MyLA 3-1-1

The former app was great, but this “new and improved app” is a hot mess and anything but an improvement. Sure, you can access high-level service requests faster but the process to submit a request is painful and inefficient. Suggested improvements: 1. Don’t treat the UX like a Google web form with drop-down menus for every single field (why do I feel like I’m on a webpage in an app like it’s 2008? The former app didn’t do this). 2. Fix the zoom-in function when on a map. Currently, if you zoom in to pinpoint a location, you’re more likely to zoom-in on the entire page and when you try to zoom-out or scroll away from the map the user is taken back to the first page/step in the request submission—this is annoying as heck as all the data inputted is completely lost and you need to input all again. 3. If someone doesn’t want to report anonymously, don’t require them to input their contact info every single time. Add an auto-fill or account feature. Adding these features and fixes will help us all continue to help LA and improve our streets and safety. Otherwise, frustrated users will eventually stop using this app and the city will lose our help finding necessary improvements to the health of LA.

Why would LA city launch an app that is inferior to the one that was previously in use? Definitely, this is still in development and forces the user to enter their personal data each time and doesn’t allow the user to view open tickets. I believe they are going to a single user login for all city services, but this app actually takes you to a page to create an account, which takes you in a death spiral to nowhere. And you can’t get back (intuitively at least) without closing the app and starting over. One other thing that is not intuitive is that you tap text for your category— doesn’t appear to be a link, or provide a button look. This isn’t a “modern look”- it is just confusing. The only thing that is an improvement is that if you have geolocation on your photo, it seems to be able to suggest a location. The old app was more challenging, especially with issues in departments like Parks and Rec where it required an address, but there really isn’t a street address available. All in all, not ready for prime time!

This UI definitely has a learning curve. You can report anonymously without putting your info and you can sign in but it is not obvious. Once you select yes, on the report anonymously toggle, you can click continue without filling out your information. But there is no sign to indicate that that’s the case. The landing pledge clearly looks like a website, and there are no buttons to toggle between a login page and services. The buttons at the top of the screen do not work. But you can login if you tap the menu three lines in the top left-hand corner of the screen and stay logged in. But again this is not obvious! Also, when you click upload it does give you the option to take a photo in app. So all the features have been preserved, but they are labeled in a misleading way that might lead us to believe that we have to do more work than we did previously. You can zoom in on the map, but that might also zoom in the page and leave you completely zoomed in altogether, which is frustrating. I can see that they’ve added a few extra questions that might be helpful to some people, but in general, this feels like a lateral move from one somewhat clunky app to a new somewhat clunky app. But I did want to set the record straight that the features that have been complained about in other reviews as being missing are in fact still there they’re just harder to find.