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Show HN: Ulangi App – Make learning vocabulary easier

36 points by jimmyloi92 8y ago

huhtenberg 8y ago
Nice. Very nice, in fact. Here is some feedback: The first-use UX can use a bit of tuning - that is, the app should explain how to build up the dictionaries and just offer to pick some pre-existing sets from your collection, because that's what 99% of people would want to do. The UI should definitely not default to an empty Manage tab. Second gripe and it's actually a deal-breaker - the app needs an Internet connection to get started. I fully expect this sort of app to come preloaded with basic word sets for all supported languages, with an option to pick up more IF there's an online connection. It is also perfectly fine to charge money for both basic sets and extensions. The main point is that the app should be self-contained and remain fully usable in its existing state regardless of whether there's an Internet connection and whether your servers are still up and running. Third - I hate giving away my email address and I find it obnoxious when the first page of a _native_ app is a "give us your email address" form. In fact, I see no reason for a native app to _require_ an email address to be usable. If it wants to do server-based profile persistence, it should rely on a device ID. Then, if a user wants to share his profile between multiple devices, it would make sense to start asking for an email address. Fourth - going back to the UI, the Manage tab should really be displaying not the list of words, but the list of _sets_, because that what I was selecting. This view needs grouping. Without it will become overpopulated and very hard to, well, manage. Consider the case when I added 30 words from some set, learned them and then decided to remove them - that's going to require a lo-o-o-ot of tapping. There is something called "dictionaries" on the Manage tab, but it's not really clear how these correspond to "sets" from the Discovery tab... Having played with the app for an hour it seems to me that there are words, sets and dictionaries, but that's one level too many. There should really be just words and sets... unless dictionaries are for different languages. Another thing is that, say, I'm trying to learn German words. It's not clear to me if it's possible to train English-to-German translation with your app. That is, train for the case when I need to say something (i.e. to translate to the target language) rather than when I need to translate from it. Fifth - when taking a writing form of quiz, an UI can use some better support for going into the middle of a word and correcting a mis-typed letter. Stock support for that via tap-hold-zoom is slow and cumbersome in this context. As an option - clicking on Hint should place the cursor immediately after the first incorrect letter, so you'd only need to do Backspace and then type a new letter. This will make quizes to go much faster. Separately, I must compliment the UI design, which I think is excellent. Minimalist, but without going to the extreme. Really well done.
- jimmyloi92 8y ago
  Hi huhtenberg, Thank you so much for your feedback. I agree that I should not ask user to sign up. The only reason for signing up is that the app knows who to do synchronization/backup to the backend server automatically. In the future versions, I can make synchronization off by default so creating an account is optional. The app connects to the backend server to fetch existing sets. It just that there are not a lot of them right now. Will definitely add more sets. Again thank you for feedback. I will take your suggestions in mind. I'm currently testing the Android version. There are too many things to do.
PacifyFish 8y ago
Awesome landing page! What did you use to make it? Also, are you planning on charging in the future? If not, I'm worried support will disappear which makes me scared of investing time into the app ) :
- jimmyloi92 8y ago
  Thank you very much. The landing page is bought from themeforest (the name is Enovo landing page) then I slightly modified it. I don't want to spend too much time on the landing page as the main focus is the app. I'm not planning to charge in the future. I will try to get sponsors and donations from Patron. I guarantee to you that it will not disappear because I put a lot of effort on the architecture to make it less costly to maintain.
krat0sprakhar 8y ago
Just gave it quick whirl - found the design to be really well done and intuitive! Congrats! Given that Android is still in the works, am I right to assume that these apps were built independently rather than using a cross platform toolkit (e.g flutter/RN). Is that so?
- jimmyloi92 8y ago
  Thank you very much. It is built with React Native. I'm building tests for Android. It should be released in 1 or 2 weeks after all bugs are fixed and it passes all the tests.
inawarminister 8y ago
>name is Ulangi >No Malay or Indonesian in the examples Oof To be serious, I am excited to recommend this to my iPhone using friends though just for the clean design and focus on vocabulary. I myself am using anki(droid) and it's amazing, but a bit ... Too flexible for easy usage
- jimmyloi92 8y ago
  Thank you very much. Indonesian and other few languages were initially listed in the app but I decided to remove them to avoid confusing users as I couldn't build all features for them . But I will definitely add more languages as time goes.
cyborgx7 8y ago
This looks great. Excited to check it out when it comes to android. You hooked me in with your examples all being japanese. Also, I want to know how that Atom minigame works.
- jimmyloi92 8y ago
  Thank you. I'm excited about the Android version too as a creator.
samuraiseoul 8y ago
It looks nice but there's no android version(I know its coming but I can't try it til then) and more importantly, is I have anki decks already that I would want to migrate but it doesn't look like that's possible. I like the SRS that anki has, but I like the synched, public decks that I've been using and don't want to put more effort into this. I would be VERY inclined to try it once it comes to android if I could easily migrate my anki decks.
- jimmyloi92 8y ago
  Thank you very much. Migrating from Anki is not possible now. Ulangi is free so there is no lost to try it out to see the differences.
  - samuraiseoul 8y ago
    I definitely want to and will try it, but its just gonna be a pain to remake decks is all and I assume it's all about the same.
    - jimmyloi92 8y ago
      In Ulangi, you can click "add" to add specific vocabulary you want to learn. You can also click "add all" to add all of them from a deck (or set). This way you only choose to learn what is essential to you. I mean it's really painless to manage your own decks (or sets). Moving things around are also easy in Ulangi. Although I only watched the AnkiDroid app from youtube, I'm sure there are many significant differences between Anki and Ulangi.
jimmyloi92 8y ago
If you are interested in the Android version and want to get notified when it comes out.You can subscribe to us at ProductHunt. https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/ulangi https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/ulangi It should be launched in 2 weeks.

