This Season in Photos: Unlocking

May 08, 2021 in Photography

If you’ve talked with me in the last year and a half you’ve probably heard me pitch this idea that there are actually six seasons instead of four. This isn’t new! It comes from the writer, Kurt Vonnegut. March and April aren’t some bizarre combo of winter and spring. Instead, they make up unlocking, a season nestled between the slumber of winter and the renewal of spring. It’s a time when the world thaws, yawns, and stretches its limbs.

People once again line the river; reading, playing, and sunning themselves in questionable temperatures (including me). Mum celebrated her 59th birthday. Levi and I enjoyed our first hike of the year not decked out in cold weather gear. I'm living my best spa life with the addition of a new robe. The fam spent three weeks working on a Magic Puzzle™. Indoor cycling has me venturing into the pain cave while techno (the real stuff) pumps into my ears. Lunch gained a near daily side of black beans and avocado w/ lime and salt. It even warmed up enough for the first park workout of the year, although that 53 lb (24 kg) kettlebell was a literal pain to carry all the way there. And Centre Street Bridge is once again open to pedestrian traffic alongside Memorial Drive—I run that route as often as I can while we have it.

With unlocking behind us, “winter” has probably, hopefully, finally departed (or at least that’s what I’m telling myself as I look out the window at the last few snowflakes).

Why the Photo Mode from The Last of Us Part II Just Clicked

April 27, 2021 in Photography

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Photographers and gamers! Who of you are contained in the middle of that Venn diagram of hobbies?

Something about the photo mode in The Last of Us Part II (TLOU2) held my attention, unlike the photo mode from any other game (save Pokémon Snap). Indeed, the TLOU2 game developers at Naughty Dog even wrote about how they get their best shots on the official Playstation blog. My usual lack of interest in photo mode is surprising considering my love for real-world photography, but on closer examination, maybe there was something off about those other experiences that prevented me from fully appreciating their potential.

What follows is my theory why this photo mode clicked where others did not. Consider it a combo photography / user experience post. I’ve also included photos from the game throughout. They’ll contain location spoilers, although I doubt they’ll mean much until you get to that part of the story.

Reason #1: The game is on-rails

TLOU2 isn’t a sprawling open-world adventure game like Red Dead Redemption 2, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, or Grand Theft Auto 5. Instead, the game is mostly linear and follows a determined path. This allows the game developers to take you through areas at a set time and a set pace, creating moments in the story with the perfect lighting, colour tone, weather, and more.

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Compare that to an experience my brother and I had while playing the original Red Dead Redemption. He finished the game before I did and told me about the beautiful finale from the last story mission in the game—the music was perfect, the light was golden—you get the idea. Eventually, I caught up, but didn’t have the same experience. In fact, I was surprised when the mission finished because there didn’t seem to be anything remotely exceptional about its “look”. I asked him about what he saw. It turns out he finished the story mission as the in-game sun was rising for the day while I finished the mission in the harsh mid-afternoon light. Hence, no streaming light between the trees, nor warm atmospheric glow.

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The open world photo mode experience is a game of chance. You need to be at the right time and the right place, not unlike photography in the real world. Naturally, you can increase your odds of being at the right time and the right place by getting out more or photographing (playing) at the right times, but only playing a game during its in-game golden hours isn’t practical.

Looking back at TLOU2, the “on-rails” nature of the game gives the developer a high degree of control over the cinematic experience. They can force you into the right time and place so all that’s left to do is recognize and capture the beauty of the experience as best you can. There’s less left to chance and fewer missed photo opportunities as a result.

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Reason #2: Automatically turning on the photo mode shortcut

Early in the game there’s a small tutorial about photo mode. It’s through this tutorial they show the player the prominently located photo mode option in the pause menu. However, after accessing it enough times the game automatically turns on the photo mode shortcut by clicking in the two sticks of the controller. This shortcut only saves one button press (pressing the pause button, then selecting photo mode vs. pressing two sticks at once) but this is another example where it doesn’t pay to “count the clicks”. Other games might have a similar photo mode shortcut, but either the lack of explanation or the lack of turning it on could’ve been critical factors that prevented it from sticking.

