From the viewpoint of consistency and good UI design I have the following suggestion for the game app: When participating in a measured distance event make the distance in the upper middle block show the elapsed distance (It actually doesn’t).
The 3 statistical blocks in the heads-up display are each laid-out consistently and the layout is the same regardless of the type of activity. Caveat: I might be wrong for workouts since I haven’t done one in a long time. Generally all the numbers mean the same thing regardless of activity. The one exception is distance.
When free-riding the time is the elapsed time you’ve been riding and the distance is the elapsed distance you’ve ridden.
When doing an event that is time limited, the time is the elapsed time and the distance is also the elapsed distance you’ve ridden.
(edit) When doing an event that is lap-based the time is elapsed time and the distance is the elapsed distance you’ve ridden.
However when doing an event that is a measured distance the time is still the elapsed time but the distance is now how far along you are in the course NOT how far you’ve actually ridden.
The meaning of the distance number changes (and shouldn’t in good UI design) depending on the activity. You wouldn’t change the time in time measured event to be how long the event has been going. So why change the meaning of the distance?
The only way you can see how the meaning of the distance is different is when you late join a distance event. For example if you join 10 minutes late the distance will show something like 5 or 6 kilometers even when you haven’t gone anywhere yet. It’s showing how far along in the course you are. When the event is over the distance reverts to showing the elapsed distance (dropping from say 50kms down to 44kms) showing clearly the meaning of the distance is different for this type of event.
(edit) Late joins of other events do not exhibit this behaviour since they show the actual distance ridden.
I am aware that the elapsed distance can be found elsewhere but for various reasons I do not/cannot use them. I’m not looking for a workaround or suggestions on how to find the information. I also realize this affects only late joiners - but there are a lot of them! I’m simply providing feedback on the UI design and making a suggestion for a change.
