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Zwift changes its layout – and people are very angry

Some users have criticised the virtual training app’s new home screen update and the absence of the ‘Ride With’ feature

Zwift has unveiled its latest range of updates – resulting in inevitable backlash from users unhappy at the app’s new interface.

The virtual training platform last week announced that it was rolling out a new user interface to almost all PC and Mac users who have set their language preference to English. The changes include faster loading times upon start up, an improved events interface, new music, the option to access the garage before starting a ride, and the ability to ride any world while doing a workout.

However, the updates have come in for criticism from some indoor training enthusiasts, who have described the new home screen layout as “pathetic”, while others questioned the omission of Zwift’s ‘Ride With’ feature, which allowed users to automatically join friends currently on course.

Zwift April 2022 update 1

While some members of Zwift’s online forum said they were pleased with the changes, others criticised the updated home screen’s tile-based layout and scaling, which one user said meant that “everything requires more clicks/scrolling than it used to.” 

On Twitter, Hamish wrote: “The new Zwift UI is pretty cool, but is there supposed to be this big blank area in the middle of the home screen? I also wasn't able to scroll. Otherwise, I love a lot of the other enhancements!”

Some users were altogether blunter in their assessment of the new interface, with one arguing that “we literally deserve a refund for this pathetic ‘updated’ screen that we are forced to beta test.”

Another member described the updates as a “nightmare” and claimed that it was now “very cumbersome” to access frequently ridden routes.

> Zwift U-turns on ban for user who exposed weight-doping hack 

The absence of the ‘Ride With’ feature, which – unlike creating a scheduled Meetup Event – enabled users to join someone already riding at any point, has also proven a source of much consternation among Zwifters.

One forum member wrote: “I’ve just cancelled my Zwift account because of this update.

“The ‘Ride With’ feature is important to me and the main reason that I came to Zwift from RGT. Now I can’t use it because Zwift literally ‘forced’ this new (incomplete) update on me and others. Other users may not care about the ‘Ride With’ feature, but this user does.

“So, I’m not paying for something that I can’t use.”

Responding to queries about the future of the ‘Ride With’ function, Zwift’s Community Forum Manager said: “We’re still working on it, but no ETA to announce yet. We know it’s a high priority to bring back.”

Zwift April 2022 update 2

Not everyone is upset with the changes, however. One user argued that the new interface “feels more useful and allows access to the things I want to be able to access before starting a ride”, and described the torrent of criticism from the Zwift community as a “classic ‘can’t please everyone’ moment”.

“Recent changes to the Home Screen were made to help Zwifters connect with some of our best in class in-game content,” a Zwift spokesperson told road.cc.

“In the process of making improvements to the home screen, we decided to reprioritise some features that were not heavily utilised, including Ride With.

“While we're glad that the new home screen is making it easier to find Zwift rides, races, and workouts, we are always in the process of developing features that make Zwift more fun and social.

“Based on incoming community feedback, we are currently considering how to reprioritise Ride With in the new home screen so that we can reintroduce this feature to the Zwift community as quickly as possible.”

Zwift April 2022 update 3

> Wahoo buys RGT Cycling virtual training platform... and lays off 50 staff 

Zwift’s controversial overhaul of its interface has coincided with Wahoo’s purchase of rival virtual training platform RGT Cycling.

The launch of the Wahoo X subscription service will give users access to all training content in the Wahoo SYSTM and RGT's virtual cycling routes under a single login.

However, the announcement came as news circulated of around 50 redundancies at the company, something Wahoo said was part of "strategic changes".

Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.

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17 comments

Avatar
Veloism | 1 year ago
0 likes

It really is the worst bit of UX design we've seen in years. It makes no sense and it looks like they gave this job to an intern engineer...

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peted76 | 1 year ago
0 likes

The changes may help me, I've never really gotten on with their UI.. I guess I'll find out next Autumn.

 

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Jetmans Dad | 1 year ago
3 likes

I've been dipping in and out of that thread on the Zwift forum (I think one of the quoted comments might even be one of mine ... I haven't waded back through it to check) and apart from the legitimate beef about removing the "Ride with" option (which I personally have never used) I genuinely don't get what the issues are.

