Playbypoint

So many attempted bells and whistles that add nothing and do nothing. We just want to play tennis. The process of making a reservation—which is all we need—is easy, but still worse than the previous interface where we play because you cannot see the entire grid. Good luck to you if you don’t get your court—or any court, if you play for two hours—on the first try, you won’t know what other courts are available. And no one needs a FB-style “profile” —or even a mobile phone!—to play tennis at a local tennis center. The only reason this software—which has been updated six of seven times just in the six weeks our location has forced us to use it, fixing bugs is great but it has more bugs than an entomology museum—gets two stars instead of one is that their “help” people are very responsive, very nice, and very clear in explaining things, and that matters. We just want to play tennis. No added benefits to what we experienced before we had to use this, a very easy reservation process (that’s a good thing!) that nevertheless is not as good as what our center had, shiny things that must have impressed the people in the offices who have never made (or taken) a reservation at 7am or miss out on courts…nothing but a stressful step backwards. We’re recreational tennis players. We just want to play tennis. Our weekly group is seriously considering going to play somewhere else…because of this software. Bells, whistles, profiles, ratings, requests—no, thank you, meaningless, useless, we just want to play tennis.

Finally an app that makes booking courts actually simple. Found a club near me in seconds and booked without calling anyone. 10/10

The software has a clear tennis bias, even though there are many activities a typical club is trying to schedule. The non-tennis things have not been followed through as carefully. For example, if you want to sign up for swimming right next to tennis, there is a heading for “lanes” which seems to go with the tennis category but with no reference to “pool or swimming”. it doesn’t take a PhD to figure out eventually, but it can be a little confusing for an early user, especially if part of the active software is not showing on the screen, you are using. How easy the app is to use as a function of what device you’re using: Smart phone versus tablet versus laptop versus computer. How the information is laid out, varies by platform. Some important information may bleed off the end of the screen or window depending on the device you are using. I’ve been told the mobile app is the easiest software to use.