitive bugs. One bug I met a few times is when you long tap an Go board image to activate the 'recognize' button, Go Eye sometimes picks up a different image on the same web page. Might this have something to do with your way parsing the web page?

Overall, I quite enjoy using Go Eye. I think it definitely offers many functions not available in competing apps.

Unfortunately it is very hard to change people's established habits - e.g. many people think that a new Go server should be KGS plus new functions, not a completely new design no matter how good the new design might be. Similarly many people want tree view to browser games with branches, although I personally think Go Eye's way (based on thumbnail images) viewing branches is also quite intuitive.

So for users I recommend you to spend some extra time with Go Eye. With more patience you might appreciate more of its design ideas. For the developer, please try to accommodate users' habits so that they can optionally switch back to their favorite ways doing things at the same time still enjoying the features.

I withdraw this comment. I just realise that the navigation bar in Safari is also at the bottom side and your design has exactly the same appearance and behaviour.

Merry Christmas,everyone!

Thanks Mace for posting so many suggestions for the author and also providing many tips for Go Eye users.

Most of the comments are reasonable and will be studied and addressed in future version.

Some feedbacks provided below too.



Probably left/bottom, similar to real board on TV.



May consider this and see how to fit well in current UI. Another suggestion is that in such an environment, it would be better to turn it off.

[quot]
* The docking behaviour when viewing a game. See the two screen captures below:

The first image shows the default behaviour of Go Eye. One can pull the board down so that it docks at a lower position, showing the game information as in the second image. I think the second should be the default. It is often helpful to have the number of dead stones visible. Only iPhone 5 and following, there are still space below the board to show some comments. For older models with shorter screen, it may not be obvious if there's any comments. So I understand why the docking behaviour is there. Maybe this is a situation for Go Eye to have some device dependent code.

[/quote]

Will fix this for screens bigger than 3.5". Good suggestion.


This is to show the full screen for board after no user interaction for a few seconds.



For current endgame scoring, using zoom in can help to enlarge the stones. Using the same input method by long tap will be considered.

Scoring needs a lot of efforts to bring some AI in the app. It is a long term goal.



Top home pages may be reserved for site owners who want to invest in Go Eye



Will consider this.



Will consider these too.



This is like some bug in iOS' web view itself. Will verify it.

Thanks all Go Eye lovers too who have suggested many great features in the past.

I got an email during Christmas from a Chinese user who says



[Original Chinese]
您好，
好久没用围棋之眼了，今天用了一下，没法放手，太棒了。

之前棋谱导入的问题完美解决了，越用越感受到您的围棋之眼的好处，体会到了您的细致和用心。绝对配得上苹果的产品。围棋之眼和苹果绝对是各自领域中无与伦比顶尖的产品。从今之后我一定尊重别人的劳动和付出，绝对购买正版。

太感谢了

[Translation in English]

Hi, I haven't used Go Eye for a long time. But today I picked it up and could not leave it. It was wonderful!
The previous problems of importing game records are perfectly solved. I more and more felt the advantages of Go Eye, and sensed the careful design. It was absolutely matched with Apples' product. Go Eye and Apple are both the best product in their specific field. From now on, I will respect the efforts by other people and always buy the genuine products.
Thanks.


It is vey encouraging