The Birth of Ziggy - A very revealing article by Lurkmoophy

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Here’s a very revealing article written by Memrise Product Manager Luke Murphy Wearmouth a/k/a lurkmoophy, which describes the thought process behind their Ziggy character.

Some interesting quotes:

“We conducted user testing with new users to see which would resonate more with them.”

It seems from this that they value the opinions of existing users less than that of new users, whose opinions they initially seek and try to appeal to first.

“The visual/content concept behind Ziggy is that he’s a non-gendered alien, who has an engaging appearance and speaks in a quirky, irreverent way that is specific to him as a character.”

Do adult learners want to be spoken to in an irreverent way? Do parents want their children to be exposed to and/or influenced by an in-game protagonist character that speaks in an irreverent way?

“We wanted to make Ziggy genderless in an attempt to reflect the progressive nature of Memrise as a company, and include a specifically non-binary character within the product.”

Do parents want their children to use a product that is specifically designed to promote a genderless, non-binary protagonist, produced by a company that touts its progressive nature? Some parents will probably embrace the idea, but I think that many conservative parents, schools, and school districts will be uncomfortable with the realization that Memrise is using its product to promote “progressive” values. I wouldn’t even be very surprised to see Memrise banned for use in some conservative schools because of this.

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boy, can ideology spoil to this point the mind of a person?
personally I don’t give a hoot about Ziggy which by the way I find plain ugly

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the article is vague bogus… i don’t get to see any data (and I can read and produce statistics… also … I would have to know how they collected it)

I don’t see what is per se “progressive” in that ziggy and I find it rather mind boggling that those who don’t like the ugly thing are automatically branded “conservative”? I find these echo chambers in metoo-style terribly provincial and dangerous

maybe it is because I am still living in och so retarded Europe … (I could have been an “overlady” or “overcat”! no probs, it would have been less insulting than a silly lobster; btw, some 5 years ago I did complain memrise did not call me “memempress” instead of “memperor”… but… f**, from that to a nuclear apocalypse creature…thanks goodness for that ublock line, i don’t get to see it)

(btw, a mind without an “ideology” - there is not such thing)

na tja, see ya, have to cram…

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I noticed that the article is dated 18 October 2017 and the final paragraph says:

"Product Communication

Based on our recent experience, we are looking at our full communication plan for future product announcements. This includes more opportunity for feedback from the community where appropriate, and a wider sharing of our features once they’re released."

In the light of the developments this week, how do we all feel that plan is progressing so far? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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I guess that depends on how the term “where appropriate” is defined. Users are vocal, Memrise is silent. Kind of hard to have an active dialogue if only one side is communicating…

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Progressive, like “open to dialog”, “taking into account what other people say and wish”, “showing respect to your oldest and most active supports in this adventure” …
or, progressive like “Ziggy is genderless so shut the **** up, and we just don’t care about whatever you say. Pay your membership, you dumb low-class nerd, keep moaning on the forum, we laugh so much when we read you begging us to give an answer, and now go back learning your hieroglyphs and let us do what we want so that we can make more money.” (or at least try LOL).
“Progressive” Travis Kalanick-style capitalism.

(and just one more question: aren’t gardens and flowers as genderless as planets and aliens? Or maybe I missed the episode where it was decided that aliens where progressive and flowers conservative?)

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but i am not low-class, mamaaaa :scream::crazy_face: (in comparison with the product manager, i count probably as from “middle-class intellectual” background Whoops, I bet “intellectual” is fully “conservative”…)

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i still think they should ask david bowie’s heirs

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Thank you for sharing this. I find it very interesting.

The article makes it quite clear that the whole point of Ziggy is increasing the percentage of new users who purchase the pro version. When Ziggy levels up, buyers are shown an ad inviting them to make a purchase. The graph in the article shows a sharp increase in “conversions”, i.e., purchases, after Ziggy was introduced, which means that Ziggy has been a marketing success.

Does it make forum users rush out to buy the pro version? Apparently not, but that was never the goal in the first place.

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I wouldn’t care how they trick the 10 year old kids into buying pro, but they just dumb down the whole memrise for them.

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“With the collection mechanic, people were just downright confused. They couldn’t understand why they were collecting items, or what these had to do with learning a language.”

I’m still confused why they force the whole space theme. Growing a super-hyper-mega-boss master flower would do the job of ziggy much better. Oh, and they are genderless too.

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Maybe if Ziggy “conversions” start dropping, they could try that imagery next. Maybe an entire new decoration scheme every 12 months or so.

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“We conducted user testing with new users to see which would resonate more with them. Overall, the character concept resonated best with users, producing positive emotional reaction and connection for users, and made them feel the most excited.” - What is that “new users”, how many of them, what age, what languages do they learn? The new users had what choices (1. the nuclear amoeba 2. the old system 3.??? 4.??? etc.). How was the “resonate more (with what?)” put into measurable criteria?

