The new lesson design!
My account just got switched over to the new lesson design!
35 Comments
I am not a huge fan of the new design. Although the design looks nice and clean, it less practical than the old one. Especially on larger screens and in a timed practice. The exercises are in the middle, the timer is all the way on the top, and the feedback is all the way in the bottom (in green letters on a green background). I very much prefer the old design where all relevant information was grouped together and visible in a single glance.
As a work-around, I currently have my browser resized to about a quarter of the screen. It works, I suppose, but it feels a bit silly to have to resize the browser.
Also: I have the feeling that the multiple choices options are numbered weirdly. Reading from left to right, top to bottom: 1 -> 3 -> 2. I made a few mistakes by pressing the wrong shortcut.
I think the changes are not bad. We need to get used to it. Everything is changing in life ;)
I really appreciate the down part of the page where you see the corrected sentence and translation. Before I wasn't able to see the translation without scrolling.
On the other hand I agree with the opinion that the pop ups are not done correctly. Or is it on purpose? I mean to make it harder to type the answer for those who need hint.
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It feels like connecting a keyboard to my phone. Very plane and lonely design for a computer screen.
Here's my screenshot!
It's more aesthetically pleasing and easier on the eyes, but I wish the hints would pop up instead of down.
Note: I have an extension to change the font so it looks smoother with Czech diacritics.
The new design is terrible for four reasons: 1) The color scheme used makes it very difficult to read the highlighted words. 2) I have a large screen monitor and this is too spread out. 3) There are too many sentences to a section. Before it was broken up with some sections having 8 to 10 and some being over 20. 4) The sentence counter has been taken away.
Taken all together these four things make for a bad studying experience. The only thing they seem to have in common is they force us to stay on the site longer. This may benefit the company but it does not benefit me. I prefer learning in shorter bits. Also, time spent squinting at the screen, trying to see a word, is not good use of my time. In conclusion, if this is not returned to the design I found useful and enjoyable, I will be going elsewhere in the near future.
I was told by email from Usagiboy7 that he was going to remove my prior post because it wasn't in the right area. So, I wrote a new post here. Now, I see he's moved the first post to here and I can not remove it. Hence, the two postings that are almost identical.
There were a lot of redundant discussion's started to give feedback on the new design changes. So, I've gone and collected their content so I could keep feedback together in as few places as possible.
Here is another collection of misplaced feedback comments and discussion posts about the redesign:
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Thanks for doing this work, Usagiboy7. I really hope the Duolingo designers listen.
I can guarantee that staff will be looking at forum feedback about the new design changes. I don't know what decisions they'll make from what they read, but, they do care what people have to say about this stuff and how the changes are impacting users. :)
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Let's hope for the best!
I've seen many posts from people in the past, again and again, who had difficulties with the low contrast in the previous design, but staff never did a thing about it. With the current update they lowered the contrast even more. :(
The change in contrast from white/bright background to light grey some time ago was in response to feedback from people with light sensitive eyes (myself among them.) So, feedback does make a difference. The difficult thing is finding a way to balance the preferences of two hundred million people who are using Duolingo's various platforms and working within a budget of both time and money. They do what they can though. I'm sure the current update isn't set in stone. Hense, I've been collecting comments so they will be more readily available instead of so spread out. :)
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Thanks for collecting the feedback in one post Usagiboy7, we definitely read it!
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I'm sure the current update isn't set in stone. Hense, I've been collecting comments so they will be more readily available instead of so spread out. :)
Thank you very much.
Some things have really changed positively.
I exercise a lot on my small smartphone in the mobile version of the browser (Firefox).
Since this morning,
the "Report" and "Discussion" buttons are back in the web page in the mobile version of the browser!
Thank you for the screenshot!
Btw, how can you see your lesson? It is so tiny!
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Tossing in my two cents for dislike of the new format. Can the old format be an option? Pretty please? I don't really have anything new to add...it's ugly, frustrating, the report a problem section is even worse now, and I didn't think that was even possible. How did this redesign "fix" anything? Not snark, actually curious. And, not that a redesign has to actually fix anything, but, isn't it at least supposed to make something better in some way?
I don't really have much of an opinion on the appearance of the new design, but for me it takes longer to finish a lesson because if I miss a question, instead of repeating it once (unless I get it wrong again) it repeats about four times. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the "New look", and it probably doesn't. But, that was just my observation. I could be the only one going through this.
It's not a huge worry, though.
Indeed! The appearance is not important but what you learn. Think of a migrant, for example, who needs Duolingo to learn the language of the country he/she is going to. Does he/she care about the appearance of Duolingo lessons? I don't think so. (Allthough most migrants are too poor to have a computer, this is just for the sake of an example).
I would understand if the new look caused functionality problems for some people, and that could be the reason why some people don't like the new design. But, not liking this version because it looks "ugly" is hardly an issue for those who just want to learn here. I don't care what Duolingo looks like. As long as I can learn other languages and advance my French, I'm content. It's like you said, it's all about what you learn, not how the aesthetics make you feel. ^ ^
I REALLY prefer the old version to this one. Another new thing I noticed was that French has two different voices now. It used to be a woman voice but I notice that sometimes there is a man voice too. Does anybody notice the same thing?
I've been learning French for over a year. There has always been a male voice along with the female one. I'm not sure why it didn't show up for you earlier.
I really like the new design! It's clean and minimal. However, I do agree with others who say that highlighted words shouldn't cover up the text box when you hover over them.
I actually came to the discussion area to see if anyone else was having trouble with their layout. I hadn't even known there was a new design – it honestly looked like something wasn't loading right on my screen. Not sure what was wrong with the old white box. Having the entire page one color is... weird. Okay bye!