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However, equipped with this shortcut in TLOU2, I could almost instantly jump into photo mode and quickly pan the camera around to see if there was an angle. Occasionally, there wasn’t, and I’d back out without taking a photo. Other times there was, and I’d tweak and refine the settings while time was frozen. After photographing fleeting moments in the real world—and missing many over the years—it’s powerful to sit in a singular moment indefinitely. I could dial in the settings just right, without worrying the light would fade or a pose would change.

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My favourite technique involved increasing the depth of field slider to maximum, then setting the focus distance to the perfect spot on the subject. Usually, the depth of field was so intense at this point that one slider click in either direction spoiled the focus. After achieving critical focus, I’d reduce the depth of field slider to something that looked natural while also knowing my desired subject was perfectly in focus.

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It doesn’t hurt that the game is beautiful

The combination of a) the game’s on-rails nature and b) the ease of accessing photo mode probably contributed to my (over?) use of photo mode. But without a beautiful game backing those two techniques up, they wouldn’t mean much.

If you’ve played the game you know, The Last of Us Part II’s emotional burden is heavy. I frequently felt like I was playing one of the best games I’ll ever know, and you only get to experience the first play-through once. I’m glad I have these photos as souvenirs.

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Switching to Cronometer After a Year and a Half With MyFitnessPal

March 27, 2021 in Health and Fitness

September 1, 2023 update: Since writing this back in 2021, Cronometer has implemented or fixed many of the detractors I listed at the bottom of the post. The recent foods list is more predictable, it's much easier to access favourite foods, there are quick actions now (not to mention homescreen widgets), and they updated their app icon. I'm still a happy subscriber.

Keeping track of the food that enters your body is a deeply personal thing. We all have our favourite foods and recipes, so when the food tracking habit sticks, tremendous amounts of personalized data accumulates in food tracking apps like MyFitnessPal or Cronometer. This can make the idea of switching apps a complete non-starter. Starting over my food database from the beginning? A daunting task for even the most committed.

And yet, despite these drawbacks, I switched from MyFitnessPal to Cronometer back in June 2020. If you’re like me and also considering the switch I thought it might be helpful to share what I learned along the way.

I’m writing this post for someone already familiar with food trackers—especially MyFitnessPal—but who may be thinking about a switch. It’s split into four sections that should give a comprehensive picture of my experience with Cronometer: what triggered the switch, what I love, what I don’t love, and what’s missing.

Why I switched after a 540-day streak

Not quite the final streak, but still a noteworthy number

I started tracking my food back in January 2019. By then I had built a successful daily exercise habit, but my caloric intake remained a mystery. I had always been too skinny, and was unhappy with how I looked. I downloaded MyFitnessPal on a whim and quickly realized just how little I was eating compared to my activity level. The newfound visibility into my nutrition hooked me and the streak started.

But I was never 100% happy with MyFitnessPal. There always seemed to be bugs regardless of the regular app updates. I didn’t like landing on a newsfeed of fitness articles when all I wanted to do was track some food. And I can’t count the number of in-progress recipes I had lost because the app would crash partway through. It also didn’t feel like there was active development in the areas I cared about (although I was pleased it received some UI love while I was using it). Even with all these misgivings, switching apps meant losing my recipes, meals, favourite foods, and recent foods; and that stopped me from going forward with it.

Around the same time I met with an old friend from design school who was working on a calorie and nutrition tracker called Cronometer. I happily gave it a try, but it didn’t stick for all the reasons above—I had too much data in MyFitnessPal and switching was too much of hassle when what I had worked good enough. But as time went on, Cronometer showed up more often on fitness and nutrition message boards. Once my MyFitnessPal yearly subscription was up for renewal I decided to give Cronometer a try and see how it felt.

I’m a convert now, and that’s why you’re reading this.

What I love about Cronometer

There’s lots to love about Cronometer. From the day-to-day food entry experience, to the bigger picture nutrition reporting and increased visibility, the whole experience is more enjoyable than what I had with MyFitnessPal.

