I don’t know what happened to this website, but this new interface is atrocious. It is difficult to navigate, difficult to find content, access the library, and download audio files. I don’t know what is happening but this site has really gone down hill over the past few years. It is sad because this was a great resource for learning languages but now it is just kind of a joke with this ridiculous interface.
Is there a way to switch everything back to classic mode?
Every page has the Classic drop-down menu, every lesson has a Classic button close to the lesson’s title.
The major complaint right now has to do with how the content is presented. The Feed is a good idea, and more will be developed there making it a great way to find interesting content, and stay up on content sources we are following. However, we need to present Courses and Lessons to learners in the way they are used to seeing them, with the additional option of seeing the Feed. From what I understand, this is coming very soon.
Beyond that, based on my own impressions as a user, but more important the majority reaction to the new look and the number of LingQs now being created, the new version is a great success. For those who prefer Classic, however, it is still there as Ress has pointed out.
Dear Steve ,
Im agree with ak472. Please correct me if ım wrong. Even though ı can remove lessons ı can not remove courses. For example as french learner (beginner-indermediate) when ı just glance through advance level course, it is automatically added into my course irremovably and ı can not remove it. Its little bit annoying that see level ı cant overcome now
I am sorry, ak472, but your criticism sounds to be not constructive. Every claim you wrote is vague and ambiguous, smth. that makes it look like your aim is to simply damn this website for the sake of damnation, but not to provide any specific suggestions for its improvement.
"… It is difficult to navigate… " - what specifically makes it difficult to navigate to you?
“… difficult to find content… " - what specifically makes it difficult to find content to you?
“… (difficult to ) access the library…” - what specifically makes it difficult to access the library to you?
" … (difficult to) download audio files …” - what specifically makes it difficult to download audio files to you?
“…this site has really gone down hill over the past few years…” - what specifically makes you conclude that this site has really gone down?
Well, difficult to navigate, means compared to the old version, it is hard to find content. Even in the older version it was a bit challenging to find lessons organized logically and clearly. Now it just seems to be a mess. I honestly cannot see how anyone who ever used the old interface cannot see the major flaws in this one. There used to be a side bar on the left, select your level, select your content, accent, etc. On the right they came up albeit haphazardly. Now when I click “Learn” I get Home, Challenge, and Vocabulary. When I click Home, a bunch of random lessons are generated. Hard to find a filter option for the content, hard to find lessons appropriate to my level. It has gone down hill because, like with most other updates, with each update this site has gone through it has gotten worse and more complicated to use.
Another example, when I actually open a lesson and try to use it, I have no idea how to navigate to the next page. Since only about 10-15 lines of text actually appear on each screen, you obviously have to navigate to a new one to get the full scope of the lesson. You would think that the green arrow buttons would do that, which they seem to do, but then the site automatically assumes that I know all the words I just clicked away from. Who on earth thought this would be a good idea?! Who would have thought it a good idea to record any word I click on as a Lingq?
I have used Lingq since 2009, on and off, but always fairly consistently. It is a huge disappointment that I can’t even navigate a lesson anymore due to poor web designing. All learners need is a transcript and the word bank as you had earlier. Keep it simple stupid.
And I still for the life of me cannot find the “classic” option.
hope this is more constructive
I click the Menu option and cannot get to classic mode. It just pops open a window with duration, unique words, the author of the lesson, and a bunch of other useless information.
Steve,
Thanks for your post. But I really don’t believe this new version is good for serious learners. LingQ was great because it was simple and effective. You had an audio file, you had a transcript, the vocab popped up when you needed it, bam that is it. Although finding lessons and courses in the library were a bit inconvenient, they are now much harder to find and the lessons are hard to navigate. Who on earth thought it to be a good idea to record all the words as known once you hit the green button? Why is it that every time I click on a word in the text, the website says that word out loud without me prompting me to? Why is it that every time I click on a word it automatically records it as a Lingq vocab word? These updates make doing these things much more complicated and the updates actually add little value to the experience. I really hope you guys can work through these issues and make the site more user friendly.
The top line of every page has the words Learn, Exchange, Forum, Classic. Did you try them?
The 1st page of every lesson has a button [Classic] to open it in an old view. I don’t know much about the new view of the lessons because I always click the [Classic] button.
@AK472 , You don’t need to be ill-mannered to suggest changes here!
“atrocious” , “ridiculous interface”
Let me tell you something
I really don’t like this new interface and to be honest I miss the interface that we used in 2011, that was enough for me, I could find the lessons easily, create lingqs, download the audios and so forth. Nowadays a lot of new users loves this interface just because they didn’t know the old version.
