Hi, I am Hexonoid, currently a Membassador on Memrise. I have been using it for just under a year now, and while I love what Memrise is and what it has and is doing for me, over my history of using it, I have had many insights and ideas for some simple, and some more complicated changes that could make Memrise an even greater platform for learning. If you support this, or have ideas of your own, please, join in and help create a better future for Memrise and everyone on it!
PS
You can use this link if your suggestion is to improve the experience of Creators.
2019-09-22T04:00:00Z
Thanks Memrise for listening to some of our suggestions, and I look forward to progress in the future, now also including Decks. As of the date above, I have updated some of my suggestions, including some that were actually implemented in some fashion or are no longer applicable.
Here are my suggestions for Memrise, and Decks where applicable:
Web
Add a statistic for points per day, instead of just the number of events
Add a dark theme, as well as other themes to chose from. (ie. a more adult minded theme) Memrise has finally added a dark theme, and the look and feel of the Platform as a whole has gotten much more mature. At this point asking for further themes would be too greedy.
All Platforms
Add a mass review / difficult words / speed review session that can come from any of your courses. This will allow users who have completed many courses to quickly and efficiently review everything that requires it. Edit: This can be done to an extent with normal review only, but it is only available on Memriseâs web platform.
Add an option to make every review word a keyboard input on a course by course basis. This prevents the brain from taking shortcuts and scanning for the right answer instead of truly recalling the knowledge.
Add an additional step after a word has been âlearnedâ called mastery. This will only grow from consecutive correct answers over a minimum time interval, for example: 3 correct answers over a period of a day each. This will truly help to ensure that the words are in long term memory instead of short term. This can also be demonstrated in the flower icon as roots growing down after a word has been âblossomedâ. Getting this word wrong in a future review session, excluding speed review, will result in complete loss of mastery for that word.
Mobile
Fix my difficult words; do not show answer first, ask for answer (keyboard)
to stir memory and validate userâs difficulty with the word.
All tap tests should require a card flip before the choices are shown to reduce peripheral
reading assists. (Like how difficult words does sometimes)
Minor Tweaks
In a review session, intersperse the same word as thoroughly as possible
throughout every review session, and let each session show each word only two or
three times to prevent short-term regurgitation of information.
Mems
Give credit for mems not based off of likes, but instead off the amount of
uses the mem gets. In addition to giving credit where it is due, the total of all of these
mem uses would make an excellent new stat that could be displayed as a badge. This
could greatly boost both memâs quantity and quality, as the competitive nature of human
beings will drive people to get that badge higher.
When loading mems by default, show a panel of the most popular mems, and
require the user to click the one they want or chose âGo without a memâ (which should be
a more prominent button positioned underneath the mem selection panel, as aposed to the
current small text at the bottom).
Allow for the use of g[quote=âHexonoid, post:2, topic:10916, full:trueâ]
To start things off, here is what Iâve come up with so far:
Web
Add a statistic for points per day, instead of just the number of events
Add a dark theme, as well as other themes to chose from. (ie. a more adult minded theme)
All Platforms
Add a mass review/ difficult words/ speed review session that can come from any of your courses.
This will allow users who have completed many courses to quickly and efficiently review everything that requires it.
Add an option to make every review word a keyboard input on a course by course basis. This prevents the brain from taking shortcuts and scanning for the right answer instead of truly recalling the knowledge.
Add an additional step after a word has been âlearnedâ called mastery. This will only grow from consecutive correct answers over a minimum time interval, for example: 3 correct answers over a period of a day each. This will truly help to ensure that the words are in long term memory instead of short term. This can also be demonstrated in the flower icon as roots growing down after a word has been âblossomedâ. Getting this word wrong in a future review session, excluding speed review, will result in complete loss of mastery for that word.
Mobile
Fix my difficult words; do not show answer first, ask for answer (keyboard)
to stir memory and validate userâs difficulty with the word.