Food entry

You’ll feel right at home entering food if you’ve used MyFitnessPal. There’s a barcode scanner, a search box with access to many food databases, and the option to add custom foods. Right away there are some differences, though. The databases (yes, multiple!) in Cronometer are outstanding, and they know it. Notable mention: I love that when I inadvertently choose food from a database with missing nutrient data, Cronometer offers to switch me to a database with more/better information.

Multi-entry

The multi-food entry works great too. It’s easy to queue up a whole meal’s worth of food (or more) and log it all in one go. I know this was possible in MyFitnessPal, but something about the implementation prevented it from becoming a regular part of my workflow.

Drag-and-drop between meals

I sure hope that MyFitnessPal has added this by now, but rejoice because Cronometer has drag-and-drop support for moving foods between meals. It feels crazy to call this a killer feature, but coming from MyFitnessPal where moving food from one meal to another involved a bunch of taps, it absolutely is.

Copy and paste from other days

If you’re consistent (aka boring) like me, you probably eat a lot of the same foods each day. At first, I desperately missed the “copy yesterday’s meal” swipe gesture from MyFitnessPal, but once I found multi-select mode in Cronometer that desire evaporated. See, with MyFitnessPal I’d swipe over a whole meal and then make any edits—deleting foods, moving them around, and adjusting portion sizes. It turns out that copy and paste is what I actually wanted all along because of the increased flexibility. With multi-select and copy and paste, I can omit foods I didn’t eat again when I make the selection, then paste them into the proper place in today’s food diary.

That being said, I do wish it was easier to get into multi-select mode. I know it’s only two taps away, but compared to an innovative and fast select mode found in Things, entering multi-select can feel a little slow at times.

Nutrition report

One of the Cronometer features I immediately fell in love with were the trends and nutrition reports. In MyFitnessPal I explored then promptly ignored these. In Cronometer, the reports felt highly actionable. They summarize the macro and micronutrients in your food and show you the areas where you could be doing better. I used MyFitnessPal for a year and a half and never noticed any deficiencies. I used Cronometer for two weeks and discovered significant zinc and magnesium deficiencies.

The trends section is also highly customizable. I have goals for weight, calories consumed, and protein intake; and these are available across web and mobile.

Flexible macronutrient planning

I love that Cronometer doesn’t force goals for each of the macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats, and protein). Instead, I can set goals by gram or percentage for calories, protein, and fats, then completely ignore the carbohydrate goal. Not because I love pasta and pizza (because I do), but because carbs will always be my “remainder” macronutrient after I hit my protein and fats goals.

Food entry during recipe creation is great

I deeply appreciate that Cronometer’s recipe entry uses the same food entry used in day-to-day entry. This sounds like an obvious thing, until you realize that entering a recipe in MyFitnessPal meant learning a completely new user interface missing favourite or recent food entries.

Explode recipes in the diary

Have you ever added an existing recipe to your food diary but needed to make a substitution? Maybe you only had cow’s milk when your recipe calls for soy milk? In MyFitnessPal I’d temporarily edit the recipe, log it to the diary, then revert the recipe. In Cronometer it’s possible to add the recipe to the diary, then explode the ingredients and make substitutions right inline. Side note: A more conservative designer (like me) would’ve called this feature “Expand Recipe”, but “Explode Recipe” is dope and I hope it never changes.

The web app is fantastic

This depends on your desktop and mobile usage, but I’ve loved having a web app that works great. It’s fast. Unfortunately, MyFitnessPal’s web experience always felt like a completely different app with different entry methods from mobile. With Cronometer, the apps feel like they’re made by the same team and there’s platform parity—even if things don’t necessarily look identical. In other words, once I learned the mobile app, I could use the web app without any issue. One more shout out to drag and drop because it exists on the web, too.

More visibility into gaining and losing weight

The more I use Cronometer the more excited I get about how it simplifies weight gain and weight loss. With Cronometer, my daily calorie goal is adjusted automatically based on:

Daily morning weigh-ins
Activity tracked by my Apple Watch

Let’s start with the daily weigh-ins and some examples. If I weighed 150 lb (ca. 68 kg) yesterday my basal metabolic rate (BMR) would be 1,996 calories. If I weigh 151 lb (ca. 68.5 kg) today my BMR would be 2,006 calories. Cronometer watches for these weigh-ins by connecting to Apple’s Health app, then recalculates the daily calorie goal completely behind-the-scenes.

