Is there anyone at LingQ thinking seriously about the user experience of the site. It is very counter intuitive.
Here’s an example:
I click on ‘my lessons’ and I would like to sort them. You would think this would be possible according to the chronological steps of a course, or even alphabetically. But - no -
You can sort ty
‘newly accessed’,
‘relevance’
and ‘likes’.
Why not ‘by mentions on TikTok’?
I see you haven’t posted in 2 years, so you may not have looked around, but they are working on LingQ 5.0 so these are getting looked at.
The user interface is simply impossible to use. My instinct is that Steve is both autocratic and oblivious to the basic principles of UX design - to the point that he is unaware of existence of something called UX design.
Here’s what I’d like to be able to do.
I’d like to be able to create courses as containers for lessons. That’s it. That’s all I want to do.
Instead I am confronted with a sprawling gamified mess which contains not the slightest danger of easy navigation.
It’s a very bad sign that the button for creating a new document is labelled ‘import’. There is a big difference between importing and creating. This, first step, in using the site advertises the conceptual confusion that lies behind its design and navigation architecture.
Other examples: When opening a lesson the pull-down button that says ‘courses’ only shows ‘lessons’…It literally makes no sense. There used to be a button called ‘my courses’. It’s disappeared… Closing your account is hidden behind ‘change plan’.
The ‘playlist’ section contains no button for creating a new playlist - what is a playlist anyway? more gamification.
The ‘my lessons’ section has no way to create a new lesson, or delete an existing lesson…
The ‘import’ section appears to allow you to import into a course… one just loses the will to live.
Here’s some advice.
People need to be presented with a hierarchy of things they will plausibly want to do.
They want to create lessons - it needs a button called create lesson.
They want to import a text - to create a lesson - this can derive as an option under one
They want containers for these lessons - call them courses OK. They need to be able to create these.
They need to be able to edit and move around this stuff much like you’d edit and move around files and folders on a PC or in the cloud.
That’s it. That’s the top level hierarchy.
Emojis, games, ‘challenges’… ALL of the rest of it is much less important.
Using this site is like getting into a car and finding that the huge thing in front of you is the light for the trunk. The steering wheel is a small knob under the passenger seat and the accelerator can only be operated by a passenger sitting in the rear via an intercom that features Google translate - and the sat nav shows you how to get to places but only in different countries.
Now I have posted comments about the UX before and they have disappeared. If this comment disappears then I will be exporting my vocab (I just tried it and 20 minutes later no email has arrived) and ‘changing my plan’.
I’ve been looking around for an hour - it is not very encouraging.
I mean, only being able to sort by ‘likes’, ‘relevance’ and ‘newly imported’. What on earth?
Imagine going into a public library and being confronted with a classification system on the bases of what books were ‘liked’, ‘relevant’ (to what?) … And this is leaving the fact that in LingQ you tend to want to find the stuff you have created / imported. - your courses…
try checking your spam folder for vocab export
Sorry to hear your experience with LingQ is that bad! Hopefully, after we launch the update you will find it easier to use.
I joined around 24 hours ago. The overall purpose of Lingq seems good, but I have been flummoxed and stymied again and again by the app and the website. They seem to be designed by someone who wants us to read their mind rather than someone who is thinking like the users of the website. I’m sure once you’re used to everything it’s fine, but it’s quite a hurdle to start out with.
Two specific issues: I found a lesson in a course. When I tried to search for the full course by name it didn’t come up in the search results. Half an hour later I figured out that pressing the three dots on the lesson allows me to view the full course. The link to the full course should be more obvious. And of course, something needs to be done to fix the search feature.
The second issue is that I can’t see any way to delete a course from “my courses” on the app. I just figured out it’s simple to do on the website, but I still can’t find a way to control this in the app.
There were many other UI/UX issues I experienced, but those are just two that I remember at the moment.
Zoran - the key principle is hierarchy of needs. I have a friend who ran a software company and he was asked to design an app for Dublin Airport. I told him this.
Arrivals
Departures
Parking
Announcements
If your clients wants to boast about their ‘inclusivity’ or dedication to net zero then, under no circumstances, put any of that on or near the home page. Universities make this mistake the whole time. There are only 4 questions anyone who means business wants from a university’s website: 1) What courses do you offer? 2) What is their start and end dates? 3) What’s the criteria for entry; and 4) How much do they cost?
Visitors to 90% of university sites will spend days looking for this stuff and often find it’s not available. Instead they get vast quantities of guff that is there because different departments and administrators are stuffing their useless propaganda onto every page they can.
For LingQ it’s : 1) What courses are on the site (grouped by language, and level); 2) Create your own course by a) importing / authoring text / media - that’s really it. 3) Vocabulary list; 4) exercises
Hierarchy of needs.
Here’s the Community forum page. It has no button for starting a new thread.
The profile picture on the top right has no link to your posts…
Literally nothing is where you would expect to find it.
As mentioned already in other threads, we are currently working on update to LingQ 5.0 and both web and app versions will be redesigned and improved.
zoran,
I have a query. When you say web version will be redesigned. Is it possible to change background color for our lessons like Kindle reader online?
I thought the white color is not easy on my eyes. When I read something in German on Kindle reader it is less straining on my eyes due to a different color. I find it really pleasing.
Are there any details on what exactly will be improved? I am a very new member but have also found the experience to be a bit clunky, web version wise and android app wise.
Knowing what is being worked on would be helpful in knowing whether or not I would like to continue using the service.
Appreciate the work, cheers!
We will release the web beta soon, and you’ll be able to join and send feedbacks and suggestions.