Better Default Data Source

[holdit]

I don't know if this is possible, but I think it would be useful for new app users and new EV owners if EVMap picked a better default data source.

Some people are in a hurry, some just click "next" and "accept" on every button they see, some find the change to an electric car to be overwhelming and data sources are yet another thing they have to learn... and while none of this is the app's fault, better defaults always help.

Background:

Recently a family member had to go on a trip cross country and back on an electric car. He's neither the most tech savvy person or experienced with electric cars (although he gets the basics). He installed some random app from Google Play which showed him some chargers... but apparently their data wasn't very complete and he was using slower chargers and getting stressed about getting to the next charger.

Someone suggested asking me as I "know about these things". I use and contribute to OpenChargeMap, so I knew data was good. I suggested EVMap as it's clean and fast, but I forgot to tell him to use OCM as data source... a few minutes later he tells me that there's even less chargers showing. I reinstall EVMap, realise the problem, tell him how to change from GoingElectric.de to OCM, and problem fixed. He starts seeing fast chargers, the trip goes much smoothly, all goes well.

We both failed here. I didn't tell him to select OCM because I had forgotten EVMap's first steps (I set up it once and that was it). In his hurry and stress, he clearly didn't read the description of each data source map and was just trying to get to the map.

Ideas:

I'm completely out of my depth here, but maybe it can be helpful:

• I was going to suggest using Open Charge Map as the default option as that seems to be the best option for most of the world, but in places like Germany/central Europe GoingElectric.de might be a better choice? Doing this by itself might not be ideal for every user.

• Can the default source change depending on the device's language? Also not perfect, but assuming most people use their devices in their own language, could OCM be selected by default and GoingElectric selected if the language is German, Dutch, etc?

• Using the user's location probably isn't the best idea because the app doesn't ask for it right away, it would require more steps before using the app, and the user might not want to give permission. Even if they do, location services don't always work.

• Forcing the user to manually pick a source before showing the map could work. Highlight the options if the user tries to "continue" without selecting it. This adds some friction to the setup process though.

• IP based? Would require an internet connection, maybe a server, privacy policies, fairly accurate IP databases... this adds cost and maybe too complicated?

Is there a better way to do this? Probably. I'm out of ideas though.

Final words:

Just to be clear, this it not a problem with EVMap (it works well as it is) or even GoingElectric (their data seems to be very good in central Europe), but as they say, "defaults matter" and OCM seems to be the best option of the two for a lot of the world. Or at least it seems that way to me.

Maybe it's something that could be changed/improved.

Keep up the good work, Johan!

[johan12345]

GoingElectric.de is still the default data source as it has been the first that EVMap supported, and as the majority (>60% according to Play Store stats) of the app users are from Germany it's probably still the best choice for most users. But yeah, I agree that new users from other regions might be confused in case they quickly skip over the data source selection screen.

Forcing the user to manually pick a source before showing the map could work. Highlight the options if the user tries to "continue" without selecting it. This adds some friction to the setup process though.

Yes, good idea, this could be first step that is easy to implement.

As a next step we could adapt the order of the options based on the user's location. There even seems to be a way on Android to get the country code based on the mobile network, which apparently doesn't require any special permissions (but I haven't tested if it works). If it's not available we can fall back to the country code from the system locale (en_GB, en_US, de_DE, etc.). Of course, to do that, we have to define which data source (GE, OCM and soon also OSM) is preferred in which countries, and keep that information up to date in case it changes over time.

[johan12345]

With 42916d7 I have implemented the first part (i.e. no data source will be selected by default)