Exactly. The only ‘reasons’ we’ve been given for the new design have been
1 to get away from the disparate space and garden themes and create a more unified look
2 to keep it fun and ‘joyful’
3 to achieve a more grown-up look
And yet
As you point out, there are still space ships there alongside the flowers and the meaningless blobs, so, fail.
So, so, so many people have been describing the new look as ugly, monochromatic, aggressive, depressing, bland, jarring, physically painful, distressing, obstructive to learning, textbook-like. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone describe it as fun other than the CEO. So, fail.
Again, many, many people have indicated that they find the weird colour scheme and mishapen elements to look toddlerish, childish, or like it was designed by an adolescent. So, fail there too.
Since the new design has thus demonstrably,abjectly failed on all counts of its stated objectives, I can’t believe they still haven’t fixed it.
Memrise is a small company. I just can’t see why people would even moan about such a small thing. If you’ve ever lived in another country (I’m talking about some of the more conservative countries like Japan), you will most certainly feel like an alien (they don’t have political correctness in the east).
I don’t mind the new design it’s a bit of a shock to the system, but it’s simple and clean. I just would prefer a few more colours, especially when you’ve finished a level, to distinguish the words for review from the difficult words. I used to be able to scroll down and see at a glance that some levels had lots of difficult words, and others just words for review. But because the colours are all the same I have to slowly scroll and actually read the numbers.
After a bit of use, I find the Decks design much better than the Memrise one, which is great. And than the forum one. perhaps the ugly orange on top is meant to make us spend less time here and more actually learning?
I think the Decks design is cleaner and nicer, but the differences are rather minor for now. The course list could definitely do with a bigger design and functionality change.
However, I think Memrise should really pay attention to any issues related to accessibility. The aesthetic tastes are individual and less important. But issues like the font and contrast are important for people with certain sight conditions, the colourful buttons were mentioned as important to learners with dyslexia. Really, don’t be like Duolingo, which introduced a very bright design with different and smaller font and paid no attention to people with worse sight complaining (that often includes the older learners btw) or some learners with migraines finding the site to be a new trigger. It looks like Memrise has been listening to the users on various issues lately, and that is great. I just hope it will continue and accessibility (including colourful buttons or the contrasts) will be a high priority, when it comes to design.
One note, since I have notices slow changes in the deck designs, while learning. I know it is a popular thing to not use serifs on the web. But I really hope that the designers here understand, that while a font without serifs might look more minimal, it slows down the speed of reading and recognizing words, which is really crucial on a vocabulary learning app. So please keep the serifs!
Also it would be nice, if at least some in the memrise-team are addressing the issues that have been made with the new design. I mean there are still so many problems with the buttons, and It has been over a month now. The symbols seem misplaced and sometimes disappear in the black background, the Font on the buttons is not central. Those are small changes but they make a huge difference.
It slows down reading for people used to reading everything in serif fonts. I find most serif fonts hideous, cluttered, and hard to read, and almost invariably prefer a nice clean, open sans font. So, mileage varies on this one.
My all-time favorite font is actually CG Omega. It is technically a serif font, but it recreates the original Greek architectural serif ( a very slight flare) before the Romans took it, misunderstood it, went totally gonzo with it and jumped the typographic shark.
I’m not a fan of the redesign, but … I’ve gotten used to it. But what’s been driving me nuts lately is how difficult it frequently is to drag the sidebar course menu out from the side of the screen to switch courses. Sometimes I get it on the first try, but far more often I’m stuck for sometimes over a minute poking and prying and tugging at the edge of my screen trying to get the uncooperative menu open.
I have a suggestion that might help make it usable for people who have headaches triggered by the new design.
Can you either change the white background to something darker (not yellow) or give us the option to do so?
That seems like it should be relatively easy. I’m still unable to use it and I bought the year subscription. That’s money down the drain every day you don’t fix accessibility issues.
I share your pain! I posted a similar moan some time ago (about the Android app). My current workaround when this happens is to start a review of the course first presented (it’ll be the last course I worked on) and then immediately exit from it without reviewing anything. I then find I can drag my course list into view.
It seems they have set it up in a way that expects you to work on the course you last worked on before you can switch to a different course.
Same here. What I do most of all times now is to swipe from left to right - this has the same effect as tapping the course icon and seems to be somewhat more reliable.
I agree. It really is a horrible new design. I made myself wait a month & a bit to try to get used to it, but it’s still as unappealing as when I first started with it. I honestly loved the old design. It was just really nice to use. Ironically, they say this one is supposed to look more ‘grown up’, but it actually looks quite childish. I’m going to keep using it because the only functional impairment I’ll outline below; however the new design is not good. I really hope they god back to the old design or one like it.
Plus I think the typing randomness has been affected. The letter/characters only appear on the top bar. This happened since the switch.
I’ve just saw the new font. It looks weak, and difficult to read. There is an unnecessary contrast between the bold “question word” and the options to be chosen.
Ya’ll, please, you can’t keep changing the design around. I love memrise and it’s really helped me grow vocabulary, but my brain is in constant UI shock. Not to mention the UI elements that change size on hover and click — it’s a constant sanity bludgeon.
Some of the new changes are improvements, so I’m glad for that. Lots of work still to do to fix the problem, but it’s better than it was in most ways (really the only way to truly fix it is to give it a full on overhaul or completely reverse the design change introduced in April). I miss the brighter colours in the title bars within the ‘garden’ when doing classic review or learning new words, but at least the new pastels are relatively inoffensive. (I can’t see the listening skills or difficult words as I haven’t resubscribed after cancelling due to the new design.)
The weird washed-out red for speed review is a strange choice, however. It looks like a button that’s been greyed out as inactive…before the lesson actually started I kept waiting for some kind of popup to show over it because it looked like it had been backgrounded. The bright red was too aggressive, but why not just switch to a non-aggressive colour that complements the other types of lessons, rather than just washing it out?
Still hoping to eventually see the dashboard improved, symmetricality of elements and fixing of non-centred icons, font fixes, further reduction or (better) total removal of the ugly yellow, and an engaging, rather than boring and textbookish, unifying theme.
Keep working on it, Memrise. Your past designs prove you can do better than this.
I used Memrise for over two years, with and without subscription. I would like to subscribe again but I won’t do it even with the 50% of discount. The new design is unusable. I don’t know where to click and all the details seems to be messed up together in an unreasonable way. And I’m speaking as a designer.
A perfect app ruined.
it’s a bit of a shock to the system, but it’s simple and clean. I just would prefer a few more colours, especially when you’ve finished a level, to distinguish the words for review from the difficult words. I used to be able to scroll down and see at a glance that some levels had lots of difficult words, and others just words for review. But because the colours are all the same I have to slowly scroll and actually read the numbers.