TechTool review of Upshot by Clay Smith on iOS (reviewed on iPhone)
Website: – iTunes - Android - Website - Twitter
Upshot is a new app by Keeping Up, providing the user with succinct summaries of recent research. The articles are digested and critically appraised so a quick read is all that’s needed to keep up. Each month the articles are updated
Design and User Interface
- Nice logo and splashscreen and the navigation works well. I always appreciate customised icons and there are some lovely ones in the ‘category’ page (see screenshot).
- However, in the actual article review pages, some of the graphics aren’t great quality and would benefit from a redesign – but this doesn’t impair the ability to use the app. The top half of the page is a giant graphic of the mark and then a user feedback question so it takes a while to see the actual article review (this could be easily resolved).
Clinical Content
- Article summaries – around 20 articles reviewed each month from 50 high-quality journals
- Each article has been critically appraised by a team of professionals and rated on quality and relevance
- The ‘Keeping Up Channel’ shows the user a feed of Keeping Up’s podcasts
- Free – as it’s a work in progress then that’s fair enough
Room for Improvement
- Redesign the graphics and layout of the actual article review pages
- More content on there would be good but it may be difficult to keep up with the volume of work this would require
- Some explanation as to what the ‘Keeping Up Score’ means would help the user understand the articles more
Overall
Upshot has bags of potential. Having up-to-date, relevant articles that have been peer-appraised available on your iPhone for easy reading is ace. It is a work in progress, and a few simple design changes would make it more user friendly. I look forward to watching it develop and improve – and the developers could easily charge for this once it’s a bit more established.
About Tessa Davis
Hi Tessa,
Thanks for highlighting this app, looks very useful.
Just worth a mention it is also available for free on Android via Google Play
Thanks,
John
Thanks Tessa….
Its great to get your insights on these Tech matters.
I have 200 odd medical apps.
Make that 201 odd apps……
I have to delete a few.
Do you have a spread sheet or database or other resource of the best apps you have come across?
Yes, I have a similar problem. But there are only a few I use regularly and that are therefore my favourites. Would be interesting to see screenshots of people’s mobile phone main screen/medical apps folder to see who uses what. Might be a good twitter project for TechTool Thursday.