All tap tests should require a card flip before the choices are shown to reduce peripheral
reading assists. (Like how difficult words does sometimes)
Minor Tweaks
In a review session, intersperse the same word as thoroughly as possible
throughout every review session, and let each session show each word only two or
three times to prevent short-term regurgitation of information.Edit: I believe this issue has been addressed, as I no longer notice the issue except where the the number of words to review becomes extremely small, which is unavoidable.
Mems
Give credit for mems not based off of likes, but instead off the amount of
uses the mem gets. In addition to giving credit where it is due, the total of all of these
mem uses would make an excellent new stat that could be displayed as a badge. This
could greatly boost both memâs quantity and quality, as the competitive nature of human
beings will drive people to get that badge higher.
When loading mems by default, show a panel of the most popular mems, and
require the user to click the one they want or chose âGo without a memâ (which should be
a more prominent button positioned underneath the mem selection panel, as aposed to the
current small text at the bottom).
i miss the possibility of forums in the courses themselves. in the past there was a button on each courseâs home page to the forum of the course. There was much more interaction among the students of that course. By making these âbigâ fora, the link with the courses got lost, and also the link of the students of one particular course with each other.
Also we have all gone up and all studentsâs fora of completely different courses are all mingled now.
In addition, Iâd like the possibility to have multiple answers to one question and the need to know all of them / keyboard type them correctly.
Let me give you an example: I am currently learning Hungarian, and often the accusative form of nouns is irregular. So, when I create an entry for a noun, I have to enter both options. Eg: "fal (falat)"
Now, the problem is that Memrise does not ask me to keyboard enter both. It treats such things as a sentence, and the learning is much more passive (just recognizing amidst other options) than with single words.
Finally, I would appreciate it if the app became much more sociable, like suggested above. I like the competition element in Duolingo or Mondly for example. Connect with all others who are learning the same language at roughly the same level, through leadership boards, discussion forums, chats.
Finally, if I may, a bold suggestion: could Memrise try to acquire Lang-8 and add it to her services? I love this website, it is very sociable and helps you to improve writing skills in a foreign language. As for usability though, Lang-8 could improve greatly by becoming part of the Memrise team.
I have had many insights and ideas for some simple, and some more complicated changes that could make Memrise an even greater platform for learning. If you support this, or have ideas of your own,
You may also like to read our Course Creator as some ideas are actually to help us as learners.
the problem is that the people who make the courses, do not always use all possibilities - what you ask is possible, but it is not the responsibility of memrise, but of the course maker
A feature to remove a bulk of words. Useful when accidentally a wrong list of words has been unloaded using the âBulk Add Wordsâ
A feature to use an existing course as the basis of a new course. Useful when the course creator doesnât respond or has stopped supporting a course or even decides to delete a course.
2a. This doesnât mean that I want to copy the course. I want to use an existing course and add changes. E.g. A book has 20 chapters, but course creator has only entered 15 of them. I want to enter the 5 remaining chapters myself. Also i found a few misspellings in the 15 original chapters, and want to update these too. So, under my own account there are only 5 chapters and a few updates visible, but when I want to study, Memrise combines the original and the changes together into one new course.
2b. The course creator has the right and possibility to see and accept my additions and changes and incorporate them into his/her course, making these changes âpermanentâ for other users too.
A way of protecting active learners from loosing their study progress when a course is deleted.
Deleting a course that has still active learners, will result in the course being removed from all listings. Existing learners will retain their learning history and be able to do the periodic review.
Why is this important: This is especially important for serious users, who might also be paying for a PRO account. There is a now a risk that a learning, who has even paid for a PRO account, looses their learning history of a course they have been taking, just because the course creator deleted (perhaps even by accident) the course. Memrise is based on the idea that users can benefit from each otherâs courses and on the idea of SRS and that requires the course to exist over prolonged period of time.
The Web-version:
4. User-configurable timer - the timer is very useful, but for long sentences or a foreign script (such as an Asian language for English learners), a longer timer is often necessary.
[ Edit: ] All platforms
5. A user configuration where they can configure how they want to display and study the course. It is great that the course creator can set default. Itâs greater when a user can adjust according to needs.
