On twitter the company head asked people to “give it a few days” to get used to it. 
So please KEEP commenting and tweeting and down-rating the app on the play store etc and don’t let it blow over. Obviously they are hoping that after the initial shock we’ll get used to it and stop complaining.
Another big thread about Decks showed a lot of good ideas about how to get voices heard - emailing various people including investors, user ratings, etc. Maybe we can follow the same example?
Just adding my voice: Detest the new layout and it’s actually impeding upon my learning. They need to roll it back or at least let those of us who want it keep the old layout.
It’s interesting to correlate this to the transition Google web apps did when they moved to Material Design look and feel (and colors). Few is any complained about the colors and layouts, but complained about certain features no longer available (like the natural language creation of Calendar entries that Google put in place a month later based on negative user feedback). Here it’s the opposite, same features but just the color and look features made Memrise users unhappy.
He’s still using the forum at least. His profile indicates that he has been “seen 3 days” ago. However, his last post was on 03/20. I’m afraid the Memrise team seems to mainly be exercising themselves in reservation these days. Might be due to general business politics/strategy or a top brass commandment. 
They did at least remove those hideous blobs behind the usernames…doubt that was in response to user feedback though, presumably the project manager came out of her psychedelic trance and realised what an embarrassment they were.
Masha_Ignatova48 (researcher at the Memrise Team) responded to concerns about the new app:
On the App Store the developers have responded a few times to negative reviews on the redesign, but mostly just defending their design explaining they wanted a “more mature” theme. In their responses they used winking emojis so I’m not sure if they’re taking this very serious…
I doubt this is a mature theme, exactly.
It’s all a big joke to them right now. Very unfortunate that they treat their userbase so poorly. I never imagined Memrise would turn out like this. I hope they’ll address all the complaints properly, but that’s already long overdue at this point.
do they even have the skills to improve the platform? Is that why they keep changing the design? because they can’t actually fix this? They have taken away so many useful features and replaced them with what, colour scheme after colour scheme after gimmick 
what about all the people who hate this new design? thats alot of people who will cancel/not buy another subscription.
dont use those styles if you can find other resources for learning. even if i did not have other resources for learning, i would not use memrise at all, bc i simply dont want to support the company at this point. im telling everyone to stay far away from memrise.
I really doubt that a lot of people will do that because of a bad design.
I cancelled my subscription and got a refund because of it. I had just finished trialling it and one of the reasons I subscribed was because of its nice environment and fun theme. The new design destroyed that for me and it was no longer the service I had paid for, so I put in for a refund. I still like the content and I’m checkign back often to see if they make the promised “improvements” and I may sign up again, but I’m certainly not going to subscribe until this horrible mistake has been addressed.
I used the word not a lot because I know that some people would.
I understand that, but I think you underestimate how many might do so. I’ve stuck around with the free access because I do value the content and want to see the service restored to something less ghastly, but if I find another site with good content for Arabic I’ll probably leave entirely, and I suspect many others already have. Maybe not long-term users with a lot of time and effort invested, but newer users? Goodbye. For most other major languages, Memrise just has too many viable competitors that people can go to so they don’t bother voicing their desire for change and will just go. If I were studying, e.g. French, I’d have left entirely long since. I’ve seen several threads of individuals trying to find out how to cancel or request a refund because of the memrise changes, and that’s just the fraction of people who needed help to do so and found the forums; it doesn’t reflect how many just quietly left without saying anything. I strongly suspect there will be a lot more cancelled subscriptions than are visible to the average user.
OMG, that’s why I joined this forum, it’s so off-putting and distracting. Really really dislike. I wonder if they did any kind of user testing?
For me, it really affects usability, cause it’s that distracting. Since there are so many alternatives out there, I would rather pick an interface that I like, or at least doesn’t really bother me.
There were beta tests on the layout. Users complained then too, apparently to no avail.
Exactly looking for other apps that are just about the learning now… and less of painful UI and UX.