Pairing Cronometer with something like an Apple Watch will also add calories burned during exercise and non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) to the daily goal, giving a comprehensive picture of total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) (the accuracy of fitness trackers notwithstanding).

If your eyes glazed over while reading the above, I can sum it up as follows. By weighing in every morning, wearing my Apple Watch, and telling Cronometer that I want to lose/maintain/gain weight, my calorie goal automatically adjusts every day.

Pairing all the above with a persistent weight chart on the web app’s dashboard has given me high visibility into my weight goal progress with much less manual effort.

Things I’m still not used to

That’s not to say the transition to Cronometer wasn’t without some issues. There are some things I’m either still not used to after making the switch or have learned to work around.

Recent foods are unpredictable

To start, the recent foods section feels unpredictable and unlike what I was used to with MyFitnessPal. For example, when I searched for almonds in MyFitnessPal, there was some kind of priority sorting in the search results for foods that I had previously and frequently logged. The almonds I regularly ate would appear at the top of the list. I haven’t found the same kind of priority sorting in Cronometer (or if it is there, it either isn’t aggressive enough or doesn’t seem as helpful). Even worse, my favourite foods don’t show up at the top.

I’m guessing that’s because once a food search starts, the app enters a strict list of results instead of a blend of recents/favourites/results. I’d prefer the blended results list with weighting toward favourites, then recents, then the remaining results. As a workaround, I’ve learned to rely more on the favourites list, as well as copying and pasting between days. I’d also love to see a little favourite icon in a food’s row to reinforce that yes, this is the exact food you’ve entered and favourited before.

Easier access to food entry filters like “Favourites”

I don’t think the increased reliance on favourites I talked about above would be as much of an issue if Cronometer also had easier access to the favourites and recents filter. Unfortunately, they’re buried in a drawer instead of presented as tabs across the top of the view as in MyFitnessPal. It’s not quite right to just count the taps to get into the drawer (because on the surface two taps doesn’t sound like much of an interaction burden). Instead, it’s the reorientation of where I am and the selection that makes food entry seem more tedious than it needs to be. Design nitpick: the drawer button is on the right, but the drawer opens from the left which disrupts the spatial feel of the app.

“Frequently eaten together” suggestions

I also miss the frequently eaten together section of MyFitnessPal. For example, I’ll have Wasa crackers with various toppings fairly often—maybe peanut butter one day, jam the next, then avocado on another. This variety means it doesn’t make as much sense for me to create a meal or recipe. When I logged Wasa crackers in MyFitnessPal, there was usually—but not always (maybe a bug?)—a little section that said frequently eaten together. From there I could pick my topping du jour and log it without needing to type peanut butter again. It was a handy shortcut and something I miss.

Updated logo and app icon

Finally, and I wonder how much of this comes from me also being a designer, I would love to see an updated logo or app icon for this company. The current logo does nothing but make this great product look dated. And since the nature and frequency of use means this app likely shows up on many home screens, it should be beautiful. Maybe Louie and Alexa could help?

Things that are just plain missing

Unlike the previous section that explained the differences between Cronometer and MyFitnessPal, the following are things that I’ve found to be straight-up missing.

Offline mode

I went on a hike in the mountains and the cellular signal wasn’t reliable. We sat down for lunch and a friend gave me a bar. I opened Cronometer to scan the barcode and was instead greeted by the login screen. There was no message about the app being offline and no “save a barcode for later” feature. There was just a blank login screen staring back at me. I intuited this was probably how they were dealing with offline mode, but there should’ve been at least a message to explain this. There was no hope for logging in without any cellular signal, so I noted the barcode for later.

Note: Since writing this section I’ve seen some limited offline support, but it’s hit-and-miss. Occasionally, I land on my food diary with a limited connectivity message, other times I see the login screen, and I can’t figure out why that’s the case.

