CircleIn- Circle in Daily

I am a junior and this I one of the best studying apps. I am really just completely happy with everything it does. It does so much more than other apps I’ve tried out there’s so many different functions within a singular app. It can do everything from make flashcards, to talk to your classmates, to making reminders and planners for yourself. It’s Quizlet GroupMe, and reminders rolled into one. Plus they really do give you motivation to study and the gift cards are actually redeemed within a few days. I did have trouble with uploading flashcards initially, but the support team was incredibly fast and helpful, and replied in only a day. I’ve only had this app for a short time and I’ve already used it so much. I really think it will help me study better and stay on track this semester and I really look forward to it. I really appreciate that my university adopted the app and I hope that other universities do the same.

My biggest gripe is while the interface is smooth and simple, it is not intuitive for the actions you have to use this app for. I understand trying to replicate the success of platforms of discord, but the study rooms are only one function of many, so why is the *entire* app designed this way. It is even worse on desktop. The planner function is what I needed the most but it’s an an afterthought at best. The details can only be added after creating the task. Why not make it so you can click add task and do everything right away? It asks you to select which class it’s for which is nice but then you can’t even filter planner items by class which is important when you have a lot to do and are trying to make sure you have completed all the work for a class without logging into canvas and scrolling through screens and modules (the entire point of having a planner). You have to manually sort into overdue, upcoming, and done which is supremely annoying. Considering I put in the due date it should be able to auto sort. Also everytime I move an item on mobile the app crashes. Why can you only look at the board view of the planner on mobile anyway? I also hate how you can only access the planner through the create or plus icon. It should be put in a location like a home tab or dashboard but instead the home tab is pointless quests. If you want people to use this app for the utility then make that the priority. Planners, notes, pinned posts and comments, and announcements. But there is no central location for these things which all occupy separate tabs. Good thing I can easily view my quest progress with one click, right? The course feedback section does not work across devices and my planner crashes on mobile from simple tasks. This app is another case of form over function

The app’s design is certainly appealing to the eye, as well as being very intuitive, but the biggest flaw i’ve found is in the upload system. You can upload your class notes for others to reference, but you can only upload them one side, or photo, at a time. This causes unnecessary clutter in the feed and could be solved by adding multiple photos to one post. Despite the uploading feature’s slowness, the other features have worked without hitch. Upon not having one of my classes listed to upload notes, I contacted the Circlein provided email address and they were VERY responsive. The class was up within a couple of hours. The app itself helped me on a few assignments, being able to refer to other students’ notes. The flashcard system is clean and useful, but does not match Quizlet in sheer ways to study them. Overall, the app deserves a five star review for its current functionality, but hopefully they will consider these functions that could make the app easier to use.