Is this site usable at all?

Hi,

I am a new user and I was shocked to see how this site, having revolutionary ideas, is simply unusable due to very unclear and misbehaving interface.

When I delete a lesson, it is not deleted from the list I see on the screen (refresh is to be pressed to see the result)
I can’t delete a course to which I subscribed. No way.
What I see on the screen depends on sorting option. Pardon, not WHAT I see, but how many items I see. That is, some items may be not shown for some particular sorting options.
BTW, what does it mean to “delete a lesson”? I am asked a question “Are you sure”, but I am not sure at all, whether I am just deleting a lesson from the list of “taken” material, or I will never again be able to access it. Even the window “Are you sure” does not explain anything to me about what is going to be done when I press “yes”. That is, the meaning of many options is quite vague, no poping-up hints, no online help. Going into my selected words (Lingq-s) and pressing “Remove”. Remove from what? From the system completely? Putting to where? To the list of known words or just wiping this word from the system? No clear idea, just need to experiment with the system to get any clue.
Options of presentation (Single-column, double-column, list) - are not preserved, always need to set what I like again and again.

These are some of the problems I could identify just in 3-4 hours working with the system. Sorry about my criticism, the system looks overall so great and has so many users, that I just could not believe it’ll have so basic problems.

1 Like

I just used the sort by status option in the vocabulary section and it struck me as counter-intuitive that clicking on a status removes that status rather than includes it. It took me about 5 minutes to figure that out during which I almost gave up.

It sounds like a lot of these issues are actually just minor misunderstandings. I’m happy to add some clarification to the questions you’ve asked:

Deleting a lesson removes it from your My Lessons section (i.e. the Taken lessons). It will be returned to the Library view so that you can access it again in the future if you would like to.

Removing a saved word deletes it from your list of saved words. It then sets the status of the word as “ignore” so that it doesn’t affect your learning statistics. You can save this word again at any time by highlighting it in the text and then saving it.

To delete a course from your My Lessons section, you’ll have to delete the lessons that you’ve opened from this course. Just open the course, check “Taken” and uncheck “New”, then delete the lessons that appear.

Regarding preserving the settings in the Library, this one is on our list :slight_smile:

If you have any other questions as you poke around, be sure to let us know either here on the forum or at support (at) lingq.com.

I still have a vague understanding, what is “My Lessons”, “Recommended Lessons” and “See all” (which is not a button, as prev options, but a link)

That is, I fancy, “My Lessons” are the lessons which are “Taken” by me. All right, it took 10 min to understand that, yet I am still not sure whether this is right. Then I wonder what is the difference between “Recommended” and “All” and why I see “My Lessons” button after I jump to “See all”.

Of course, spending 5-6 more hours I will master all this (and find some workarounds for the bugs), understand all implied and implicit rules, but I would prefer to use my abilities of reverse engineering at my work and not here.

Thanks for your reply, Alex. Of course, it is misunderstanding, my misunderstanding of the interface. And yet… right now I am trying to delete around 120 lessons to which I subsribed by “Take all” actions on two courses. I do it by deleting one after another, hope to finish with it in 30-40 min.

What I describe here are experiences of a novice user, it is clear that an experienced user will know all the details and all the ways.

@yigals - Your understanding of My Lessons is correct. It includes lessons you have taken and also lesson that you personally have imported. The “See all” link you’re referring to is affected by what you have currently showing in the dropdown. If it’s “My Lessons” then it takes you to the My Lessons section with “Lessons” selected. If it’s “Recommended Courses” then it takes you to the Library with “Courses” selected.

I also might suggest just leaving those lessons for now. You can continue to add new lessons and your most recently opened lessons will appear at the top by default when you have the “My Lessons” option selected on the Learn page. That might save you some time :slight_smile:

Thanks again, Alex. May be, I should have written not into “support” section of the forum, but to some other place. That is, your advices are helpful, but I was not looking right now to resolve these particular problems, but wanted to make a general point about usability and intuitivity of the interface as it is currently implemented with all its fine details. Of course, there are many “right” and “clear” and “working” things there in the system, I just tried to turn the attention to the other ones, which, in my oppinion, are not minor, pop up as soon as one just starts to use the system and pile up ))) making the first experience quite annoying and frustrating. At least as I personally can experience that.

Not a problem, your feedback is appreciated. Everyone uses the site a bit differently, and things that are intuitive to some aren’t so much to another. However, we are continuing to refine the site and welcome any further feedback you may have as well.

To define this site as “simply unusable” was a serious overstating from my side. Sorry about that, just emotions and these emotions were partly from the understanding of how great the ideas put into this project are. I would not comment otherwise.

What is the best way to file in the bugs and/or misileading/vague part of the interface?

@yigals - We realize it can be frustrating when trying to do something and not having it behave the way you would like. Some of these things require getting used to the way things work here while others are certainly areas in which we can improve. We are constantly working at improving ease of use and if you have suggestions, the forum here is as good a place as any to make them. You can also email LingQ Support or post comments on LingQ Support’s wall. Thanks for your interest in LingQ!