It took a little longer than we thought, but we finally have the next big thing to launch to Memrise Labs. First off, the toggle to actually turn it on! All you have to do is go into your Settings and hit the Learning tab in the top navigation. Then at the bottom of the page you’ll notice the Memrise Labs toggle… Flick it across to yes, and you’ll start getting the experiments!
Next up is our first proper learning mode, Speed Review! The core of Speed Review should be the same, with some slight UI changes to make it a bit neater. We’ve moved the timer up to the top bar, instead of as a big red background fill, and the buttons are a bit bigger and pressier (that’s a word, right?). Also, it’s worth noting that we haven’t expanded out which courses Speed Review works on, so it’s still only courses with text responses that can run it.
So, the things we’ve changed… At the moment the only major changes we’ve made (aside from the way the timer is displayed) are that the audio doesn’t play after you answer a question, and we’ve put in a new screen at the end of the session. First off the audio… This was a bit divisive in the team so we’d like your feedback on this. Half the folks we talked to liked the fact it played to remind you of how it sounds, and the other half hate it because it plays over the next test, so it can get confusing. We’ve decided to keep it out for now, but we’ll wait for feedback to see what the final decision will be.
Next up, a small but important one. In this iteration, we’re sending your progress to the server at the end of the session, which means that if you exit the session in the middle, you won’t have the points you’ve earned and any of the words you’ve cleared from review won’t be cleared anymore. This is something we’re actively working on improving, so you’ll hopefully see an update in the near future ( we’re trying to find the best trade-off technically).
Next, the screen at the end. You now have the option to do another Speed Review straight away, which is something I’ve wanted for a while when I use it, especially if I’ve lost my three lives too quickly. At the moment, the Continue button takes you back to the dashboard, which won’t be the final behaviour. Instead, we’re going to put in a more traditional screen after this that will be similar to what you currently get after a session. This will be coming with a future release (along with Learn with Locals).
Finally, another thing that isn’t ideal, but we’ve already got in our backlog for the next release is fixing the vertical spacing. For those of you on wide, short screens (like on laptops), you’ll likely not have all your choice buttons in view. We’re looking into how we can make it more vertically responsive for the next release.
I think that’s everything! Thank you so much for the feedback so far and your patience waiting for our releases and fixes. Similarly, if you have any feedback on these two then please let us know!
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