As for any other user based platform, the feedback we receive from our users is very valuable and highly contributes to Impacter development and improvement. Thus, based on some of the feedback we received, during the last few months we have been working on improving Impacter and the updated version is now online.
One of the most evident changes is the look and feel of Impacter results and how the dashboard feedback is presented. Although the previous dashboard design provided valuable and clear feedback, we often heard users focusing on the grades and getting frustrated when those wouldn’t immediately improve in response to direct changes in the proposal. This got us thinking how we could move away from grading and the summative feedback we were providing.
During the first week of July, we received three UvA students (see blog post) who, through their experience and knowledge, helped us with the first steps towards a more formative feedback dashboard. From there, we got rid of the 0-10 grading system but kept the color-coded priority list. In this way, rather than focusing on getting all categories on a 10, the user can, based on the colour of the category, see which areas could use more immediate feedback (red) and which probably require less attention (green). The user can then explore each of the categories and subcategories, read a short description/comment and see which words we have found regarding the subcategories in the uploaded document. By going through the identified words, the user can read Impacter’s comments/suggestions and interact with the newly integrated LLM for AI suggestions (read more here).
Similarly to the previous version of Impacter, the user can also download a word file where all the identified words are highlighted, as well as the corresponding comments/suggestions. We hope these changes improve the user’s experience when interacting with the tool and we look forward to continue helping to write better grant proposals. Feel free to reach out if you have any suggestions.