"Very valuable" prizes and non-functioning sections: what's wrong with the "Vyatka in the palm of your hand" app

      On May 21, a tourist quest officially started in the Kirov region through the "Vyatka in the palm of your hand" app, timed to the 90th anniversary of the region. The organizers announced a large-scale project aimed at introducing residents and guests of the region to the attractions of almost all municipalities in the area. During the presentation at the Tourism Development Center, it was reported that 44 out of 45 municipalities in the region are participating in the project. The only exception was the closed administrative-territorial formation of Permomaisky, which is extremely difficult for tourists to access.

      For participants, more than a hundred attractions were prepared that they need to visit and confirm their presence with photos through the mobile app. At that time, the organizers stated that the app was developed from scratch by Kirov programmers and equipped with mechanisms to protect against the use of old photos and fake images.

      Particular interest was sparked by the organizers' promises regarding prizes. The head of the Tourism Development Center, Alexey Cheptsov, stated that very valuable prizes await the winners. Moreover, due to the interest of businesses in the project, the awards could become even more substantial. However, we could not find any detailed information about the prizes in any sources, so there is a high probability that the most active tourists will be personally greeted by Alexander Sokolov on the theater square, and maybe he will also present a certificate (or, as they say in simple terms: "A badge for being...").

      Travel, Vyatka! A few weeks after the quest started, it was presented at the international tourism forum "Travel!" at VDNH in Moscow. The Kirov region brought a special tourist stand dedicated to the region's anniversary. Governor Alexander Sokolov personally told the project to Dmitry Chernyshenko, Deputy Chairman of the Government of Russia, and Victoria Abramchenko, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma. At that time, the head of the region stated that more than a thousand people from different regions of the country are participating in the quest, and the app itself helps to get acquainted with the attractions of the Kirov region.

      What do the numbers say? On June 11, the Tourism Development Center published the first results of such a large-scale project (Just don't fall! We ask particularly impressionable readers not to read the next two paragraphs, as one might be overwhelmed with pride for their region from the following numbers). According to official data, nearly 1,000 people registered for the quest. The number of approved visits to attractions amounted to 1,041. The organizers also reported that 36 participants visited more than 5% of the quest objects, 16 people exceeded the 10% mark, and three leaders visited more than 25% of the locations.

      At first glance, the numbers look impressive, likely due to how they are presented to readers. However, in practice, if we translate the percentages into real numbers, the situation does not appear as impressive. The app currently indicates the need to visit 133 points. Thus:

      5% of the route is about 7 objects

      10% of the route is about 13 objects

      25% of the route is about 33 objects.

      It turns out that out of nearly a thousand registered participants, only 55 people managed to visit at least seven attractions. About 945 participants have not even reached this figure yet.

      Of course, the quest will last until the end of October, so it is too early to draw final conclusions. However, the initial results show that a significant portion of users either registered out of curiosity or have not yet started actively completing the route. Out of great love for our native land, we wanted to see what gift the government prepared for the anniversary of the Kirov region and to experience what the "Vyatka in the palm of your hand" app is like. Spoiler: it was quite... bad.

      Let's start with the "News" tab, which does not function at all. When trying to open the section, the app reports problems: "Something went wrong. Check your internet connection." Meanwhile, the other sections work without any difficulties. The internet on the device also continues to function normally. In fact, users receive a message about the lack of connection specifically within that section of the app. Interestingly, the app's information states that the source of news is the official information website of the Kirov region government. Perhaps the government simply does not want to inform tourists about events in the region and has put a placeholder in this section.

      The "Poster" section looks equally strange. Users are offered only four exhibitions to visit and a total of eleven performances. One does not need to be deeply immersed in the cultural life of the city to understand that there are more events in the city, especially considering how the governor loves to celebrate any holiday with great fanfare. For a service that positions itself as a tourist navigator throughout the Kirov region, such a lineup of events looks rather modest, especially given that one of the app's tasks is to introduce tourists to the cultural life of the region.

      Questions also arise regarding the public transport section. When viewing some routes, incomprehensible lines appear on the map. Sometimes they connect the final stops with a straight line across the entire city. In other cases, connections between stops are displayed that do not seem logical in terms of actual transport movement. This can be explained in two ways. Either our city has invented the first flying public transport, or the app was made with closed eyes on someone's lap overnight. Such errors do not render the service completely useless, but they can confuse tourists trying to navigate the city. The idea is good, to give tourists a place where they can be guided through all the locations and shown how to get there, but the implementation turned out to be very far from ideal.

      Continuing our journey through this amazing "technological marvel," we delved into the next section - "Places." This should be one of the key elements of the app. Here, the attractions of Kirov and the region are gathered, places where tourists can stop or spend their time usefully, as well as spots where they can grab a bite and relax. The cards for places include addresses, hours of operation, links, and other useful information.

      And everything would be fine, but... Many descriptions display large empty spaces between lines, which significantly worsens readability and raises questions about the developers' attitude towards the product, who did not even bother to check their creation from the user's perspective before launch (or they did check and hoped for "maybe"). Moreover, some texts almost literally repeat publications already posted on other websites, even without fact-checking. For example, in the card for the Theater on Spasskaya, the following information is stated: "...over 70 years on the stage of the Youth Theater, performances by 60 directors have been staged...". Where did the other 21 years of the theater's work go, and why was it rejuvenated at all?

      Another example is the card for the "Troitsky" mineral spring. There, at the end of the place's description, they unnecessarily added a chemical formula. You may ask, why do tourists need this information? We have no idea, apparently for the sake of broadening their horizons.

      The next example is the Victory Park. The description begins like this: "Ice rink Kirov | Victory Park," and then the advantages of the ICE RINK are listed, while there is zero information about the Victory Park itself. How many years has the park existed? What is there? What events are held? And, recalling recent events, how many trees are still alive in this park? Indeed, why would this information be relevant to a tourist? One could just take random text from the internet and insert it without even rereading it or considering whether it fits the place at all.

      The question of who the authors of these texts are is another conversation. Through a quick internet search, we found that they are completely copied and simply inserted into these blocks from completely different (and sometimes the most unexpected) sources. In the originals, we found both official sources (such as the Botanical Garden with text from the official VyatSU website; the card for the Annunciation Church with text from the Yaran Diocese website; the previously mentioned Theater on Spasskaya and others) and just absolutely random, illogical websites and social media posts from ordinary people (Zhukovlyansky boulders, with text taken from the page of one of the users on VKontakte from July 22, 2021; the previously mentioned "Troitsky" mineral spring with text also from VKontakte from another user on February 13, 2023; and the Victory Park, which suddenly became an ice rink, took its description from the same-named group on VKontakte. This list could go on indefinitely).

      It is difficult to say what principle was used to select these texts (we won't even mention the photos of the attractions... we'll talk about them in the next section). There is no hint of logic in the developers' actions here. As a result, the reference information that should help tourists get acquainted with the region looks raw and needs significant additional work.

      If you thought it couldn't get worse, I hasten to inform you! It definitely will. They say "don't judge a book by its cover," however, as you may have noticed, in our work of "Vyatka folk software development creativity," there is nothing substantial, so I still suggest taking a look at the app's visual design "Vyatka in the palm of your hand." Intuitively incomprehensible, lagging, and absolutely,