I’m so sorry but I’m old school! I prefer the older version of the website, that time the unique concern that I had was pay my internet bill to connect and study.
Actually Lingq is trying to master in terms of apparence but still running in circle in terms of navigability, usability but this is the natural process of improvement.
WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES TO IMPROVE!
The LingQ team is always ready to recieve your suggestions but You were rude enough to be not taken seriously.
My focus is to learn, to be honest I do not care about the look of the website because that is not what will make me speak a new language.
Happy new Year.
I don’t think newcomers or learners who left and came back recently have this [Classic] button. My daughter began a few months ago, and she has no such button. I use myself both the classic and the new view.The classic view has the hover possibility, which is useful if I want to read or reread larger texts. And it has the possibility to consult user hints in other languages, which is also possible in the new app on the iPhone, but not on the new view of the website.
You are right, I forgot about this limitation (or discrimination) for new users.
I don’t know why no one has mentioned this yet, but here is the one thing you need to know to survive as an “old” user of LingQ;
When you are in a lesson (in the new version), go to the gear wheel in the top right-hand corner of the screen. There you can turn OFF the automatic marking of words as “known”.
The system is supposed to remember this choice, but I have had it flip back so I always check it to make sure that the setting is the way I want it.
WARNING: You still have to watch out for the green “Complete Lesson” button on the last page of the lesson. Clicking on this will change all your blue words to “known” no matter what you have chosen in the settings. So don’t click that one until you have all the words marked as you want them.
Yes, the new interface is atrocious.
What’s more, only old members have access to the Classic button.
New members - nope. That’s why I don’t subscribe. Discrimination 2.0.
It is not a matter of discrimination, but rather the recognition that people who are used to a certain look and feel will resist a new one. There is no reason to offer this to people who are not aware that it exists. That would just add complexity and confusion.
I understand that you don’t want to discriminate. But why not let adult persons choose themselves? Just give the them the possibility by adding the classic button. That will not hurt them!
Let me address some of the points raised here:
LingQ will continue to evolve, just as the world of technology and the internet and availability of different language related services continues to evolve. No change is definitive, but part of this continuing evolution. With every change some people will be happy and some people will not. We will continue to respond to feedback and try to make the site better and better for the vast majority of users.
Finding content: This has always been a problem. The library in some languages is too large and includes content that is not of the best quality. We will need to address that. In the meantime we want to find ways to bring to the attention of learners content that they will find interesting and at an appropriate level.The Feed, once fully implemented, will be a big step forward, but in the meantime we all want to be able to see our courses and lessons in the normal way. This is going to be implemented shortly. In my experience the search works better than before, but it is not obvious how to get there.
Downloading audio: I have not had a problem. Perhaps someone could point out what the problem is.
Removing courses: Courses are just pushed down our list and no longer appear. I personally don’t see the need for specifically removing courses.
Blue words automatically become known: This can be turned off in the settings. The purpose of doing this is that a large number of people who just join don’t understand that blue words can be converted to known. They soon find out. In any case, any word that we come across , blue or un-highlighted, can be saved and the statistics are adjusted. I really don’t see the problem here.
Automatic Text To Speech: I love this feature. It is a powerful way to “listen” to words and phrases while reading. It can also be turned off in Settings, but the default needs to be “on”, otherwise many people would never find it.
Clicking on a word creates a LingQ: In fact you can decline the word by hitting “k” or marking it as “known”, or “x” and marking it “ignore”. Here again we need to default to the action of creating LingQs, since that is the key action at LingQ and one that many new learners don’t seem to get.
Division of text into pages: This may take some getting used to but has helped to make the site faster, especially LingQing. It also makes it easer to find your place across different devices. I personally prefer concentrating on a small amount of text at a time. For new members, that is just how the site is, and for older members who prefer the old way, they have Classic.
Navigation: This is an area where we can improve and will do so over the next little while. The feedback we get is very useful in this regard.
Look and feel: Obviously this personal and opinions will be all over the place. I am not on the design or technical team but I really like it.
Try to imagine a new member. He or she just accepts the functions as they are. They don’t miss what they don’t have. The more options they see, the more confused they become. We have to try to make the site as simple and intuitive as possible. We are not there yet, but adding Classic view for new members does add value for anyone.
The classic mode is way better than the new one. Why would I want to automatically change all blue words to known words once I turn the page? I prefer to read a text a few times and gradually and consciously mark the words that I know. I don’t want to be forced to create all necessary lingqs before turning the page. The modern mode with its automatization can make you believe you know much more words than in fact you do.
There are members (like me) who were active LingQ users, canceled their account and now come back, unable to use the Classic view. That’s what I mean by discrimination 2.0.