I mention this omission knowing offline support is a difficult problem to solve. For example, the barcode I scanned that day wouldn’t have been able to match anything in the database. But I wonder if there’s an opportunity to leave notes for myself while the food database was offline. Or maybe I could select from my favourites? The workaround for the day meant opening Things and leaving a reminder to log my food later alongside a list of what I ate.

Not easy an easy feature to implement, and probably low on the list given its complexity and (I’m guessing) low frequency of occurrence. But at the very least, I’d like to see a customized and informative offline alert when opening the app—not a cold redirect to the login screen.

Quick actions

I’m still missing the home screen quick action to access the barcode scanner. MyFitnessPal had an option to skip straight to the barcode scanner from the home screen, and it wasn’t until I lost it that I realized just how much I used it.

Time- or meal-based food suggestions

This is not something that MyFitnessPal had, but I would love to see more suggested foods for a meal. For example, since my lunches look similar most days, I’d love to open the app at lunch and see some suggestions. Maybe some small piece of UI like “Logging lunch? Here’s what you normally eat around now” and then I could confirm or reject the suggestions?

However, even just a quick evaluation of non-happy path cases reveals a bunch of issues. What about when I forget to log lunch and log it in the evening instead? Would it still work? What if I go out for lunch that day? Are all these meal suggestion rejections a bunch of extra work? It’s full of complexity, but I could also see it being a big time saver, and potentially easing the habit building burden that newer customers face.

Reordering meals

Much like MyFitnessPal, I can’t reorder meals in Cronometer. Thankfully, I started off on the right foot because I knew my desired meal setup and learned my lessons from MyFitnessPal.

Here’s the use case: I started MyFitnessPal with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but as I got more into nutrition I started adding in my snacks. As a result, my meals ended up looking like this in MyFitnessPal:

Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Afternoon snack
Evening snack

It may not look like much, but having the afternoon snack entry listed after dinner in MyFitnessPal always threw me off.

Since that’s two food tracking apps in a row that don’t allow meal reordering I’m starting to wonder if there’s some hidden technical complexity here.

Better iOS citizen

Finally, I wish the app was a better iOS citizen, but I fully acknowledge this is likely my designer bias coming through and not something that most people would notice. There are a few specific things worth mentioning. There’s some of Google’s Material Design creeping into things like all caps buttons and date pickers. We’ve grappled with the same problems in our apps at YNAB and decided to use the individual OS’ resources wherever possible instead of adhering to perfect consistency across platforms. Buttons in our apps look like the corresponding iOS or Android buttons. The same goes for tabs, navigation bars, and segmented controls. I think it makes the app feel more at home on the operating system, thus, more familiar for the customer.

Additionally, I use my iPad quite a bit and the lack of split screen and multitasking has tripped me up a few times. When I was logging my food after the hike that day, I tried putting the food notes in Things on the left and Cronometer on the right, but that wasn’t possible. It’s also not possible to place a recipe app like Paprika on the left and Cronometer on the right to copy over the ingredients. Fewer and fewer apps have this split screen limitation so when one does, it tends to stick out. My workaround involves using the web app on my iPad where things are a little more responsive. Speaking from experience, this was not a small undertaking for the app I work on. Prioritizing iPad work is usually tricky because it’s a smaller audience and there’s an endless list of iPhone, Android, and web features/fixes that would affect more customers.

Wrapping up

I’ll sum it up like this: I wish I made the switch sooner. Cronometer makes for a more enjoyable food tracking experience. I’m also thrilled to support a Canadian company. (It’s a bonus that they’re semi-local! Hi Revelstoke!) But supporting something local is a tougher sell if the product you’re getting is inferior in some way. Thankfully, the folks over at Cronometer made the decision an easy one because there’s a lot to love about the product.

Happy gaining/losing/maintaining! And give Cronometer a try if you’re thinking about a switch.

Disclaimer

I know a designer who works at Cronometer (hi Laura!) and we naturally talk about our work when we get together. I was gifted six months of Cronometer Gold (the paid subscription tier) because I’m a friend of Laura, not because I’m writing this post. The six months have since expired, and I’ve been a happily paying Cronometer customer for some time now.

