I'm looking for feedback on my new edible wild plant website designed (kind of) for mobile devices like smart phones, iPhone, Amazon's Kindle, and other mobile internet devices.

If you have one of these devices could you please got to:
http://mobileedibles.blogspot.com/, check it out and then report back here what you liked/hated about it? It's pretty crude right now but given time and feedback I hope to make it into something useful.

Feedback I'm looking for:
1. Readability
2. Loading speed
3. Thoughts about the pictures
4. Other

Thanks,
-Blast

Just checked it out on my Blackberry Curve. If you know what plant you're looking at, the info in the Full Plant List is great because you can go directly to it and see how to use it. I went to "nettles" and found what I was familiar with. As for being stung -- yep, BTDT many times.

The problem is when you don't know for looking. I thought location meant geographic in the states, such as Desert Southwest or rainy Northwest. Filter down the possibilities so a photo ID could be used. In the PNW, nettles can be found anywhere they're allowed to grow, sunny, shade, under trees -- very hardy and tolerant plant. Unfortunately, your DB doesn't include sunny or shade in the description. It says, "woods, borders, abandoned areas" and if I find nettles in the middle of a field I wouldn't filter for the locations in your DB. If I stumbled across nettles in the DB I wouldn't be sure; with the photo resolution on a Blackberry Curve, a second close-up shot of the leaves would be more useful than a whole group of plants. That said, just touch them and you'll know what they are

All in all though, I like it. Thanks.

I didn't like the fixed-width banner at the top of each page. That meant more side-ways scrolling on a narrow screen than would otherwise be necessary. (This stopped being an issue when I turned my phone on its side.)

I found the text pointsize to be unnecessarily large. Less text per page makes it harder to find stuff by scanning.

I didn't have a problem with speed on WiFi, but some of the picture-heavy pages were over 6 Meg which seems a lot. I appreciate the large pictures are important for identification. I'd suggest using large but lower quality thumbnails in the main page, linking to higher quality images that you can use for positive ID. (This would be less of an issue for people who download the site in advance. You might also consider turning it into a PDF to help offline use.)

Could the database be indexed by both location and season at the same time, rather than by one or the other? Presumably the intended use is for people in the field, who are mostly looking for what they can find "right here, right now". A general search field would be good.

Maybe the "full plant list" should be renamed to "Find by plant name".

Generally the pictures seemed pretty good. I suspect that large width and height is more helpful than high quality. I didn't actually try to make any identifications.

I was using a Nokia n97. It looks like it's already a valuable resource, so well done. I hope this post doesn't sound too negative. It's the information which is the main thing.

Blast
Outstanding, just checked it out on my Dell Axim X30 and it looked and worked like a charm. All information and pictures on one screen(no moving back and forth to read) the type was clear and the pictures were clear and crisp. It loads as fast as I can scan. What can I say it has been put in the favorites section of my survival list. Whats next?

I noticed under Yucca that is not the type we have on the west coast take a look here

:http://www.bennyskaktus.dk/Y_w_inte.htm

my phone is dumb, but I was at least able to load it and see info off its pathetic web browser.

Thanks for the feedback, I've already made some changes (top banner, font size, and section titles).

Would it be better if:
A. fewer pictures of each plant
or
B. same pictures, only smaller in size that link to larger versions?

Sidenote: "B" is a lot more work.

-Blast, trying to do something useful with his life

If it's a common weed and everybody who's been stung once will always remember what nettles look like, then more pics aren't necessary. If however, you don't know then the pics need enough detail to be useful. If I didn't know better, the nettles picture looks similar to the mint that grows in the same area -- way different.

Looks pretty good on an iPhone; the margins are a bit wide and the type a bit small, but it's all legible.

(The bar containing "show all" doesn't render properly - the "show all" goes past the end of the bar and wraps to another line; very minor glitch).

Thanks for putting this together!

Hi Blast. I looked at your pictures on my screen and reduced them to thumbnail size.
(No mobile device here.)
I thought I might mention something about pictures, just an idea to consider.

Even when the pictures are large a lot of times the plants get lost in the sea of greenery in them.
The picture of Clover has that problem. A shot of the flower head and a set of leaves with a neutral background would be good to identify the plant.
The shot of the clover in the grass might be OK as a picture of its habitat, but it is hard to pick out the details in it.

The set of pictures you did for the Betony are more like what I am talking about

It seems like a very good start.

Aloha Blast,

Nice and fast on my iPhone. Perhaps consider adding a search by use (besides to eat). Examples would be plants that work well for friction fire or have medicinal properties such as relieving headaches or used to make soap, etc.

Or maybe a keyword search to look up stuff such as "Hawaii" and "fern" which makes a good salad.

As I think, maybe a category that lists whether it is safe raw or needs to be cooked. That would be useful when you can't make a fire.

I think the pictures can be valuable so I wouldn't want to lose any of them.

The large pixel size usually helps, too, especially on a phone because their pixels are smaller. A PC screen is usually 96dpi; An iPhone is about 160dpi and my N97 is over 200dpi. So a 500 pixel image is about 5" wide on a PC but less than 2.5" wide on my phone. You need good eyesight with small images, so I wouldn't want to make yours much smaller.

I'd be tempted to experiment with higher JPEG compression, for lower quality and quicker downloads at the same pixel size. I don't know how to go about doing that with Flickr, or indeed other online hosts. Obviously it's more work.

I notice that you've reorganised it so that the pictures aren't all on the same page. That helps download times. Previously when you clicked "Woods", you got pictures of all the woodland plants, and that was a lot; that was what really struck me in my original comment. Now you just get a list of names, and you only get the pictures for a plant if you click on a name. That's quicker for downloading, although less useful if you don't know the name and are trying to identify something visually.

I doubt there's an easy answer for this.

I haven't checked on my BB yet, but I like the idea of that mobile site!

That's the truth. I think what I'll do is add more links where you can either search by common name or by a picture. So under the "Find Where" there'll be links "Woods by Plant Name" and also "Woods by Plant Picture" for instance. Clicking on the picture in the second link would then bring you to the full plant info page.

Dang, that's going to be a lot of work.

Thanks for the tips everyonea nd keep them coming!

-Blast, who needs to figure out how to get paid for this

I've been twiddling with it to make it (I hope) a bit more user friendly. You can either pull up a full list of plants or plant lists for assorted environments (woods, fields, yards, landscaping, in or near water, and dry/arid) or seasons (spring, summer, fall, and winter). Clicking on the plant's name will bring up all the info and pictures.

Next I need to go through and make parallel paths with pictures so you can bring up photos of plants based on environment or season. This will give you an idea of what to look for out in the wilds.

-Blast

p.s. Wow, it's been up for a day and already has 900 hits. Y'all are really giving it a workout!

Now you know what people like to see, get on it and write some content L O L

How about a thread or link that highlights plants that can be used as seasoning or spices?

Blast,

Viewed on my Blackberry, it's looking good.

I agree that being able to look at pictures to identify would be very helpful.

Good work!

Greg

I'll pass this onto LaddiesLady to try it out.

Thanks, Blast!!!!!!!!!

It's now in my DW's I-Phone. Thanks Blast!