Two positive points I noticed was that the app is now compatible with iPhone X (previously the app frame didn’t sit within the screen shape), and both app and website display the total amount of words for review (previously this number stopped at 999 even when you had more words to review).
The yellow and navy/gray colour scheme is a bit too bold for my liking, especially on the website whilst using a computer, and I find it hurts my eyes if I stare at it for too long. On its own, however, it isn’t really awful and I think others are right when they say that it is aimed at a younger audience. What I cannot get behind is the juxtaposition of the bold yellow/navy with the toned down turquoise and aquamarine scheme now used for ‘to-learn’ and ‘to-revise’/completed levels in the app, and the general use of turquoise for everything else on the website. The colours just don’t go. I don’t mind the wobbly shapes, but I feel the colour scheme needs to be readdressed to find something easier to look at.
The artwork for the flowerpot is very abstract/cartoon-ey… it doesn’t really resemble a flower anymore. In addition, I have noticed that the colour contrast between the ‘to-revise’ and ‘fresh’/‘watered’ versions of the image is now very minor. Previously the transition from a wilted flower with dulled colour scheme to a fresh and bright one was quite obvious. I liked it; it was one of those little things.
Lastly, the transition isn’t uniform throughout the website. Features of the previous version occasionally pop up in various pages, such as the difficult words page and the ‘review’ and ‘difficult’ buttons on course pages; if these were ironed out completely like in the app then the site wouldn’t seem so garish. At the moment it is a bit of a hotchpotch of new and old.
Especially on the uniformity point. It seems very unlikely that the developers intended for the themes to change between the to UI’s especially, considering that the juxtaposition is quite jarring.
This is probably one of the things that should be adressed first. Also I can’t imagine they would launch without having the layout finished for the whole page.
Like I said in the other thread, the site now looks like it wants to teach me how to assemble IKEA furniture.
Or maybe more like, a mid 2000s IKEA gaming site for kids, made by a recent highschool graduate, because the people running the site couldn’t afford a professional desginer.
The weird blobs don’t even look like an intended design choice, they look like someone gave up halfway through. Especially the blob above the user pic. Nicely rounded on the right side, no idea what’s happening on the left side.
So to sum it up: before, the site looked professional, now it looks like something a highschooler quickly threw together after school.
To be honest, had the site looked like this when I stumbled upon memrise, I’m not really sure if I would have joined.
Now, messy designs and horrible colour choices aside, what I’m really missing are the different colours for classic review, learn new words, etc.
I don’t understand why everything has to look the same now.
did not look professional to me, and my company has a number of sites all made by professionals… was uneven and tiresome. I am not saying the new UI is okay, is it not okay yet, but i have the impression they at least try to go in the direction of some unitary style. I think they will make some more changes soon.
btw, thread originator: Why do you have to open a new thread and shout loud in the title that this one is allegedly “civil”? you could just asked the people in the other thread to admit they really like insulting others without having to take in the consequences… and go on with the discussion
The other threads have quite clearly descended into absolute bedlam, where people are shouting their heads off, in order to vent any frustrations they may feel toward the update.
This thread is not like that. Rather it is for people to discuss their thoughts on the makeover in a respectful way and provide the developers with input that they can reflect upon and hopefully take into account when considering subsequent changes to the site.
If you want to contribute to this thread your suggestions should be specific and constuctive.
I you don’t have any such contributions to make, feel free to post your opinions on any of the other threads apart from this one.
These notes also apply to @DeWeird. Please be constructive. Not just critical.
While this was an interesting read, with some useful insights, nothing in it leads me to believe that information was actually academically researched (Memrise is notorious for high academic and proven standards). One of the giveaways is the Ikea logo. While it is eye-catching, the combination of blue and yellow comes from the Swedish national flag (Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea was Swedish), not from branding psychology
At least I hope Memrise would be a little more careful with their source material, although the resemblance is striking.
The blue in the Swedish flag is not as dark as this web site blue. I would not make a web site based on blue and yellow elements. Maybe based on the Finnish flag as it has blue and white so there’s only one competing color to background white.
PS: The Duolingo colors are indeed blue and white.
BTW I just logged into the decks.memrise.com site for the first time, and I like what I see!
No blobs, has a balanced and pleasant colour palette, looks fresh and modern (there is a bug with the icon size for the “Next up” buttons, but it doesn’t affect usablility). I’m really struggling to believe the same designers who came up with that were responsible for the monstrosity on the main site.
What’s the disadvantage of using decks.memrise.com, given it seems to have all the same courses? It even let me use premium features (like “difficult words”) for free (though I did have that happen once or twice with the main site).
I agree! I hope they keep the Decks site with this color scheme and look, it’s much much better than even the original Memrise sites not to speak of the current new re-design what is plain weird.