Like mark1a, a minute or two to work out where everything was and off I went again. 

Users used to complain bitterly about how old-fashioned and how limited the previous start screen was and how something more useful and more modern was needed (complete with massive howling when they delayed the rollout of an updated UI when the pandemic hit) ... now they are complaining bitterly about how the old one wasn't broken and didn't need fixing, and can they please have the choice to use the old one instead. 

I am guessing the 90+% of users who don't go on the forums have just taken it in stride and are getting on with it. 

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mark1a | 1 year ago
1 like

The new UI was a surprise for me when it first loaded post-update, it took around 60 seconds to work out what was where. I've not given it a second thought since. 
 

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chrisonabike replied to mark1a | 1 year ago
0 likes

Not a zwift user currently so excuse the question but for navigation do they implement a sat-nav / Garmin within zwift or do you have to bring your own?

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Secret_squirrel replied to chrisonabike | 1 year ago
1 like

You either choose a course for a workout in which case the turns happen automatically or you make it up as you go.  You can also choose to divert from a chosen course but the navigation then becomes manual.

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Secret_squirrel replied to mark1a | 1 year ago
1 like
mark1a wrote:

The new UI was a surprise for me when it first loaded post-update, it took around 60 seconds to work out what was where. I've not given it a second thought since. 

This was me.   Big culture shock when I joined at the last second for an event, but 5 mins of more leisurely exploration and its fine.

People need to get a life.

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Kesa | 1 year ago
4 likes

First world problems. No one cares. 

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Simon E replied to Kesa | 1 year ago
0 likes

Toys and pram?

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Brauchsel replied to Kesa | 1 year ago
7 likes

This is a website about cycling, largely aimed at and read by people in developed Anglophone nations. Pretty much every issue it deals with is a "first world problem", as is complaining that a website you visit doesn't contain only content you consider sufficiently worthy. 

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Blackthorne replied to Brauchsel | 1 year ago
1 like
Brauchsel wrote:

This is a website about cycling, largely aimed at and read by people in developed Anglophone nations. Pretty much every issue it deals with is a "first world problem", as is complaining that a website you visit doesn't contain only content you consider sufficiently worthy. 

 

haha this is kind of true. Debate the efficiency gains of ultegra vs 105 or thickness of bar tape to a farmer eking an existence in a lesser developed part of the world who hauls his wares to the market 30 miles a day through mud on a banged up bicycle for an income less than the cost of a rapha chamois cream. 

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matt_cycles replied to Kesa | 1 year ago
1 like

Non-Zwift users don't care, but some users do seem to care and have no other worries in their lives at the moment.

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Rendel Harris replied to matt_cycles | 1 year ago
1 like
matt_cycles wrote:

Non-Zwift users don't care, but some users do seem to care and have no other worries in their lives at the moment.

Yeah, last night in the pub I was served quite an unsatisfactory pint of bitter, but I decided not to complain because I'm very concerned about the Russian offensive in Mariupol... perhaps people are capable of thinking about more than one thing at once?

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matt_cycles replied to Rendel Harris | 1 year ago
0 likes

No one said people couldn't think about more than one thing at once..? (Well technically you brought it up). But if Zwift UI is their biggest single thing to moan and worry about, then well done them.

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Kadinkski replied to matt_cycles | 1 year ago
2 likes

I don't understand why you think this is their biggest single issue to worry about? 

My 13 year old daughter refuses to go to school and has laid out a horrible, f***ed-up ultimatum unless we home-school her. Its really stressful and horrible. But I still don't like the Zwift UI updates. 

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Rendel Harris replied to Kadinkski | 1 year ago
1 like

Spot on there, sir or madam - we've all got bigger problems, doesn't mean we can't think about smaller ones (I've been out on the roads all week so have yet to see these Zwift updates, but if they have annoyed people they're entitled to feel that way, not sure why that's a problem for anyone else).

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mdavidford replied to Kadinkski | 1 year ago
0 likes

Could you make it her first project to redesign it?

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