As a longstanding, daily user of the iOS app and lately a beta-tester I feel compelled to add my voice to the growing concerns here. Sad to say, this app is no longer fun to use. The insistence on ever-increasing graphics, icons and rocket ship gimmickry at the expense of user experience has made it a tedious chore. I’ve been avoiding the app whereas before I was enthusiastic about reviewing and learning new words. As a result, I’ve fallen behind and now have hundreds of words outstanding.
The latest beta released today, with the rebranded icon and altered colour schemes sees a further step away from everything that made Memrise so appealing to me when I first started using it 18 months ago. The point about planting, growing and watering mems is that the analogy worked and it was done in a non-intrusive way. Unlike this rocket ship nonsense which seems an indulgence on the part of the programmers. In another app it might be fine, but in Memrise it’s plain wrong, detracting totally from the user experience.
If the aim was to alienate and lose longstanding users then frankly, job done. Really think you ought to take a step back and review the whole direction and purpose of this app.
I’m still using the last version of the app before someone decided that usability and visibility of information took a much lower priority over loads of graphics and pointless gamification aimed at new users with 2 courses and 15 words learned…
I won’t update until I get the feeling that the app is actually usable again, it does not have the be the exact same design as before. Or, of course, Memrise in their wisdom disable users of earlier apps, in which case I’m gone, too
All this new layout reminds me one Chinese proverb I learnt thanks to Memrise - 画蛇添足, it means something like “to add feet when painting a snake”, i.e. to “improve” something that doesn’t need this kind of “improvement”.
Memrise has been quite clear on this point. The development team has not changed. The staff on the bus is not the same as the “working team”. So no worries there.
But they have also made clear that this visual development is something they are dedicated into. They work on making it better and satisfying old “power users” too. We need patience and give assistance (for the beta-users.)
When you make a decision you must work on it until everything you can try fails or is unsatisfactory. But you can’t track back as soon as there is a snag on the way.
That isn’t how development works. Some functions may separate and quick to deploy, but most - especially in a complex systems like this one - take a while to build and you’ll only see them after all the necessary parts have been put in place.
There may very well have been changes on the inside, where we don’t see them yet.
Having been a programmer, I don’t need programme development explained to me.
I am familiar with it.
I am a Beta Tester for Memrise. We have had two updates now and as I said - not ONE change to functionality.
If none of our concerns/compliants are being addressed in the Beta updates, then it is going ro be a long time coming - possibly never that they’ll be addressed at all.
It is extremely disappointing that Memrise don’t seem to be bothered.
They are strangely silent on the matter. Not even an encouraging word to say “Hey, we’ve heard your criticisms/complaints and we’re doing something to address them”.
I think a better way to improve the app would be to incorporate features that are currently only available on the website version of Memrise and which enhance the learning/reviewing process.
I disagree with you, the rocket launching animation is a lot faster, as the rocket does not go all the way as it used to do. On long courses, it saves time. It was one major bugbear that was raised.
still unusable… I have a certain age, not that my hair got grey or something, but. And I am on a fast track with Chinese (and Indonesian and Spanish), i.e. I cram, I have to. The last thing I need is overgamification; the website is already too heavy with. That rocket stuff is annoying like… and I need overview… the app is a no-go for me.
This being the case Memrise could solve all the problems immediately by offering a single setting option to revert to the classic interface. This would allow the 81% (57 to 11 respondents) of people who’d rather use the old design to keep using the app while memrise fixes/improves the new one.
This is a good idea. Developers often avoid the “allow us to switch between the old and new layout” as a permanent solution, because then every time they make a change to the app, they need to update both layouts. It creates double the work for the team, and double the amount of potential bugs. But in this case, as a temporary solution, I think it’s a very good idea.
It’s clear to most that the new layout is a big step behind the old one in terms of usability. However, I think Memrise has some kind of grand vision for the new design and are confident that it will eventually be better. Right now, I think it is an unfortunate case of them releasing it publicly far too soon. With this potential solution, they don’t even need to touch or update the old one at all, and they can continue focusing all their attention on the new layout. If and when the new layout is adequately fixed, then they can start to phase out the old layout.
A good lesson to be learned for both the Memrise team and any other developers out there: It’s always a good idea to slowly ease your users into new changes. It’s never a good idea to completely uproot your application and make huge, radical changes to the layout that appear out of the blue overnight.
As @Andrea_Mo3 says, it is hard to remember what was when.
But I seem to remember being pulled onto the Beta before the change to the new animation. I did not deplore the slow down at the time, it was not an issue for me in my learning experience. So Memrise did sample the reviews of the Beta-testers before going live with the new app, IF what I remember is correct. But I feel they were already committed to the new style. Their work is now on making it work.
Right now I do not have any functional issues with Memrise.
I feel resentment because they have drawn back the offline mode from non-paying members, even if I wouldn’t use it now.
And I do not like that it is more and more colourful.
And the official Memrise German course is badly constructed. It contains some “exotic” words instead the everyday ones.
(off topic: many thanks! but … that’s not from Anki, but from the University of Hawai’i, http://indonesianway.com/tiw/lessons/index.htm it is free - the creators ask for donations, not fees - and has been around for some years. I registered as user some time ago . Also, on Memrise there are several “the indonesian way” courses No offense intended, please)
And no offense taken, BTW, I know what is the source of the course - if I remember correctly U. Kozok and G. Quinn were mentioned even in that short description on Anki website. I wish you well with your studies!
I am using the app as a beta tester. I really don’t like it that much. Why change the flower colour? And what’s the point of the purple coming over the screen when you’ve learnt a word? Green and purple, wired colour combination. I now see the mems too, I know some people like them and find them useful but some are truly awful and not helpful, can I remove them? I just feel the new update is not a real improvement, too much messing about with design.
A simple minimalist design would be nice…
. Also, on Memrise there are several “the indonesian way” courses 
No offense intended, please)
