It has taken me a while to realize that there are different categories on the Library page, only some of which users have control over. These seem to be, in the following order:
- Continue studying (at the top, as it should be)
- Default categories (Getting Started, Trending, What’s New, News Feed, Mini Stories, Guided Courses)
- Topics set as “Preferred” within the user’s settings
- Shelves prepared by Librarians
- Topics not set as “Preferred” within the user’s settings
I think that it is generally a good arrangement, but have some suggestions for improvements:
- I have no use for several of the default categories, and imagine other users may feel similarly. (Specifically for me: the “Getting Started” and the “Mini Stories” categories contain lessons that I read long ago and will never read again.) Yet, I can’t make these categories disappear. I can’t hide them via Settings, and the difficulty level slider at the top of the Library page does not affect their visibility. So I must scroll past them each time I go looking for new content.
- The main problem is that these categories are displayed so prominently at the top of the Library page. If you would rather not let users fully disable these categories, then a fine alternative would be to allow us to set them as non-preferred, which would demote them to the bottom of the page, as happens with Topics.
- The difficulty level slider at the top of the Library page should hide lessons whose difficulty is outside the selected range. It should also hide entire courses whose whose lessons are all outside the selected range. I think this already happens for most lessons/courses, but my main suggestion here is that this should happen even if those lessons/courses are within the default categories (as discussed above).
- It might be nice if fully completed lessons (ie, those with a full green bar) were hidden from the front Library page. This would increase visibility of new content. Completed lessons could be found either in the “Continue studying” category, or would also be shown if the user selects “View all” for the course containing them.
- Courses whose lessons are fully completed could also be hidden. They could be shown if the user selects “View all” next to the “Continue studying > Courses” category.
- I recently began to use the shelves prepared by Librarians, and love the resources that have been collected here. I wish there were a way to promote some shelves and demote others, thus moving them up/down the Library page depending on my interest in their content. But I feel that this may be harder to implement than my other suggestions, as these shelves are quite dynamic (ie, they vary between languages, and change over time).
- Relatedly, it would be nice to be able to click on the user’s icon who prepared each shelf, to see their other contributions (eg, other lessons/courses/shelves they have shared).
- Any adjustments to settings would of course go in Settings → App Settings → General, and could be structured similarly to the “Preferred Topics” setting that is currently there. It might be worth clarifying that deselecting categories/shelves/topics does not make them disappear, but rather demotes them to the bottom of the Library page (if this is indeed the behavior you wish to retain).
Of all the above, my biggest request is to be able to demote certain default categories, especially “Getting Started”. Isn’t it a little silly to make this the second-highest-priority category (after “Continue Studying”) for all users, even those who have been around for years?
Overall the Library page is really nicely done. I hope my suggestions above help improve it incrementally further. If other users have ideas or reactions, would be interesting to hear.