For example, now the course creator can turn on/off for a column things like âAlways Showâ or âShow Biggerâ or âTyping Tests-Enabledâ. However, this might not be the suitable setting for a specific learner might. Think about a user with a relatively high resolution, where the characters of Chinese look quite small. That user might want to turn on âShow Biggerâ, while a user on a small device, might need to turn it off.
[quote=âIchigoSmof, post:3, topic:10916â]
in the past there was a button on each courseâs home page to the forum of the course. There was much more interaction among the students of that course.
[/quote]This would be great. It means I would now what problems other people have with the same course and how we can help each other. That type of interaction is the web for.
Where can we find which features are planned for features of upcoming Memrise releases? I mean, for lots of software, they announce every so often what when to expect a new version and what to expect to be in it.
Please, let me know in case this too much off-topic.
I have got a question and although I know it is too difficult to make it possible I want to tell you my problem.
I have started to learn English so it is very hard to understand all that is written on the forum. Even the explanation how things work is all in English. Maybe there are more people having this problem. ButâŠI like the way I can learn a language here:slight_smile:
[quote=âalanh, post:13, topic:10916â]
Memrise started posting brief âRelease Notesâ recently.
[/quote]Great! Thanks. I am reading them right now.
All platforms Searching: the course contributors can already search for a word inside their course. Iâd like to be able to search within the level, a specific course or all courses that I am studying. Some words I tend to forget and to use the limited word list in the course that I am studying helps a lot. Sometimes I confuse words and want to find for example any word that start a certain letter combination. This way I can see the difference between them.
User override âAudio mode enabledâ The course contributor can set (or clear) the âAudio mode enabledâ option. It would be nice if the learner can enable just for him/herself in case the course creator hadnât done so for a reason, while some courses are actually suitable for Audio learning.
Range review Have a function to enable the learner to choose only learn/review a range of words in a level (for example words 51-100 from level 2, or level 4 and 5 (but not any other level), for an upcoming quiz), without going through âignoreâ/âunignoreâ (the ignore I use for words I already know or I donât have to study for some reason). This function is temp âclusterâ for specific purpose, such as a quiz.
Mobile (un)Mark as difficult when offline: When studying offline, we cannot set or clear the âDifficult Wordâ mark (looks like a thunderbolt). However, if we answer a word too often incorrectly, the Memrise APP marks them as difficult, and clears it when answered often enough correctly. This happens also when using the app offline. If the Memrise App can do this, then, please, allow then also the learner to clear or set the âDifficult Wordâ mark. This I need actually quite often.
If you spell something wrong or typed in a synonym, you should have the ability to âpretendâ that you got it right. So many times I know the answer, but have to reset the review time because it was wrong.
-Give me the ability to disable timer. I have courses that do entire sentences, and the timer is no help.
(for pro members) more statistics including: how many total hours spent on each subject (donât limit it 60 days)
lots of people seem to miss the course forums, the replacement here doesnât seem to work, propably because a forum which isnât very active drops down in the list very fast
In addition to John_Baiteâs excellent suggestion about Searching (something I have wanted to do many times now in my current longer course!), I would suggest that we also be able to see a list of all words in the course.
Currently at the end of each review or learning session we can see our record for each word we just worked on. I would like to be able to see this list at any time. I understand that this may be related to the Memrise-pro feature, but I think Memrise desperately needs more pro features. If Iâm not using the Memrise-created courses, really the only thing I get for my pro subscription is some data tracking, and the ability to review difficult words. The difficult word review makes the price of Pro absolutely worth it for me, but I feel like pro is currently being oversold.
Add please an automatic continuous review mode where the app is just proposing in English words and sentences you already learned waiting a little for you to translate and then giving you the answer without any interaction. This is very useful while driving or doing sports where you cannot interact but you have time to review what you learned in this way. You can also add settings to choose the delay time and the number of repeats for each word/phrase in the translation.
This feature is currently missing but VERY effective to review while not being able to interact with the app.
Something as âGood morningââŠâGuten TagââŠâGuten Tagâ. Example with 2 secs delay and two repeats for each translation at 1 sec.
You can go as far as giving the users the option to also learn new words and phrases in this way even if the primary meaning is to review what you already learned using the app.