The Month in Photos: February 2021

March 22, 2021 in Photography

February! What an appallingly cold month (with the exception of that one day at the start when I was able to take my bike out). I should know, I spent two and half hours outside in –30°C on a long run. I sincerely questioned my sanity on that run, but then I reminded myself I’m just a tough motherfucker 🤗 Thankfully the frigid weather was offset by warm inside activities. Late night home workouts warming the body and soul, the classic Mason Family Super Bowl Feast™ didn’t disappoint (does it ever?), and the returning late day sun making for the orangest walls of the year. Welcome Spring, you were missed.

This Month in Photos: January 2021

February 19, 2021 in Photography

January mostly continued the mild winter trend until the very end of the month, which made for some exciting intra-seasonal changes. It was quiet—spent with those in my bubble (when safe) and the usual hobbies. Here are a few of my favourite photos from the month.

Jan 1: Rang in the new year with family, puzzles, and Animal Crossing. Great fireworks, even if they were just on a screen.

Jan 6. Capitol riots day. Watching the coverage during a late night workout.

Jan 7: The George C. King bridge—my favourite bridge in the city—during an evening run.

Jan 8: Gourmet dinner plus ambiance. You better believe that's the PC White Cheddar variety and not KD. Bowls by the talented Laura Sand.

Jan 16: YNAB's retreat went virtual in 2020 and—not breaking tradition—they had a tailor-made puzzle designed by our very own Lauren Coulson. Instead of the team effort found at normal in-person retreats, everyone went solo this year and I finally finished mine up.

Jan 20: Homemade veggie poutine and burgers with the fam.

Jan 21: Ice, ice floes, or icebergs? Regardless, the Bow River is filled with them right now. I pay attention to it when I'm out running because, while it changes slowly, it's always a signal of time passing.

Jan 23: Major changes along the riverwalk near Eau Claire. Nearly all of the large trees were chopped down making for some new sightlines. I was sad to see the trees go, but they've done such a nice job with the landscaping elsewhere I've gotta imagine this will turn out just as good. It's a bit barren right now, and I was getting FernGully vibes from the piles of chopped trees.

Jan 23: The night before the big freeze, signaling the end of the mild winter.

Jan 24: Hoarfrost details during an early morning run.

Jan 24: More hoarfrost along the Bow River pathway.

Jan 27: RGB colour mixing with three Philips Hue lights. I was surpised how vivid the mixed colours turned out. That's some strong cyan, yellow, and magenta made entirely from red, green, and blue.

The Relationships Monologue from Before Sunset

February 01, 2021

I watched Before Sunset on a whim one night. I didn’t know anything going into it—only that it came highly recommended from a friend. It started slow, but I was immediately struck by how authentic the interaction between the two actors felt. They moved from awkwardness to vulnerability in only 80 minutes.

About halfway into the film on a boat in the Seine, Céline talks about past flings and relationships. She talks about how her past lovers haunt her. Each lover being this collection of mundane, beautiful behaviours and qualities, and how she mourns their passage in and out of her life. I literally sat up on the couch and leaned as close to the TV as I could while she said all this. We get, what, maybe a handful of these kinds of connections throughout our lives—knowing someone like few ever will. What a precious treasure that is.

“I always feel like a freak because I’m never able to move on like (snaps her fingers) this! You know? People just have an affair or even… entire relationships… they break up and they forget! They move on like they would have changed brand of cereals! I feel I was never able to forget anyone I’ve been with. Because each person have… their own specific qualities. You can never replace anyone. What is lost is lost.

Each relationship when it ends really damages me; I never fully recover. That’s why I’m very careful with getting involved because… it hurts too much! Even getting laid - I actually don’t do that. I will miss of the person the most mundane things. Like I’m obsessed with little things.

Maybe I’m crazy, but… when I was a little girl, my mom told me that I was always late to school. One day she followed me to see why. I was looking at chestnuts falling from the trees rolling on the sidewalk or… ants crossing the road… the way a leaf casts a shadow on a tree trunk… little things. I think it’s the same with people. I see in them little details so specific to each of them that move me and that I miss, and… will always miss. You can never replace anyone, because everyone is made of such beautiful specific details.”

— Céline in Before Sunset