User Research Results

[bertob]

Testing at 39C3

• Maybe change "this device" to "you" in the device list?
• Without the Connection Mode title and the network status tiles the network/offline toggle looks like a view switcher
  • Will probably be fixed once we add those?
• Would be nice to have a static indicator that you're all synced up (e.g. so you know at a glance that you can close the computer), a bit like the "document health" indicator in toolkitty
• Spelling mistake highlight underlines are hidden when you move the cursor into the word
• After changing the spell check language the underlines don't update until the cursor is near the word
• Encountered a de-sync which was fixed by reopening the session (couldn't log)
• People were confused there's no way to see the edit history
• Hard to know who you are in the user list
• Hard to see your own cursor. Highlighting a sentence is a "work-around"
• People didn't find the emoji picker
• Would be cool if Reflection ran in the background so folks could pick up on the share even if nobody's working on it currently
• Would be fun if users could name themselves so i could see who some of those other 20 folks were

[bertob]

Testing at BTO9

14 February 2026, 5 participants, 45min sessions, by Eileen Wagner

Network

• Network UI comes across as very prominent
  • Tradeoff: we do want network activity to be prominent for security reasons
• Icons are unclear
  • Several people thought the "network" (world) icon meant choosing the language of the document
  • USB looked like a network cable to some, which is the opposite meaning
• Offline/Network terminology is unclear
  • Syncing /Paused or Connected / Disconnected?
  • Network was misunderstood as maybe including Bluetooth as well

Editor

• All kinds of issues for people who don't know markdown (expected/out of scope)

Sharing

• People expected a URL rather than the code
• One person didn't expect others to have to install the same app to collaborate (expected the sharing to work in the browser?)
• People expected a contact list to share to
• The code’s visual form factor was confusing to some (“columns or rows?”)
• People wanted permissions and revocable sharing links

Merging/Conflicts

• CRDT automatic merging behavior was not easy to understand/predict, which was anxiety-inducing
• People expected to be able to review what would be merged when coming back online, change indicators, or authorship colors
• People wanted a “what changed since I last saw this” indicator

Data Storage

• People were wondering where the "real" file is on disk (doesn't exist since it's in sqlite), were anxious about whether the data was being saved at all
• Several people were looking for a way to export plain .txt/md files
• Perhaps we should consider exporting all files every 30s to a user-visible folder somewhere, even if the real file lives in the DB?
  • Unclear how to set expectations around editing with other tools then though...

Other requests:

• Markdown autocomplete (e.g. bullets)
• Editable user names (out of scope until we have a path forward for identity)
• Command palette
• Rendered markdown preview
• Tabs (out of scope)
• Separately editable document title
• "Save As..." (probably covered by export)
• QR code for sharing join code Allow joining documents via QR code #221
• Deeplink URLs
• Linking between documents (probably doable with deeplinks + some in-app UI?)

UI Papercuts

• "Pad" is weird for non-native english speakers - maybe "Doc"?
• Collaborator cursor positions are hard to see
• Text view typography:
  • Limit line width to 60-120 chars
  • Adjust line height
• Share icon is an Android-ism, would iOS only users recognize it?
• Maybe drop the spaces in join codes to make them easier to copy/paste?