Allegedly against badges: “The concept of ranking up with military badges does feel a bit ‘Starcraft’.” - Aha (what the f* is “starcraft”, and why were badges - that I never used or liked - “military”? And since when is “does feel a bit” an argument? How old were ifact the users, given that the article claims the resemblance with a game (probably) from the 2000’s (here nothing adds, in fact, the whole part is incoherent)

Judging by the article, all the variations offered to the alleged new users were ziggy-like. Allegedly, they were judged as “‘cute’, ‘happy’, ‘colourful’, and ‘approachable’.” - I wonder where the cuteness, happiness, and “approache-ability” came from (a yellow-lilac jelly-fish as “approachable” - mind boggling)

Again kitchen psychology in “off-centre way of speaking, where Ziggy always talks in the third person.” - Aha, that the learning is not made by the learner herself, but by a specifically non-gender-non-human lilac crab through a quasi-schizo suspension of disbelief is positive! and progressive!

The sentence “Two weeks after launch, our conversions from ranks has increased on average 250%.” does not refer in fact to the real amount of new paying users attracted by the nuclear calamity survivor.

“This has continued at a steady pace over the last few months, with a whole lot more folks joining up to Memrise Pro.” - A whole lot more folks, whatever that might be. And whatever the link with the ziggy might be

In the whole articl, there is not one not solid, but not one remotely acceptable evidence for the increasing appeal of memrise through means of the ziggy-thing. Of course, that there are users liking the ziggy, but there is no proof that the ziggy is increasing the profit of memrise.

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Sounds like they are focusing in on the specific point of offering “Congrats! You’ve reached a new rank! That deserves a 20% off sale to celebrate!” and how many users do in fact buy Pro at that particular moment. Which is actually interesting.

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I found the article’s arguments very unconvincing, and proof absent. The axes of the graph aren’t labelled with hard numbers, and without raw numbers, there is no way for us to see whether or not the change was statistically significant.

And even if there were a significant change in conversion rate after Ziggy, that doesn’t prove that the change was caused by Ziggy. There could have been other factors at play, because they also completely changed the levels and points system at the same time. Besides which, to argue that any change was caused by Ziggy is to fall victim to the “post-hoc” logical fallacy. Nor is conversion rate, by itself, the best measure of success.

I also think it’s very odd that nobody from Memrise posted a link to the article. Wouldn’t they expect us to be interested in their motives? Who was the intended audience for the article, if not the Memrise customers such as ourselves? It reinforces the impression that they have disdain for the forum users, and don’t consider us worthy of addressing. Or perhaps they knew that the rationale for Ziggy in the article was weak, unconvincing, and that we would never buy it?

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I totally agree that the article is unconvincing. What the article DOES do is provide clues that the whole point was about giving new users a nudge toward making an impulse purchase of pro.

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It Memrise is hoping to make the product some kind of collect all Pokemon, sorry Ziggy cards, then their focus is on something totally else than learning languages.

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No, Memrise’s survey does not sound like it was based upon sound scientific/statistical principles. So, the results cannot be valid, right? I’m curious as to how many people are currently actively using Memrise. We could define “actively” as at least three times per week for, say, at least three months. I’d like to see these statistics from the time Memrise was offered to the public, up until now. I’d like to see a break down of the ages of the active users to know if most users are 5 year olds, elementary school age children, high school or college age students, or older adults in their late 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, and 50,s plus. Are the users mostly, male or female, or non-binary. (Non-binary ??? What is that? Computer sex? No 0’s or 1’s allowed???) Moving on: It would be interesting for statistical purposes, if nothing else, to know what percentage of people come from what countries in the world. Then, send a computer survey to everyone asking them what they like and don’t like about the new changes, after letting people use them for awhile, or even before making the changes. "Hey, folks. What do you like better Ziggy or flower pots? Levels 1 to infinity, 50 iterations of Ziggy, or the old ranking system. I personally feel that Ziggy’s appeal is probably strongest in the 5 year old demographic, but without asking all your regular users, or an unbiased sampling from your demographics, how would you know? My feeling is that most of your regular users are probably adults and not young children. This asking for feedback, doing Bata Testing, or whatever, should be, IMO for all changes to features that have been in place for a long time and people have become used to and like. I really like Memrise, and I like what I read about how, and why it was started. Like others, though, I do not like the new changes that have taken place recently. I only use a PC to do my lessons. I like seeing the number of words I have to review on my Dashboard, without having to click buttons, I don’t really like auto accept, and Ziggy and spaceships are way too juvenile for me. To change slightly what others have said, “If it ain’t broke you don’t have to fix it.” People tend to like those comfortable, broken in shoes that fit well, and get them where they’re going.

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I’ve just added my thoughts here:

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you might be of course right in terms of learning sth, but in terms of paying the wages… i am completely against unpaid work (me doing this and that on memrise was my/our way of thanking for what I/we got… at that time)

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