I find it confusing we have two areas for feedback and this is specifically for the new MemRise look and not the Decks look.
This thread sits under "Welcome to the Forum! > “General Discussion” or even “General Discussion” which one might think includes Decks.
Whereas comments on Decks sits under “Decks Bugs & Feedback” > “Feedback”
the trouble is when one sees the posts on the right, one doesn’t know which areas it sits under and I had to move one of my post as it was to do about the Decks layout.
At the end of the picture it says “yellow causes anxiey”. I think that should be something to keep seriously in mind, if true. It kind of makes sense, since yellow is a colour also used for warning signs.
About what inspired the current palette, including that yellow. From Ed Cooke’s [ Memrise founder ] twitter:
“We were inspired by the legendary Yellow Army of Brighton Hill Community School”
That’s all I need to know to decide about my future with this app .
Is he aware that it’s a global app with multicultural users who would never associate it with that? and bending important design decisions to such an arbitrary whim known to few… mind boggles…
Ok, I haven’t ever been on the forum, but just can’t help to come here after this update. To me the new UI looks like someone has been tasked with breaking down the space theme (which I personally liked, but I can understand it created a bit of confusion because in the end there is little actual thematic connection between space and learning language), but has never been tasked with coming up with something new. It’s bare essentials (planets turned into color blobs), and it would be hard to be more monotonous monochromatic. I’m sure the UI designer thought this is modern. Buttom line, it just doesn’t work for most people, and it doesn’t for me. Please re-enable the old one and try to come up with something else, something more visually pleasing maybe.
I just had a look at the website, and it’s a bit less bad on there than on the app, actually. I’ve only ever used the Android App, and it’s on there where I’m soundly repelled by the new visuals.
“Being Inspired” Does not warrant the criticism that you’ve put forth here, I think.
They could have chosen it, if it were his mom’s favorite color for all I care. I think there must be some other more important reasons. In either case, we will have to wait until they implement the new design site-wide to make our judgmement. (Although I definitely think they should have sorted this out before launch).
What I’m saying is I don’t think “the legendary Yellow Army of Brighton Hill Community School” was the only reason. At least I hope not.
I’m still very curious if there’s a main reason why they went with this particular color scheme, or if they were just that bold.
Obviously I am not a mind-reader, but I can’t imagine he’s serious with that statement. But honestly that’s no better, joking about a colour scheme that has legitimately made people angry.
Hah, the twitter banner was purple, now the whole thing is yellow… so much yellow… sponsored by Coldplay, maybe??
I also dislike the new design.
The yellow buttons during the typing sessions in the app are incredibly hard on the eyes. Yellow is the absolute LAST color you want to see in a LEARNING app (or literally ANY app/webpage . I only took a few lessons on web-design myself, and I only know the bare basics, but among the first thing they thought us was that the color yellow on a webpage is a big no-no. And that was just a hobby-level course…). Geez. Seriously, every other color is nice, dark or dark~ish then BAM random yellow. Wtf. Not only that it quite literally hurts my eyes, it even looks awful.
The previous blue buttons relaxed my eyes and I was able to learn via memrise app for hours. Now I have to stop after MINUTES because my eyes start hurting. Seriously, next time you do a redesign instead of using “flashy colors by random” please actually look it up which colors relax the eyes and are actually advised to decorate learning spaces with
The “no background, just white” when scrolling through lessons (where the planets used to be) is also awful. It’s bright, and hard to look at. If you don’t want the space-theme anymore, fine, your decision, but please, at least give us a darker background. At least the space theme was easy on the eyes. Having a theme was also charming and welcoming, now it’s just “circles on a blank background, tap on one to start learning”. It looks like a beta version used to test functionality with, with decoration elements to be added later.
Another thing I dislike is that the lack of colors in the webpage.
No colorful buttons. I associated the colors with the type of exercises, and just quickly glancing at the colors was much faster than reading the text.
No colorful watering can = I can no longer see by a quick glance which of my lessons need practising, and how many words.
There has been enough comment on the new color and icons that I see no need to include myself in the list of those who hate it (which obviously, I’ve just done).
When Decks came out… I wondered, how can there be so many font/alignment mistakes. Ok… now I know why none of them have been fixed.
But I’m perplexed to see so many of the same problems in the new memrise.
Please, memrise staff, tell me which OS and browser you tested this on, so I can use it to see what the site is supposed to look like. Maybe it’s just a problem on Mac with every browser I tried?
. I only took a few lessons on web-design myself, and I only know the bare basics, but among the first thing they thought us was that the color yellow on a webpage is a big no-no. And that was just a hobby-level course…). Geez. Seriously, every other color is nice, dark or dark~ish then BAM random yellow. Wtf. Not only that it quite literally hurts my eyes, it even looks awful.