36 points by jimmyloi92 8y ago

Nice. Very nice, in fact. Here is some feedback: The first-use UX can use a bit of tuning - that is, the app should explain how to build up the dictionaries and just offer to pick some pre-existing sets from your collection, because that's what 99% of people would want to do. The UI should definitely not default to an empty Manage tab. Second gripe and it's actually a deal-breaker - the app needs an Internet connection to get started. I fully expect this sort of app to come preloaded with basic word sets for all supported languages, with an option to pick up more IF there's an online connection. It is also perfectly fine to charge money for both basic sets and extensions. The main point is that the app should be self-contained and remain fully usable in its existing state regardless of whether there's an Internet connection and whether your servers are still up and running. Third - I hate giving away my email address and I find it obnoxious when the first page of a _native_ app is a "give us your email address" form. In fact, I see no reason for a native app to _require_ an email address to be usable. If it wants to do server-based profile persistence, it should rely on a device ID. Then, if a user wants to share his profile between multiple devices, it would make sense to start asking for an email address. Fourth - going back to the UI, the Manage tab should really be displaying not the list of words, but the list of _sets_, because that what I was selecting. This view needs grouping. Without it will become overpopulated and very hard to, well, manage. Consider the case when I added 30 words from some set, learned them and then decided to remove them - that's going to require a lo-o-o-ot of tapping. There is something called "dictionaries" on the Manage tab, but it's not really clear how these correspond to "sets" from the Discovery tab... Having played with the app for an hour it seems to me that there are words, sets and dictionaries, but that's one level too many. There should really be just words and sets... unless dictionaries are for different languages. Another thing is that, say, I'm trying to learn German words. It's not clear to me if it's possible to train English-to-German translation with your app. That is, train for the case when I need to say something (i.e. to translate to the target language) rather than when I need to translate from it. Fifth - when taking a writing form of quiz, an UI can use some better support for going into the middle of a word and correcting a mis-typed letter. Stock support for that via tap-hold-zoom is slow and cumbersome in this context. As an option - clicking on Hint should place the cursor immediately after the first incorrect letter, so you'd only need to do Backspace and then type a new letter. This will make quizes to go much faster. Separately, I must compliment the UI design, which I think is excellent. Minimalist, but without going to the extreme. Really well done.

jimmyloi92 8y ago
Hi huhtenberg, Thank you so much for your feedback. I agree that I should not ask user to sign up. The only reason for signing up is that the app knows who to do synchronization/backup to the backend server automatically. In the future versions, I can make synchronization off by default so creating an account is optional. The app connects to the backend server to fetch existing sets. It just that there are not a lot of them right now. Will definitely add more sets. Again thank you for feedback. I will take your suggestions in mind. I'm currently testing the Android version. There are too many things to do.

PacifyFish 8y ago

Awesome landing page! What did you use to make it? Also, are you planning on charging in the future? If not, I'm worried support will disappear which makes me scared of investing time into the app ) :

jimmyloi92 8y ago
Thank you very much. The landing page is bought from themeforest (the name is Enovo landing page) then I slightly modified it. I don't want to spend too much time on the landing page as the main focus is the app. I'm not planning to charge in the future. I will try to get sponsors and donations from Patron. I guarantee to you that it will not disappear because I put a lot of effort on the architecture to make it less costly to maintain.

krat0sprakhar 8y ago

Just gave it quick whirl - found the design to be really well done and intuitive! Congrats! Given that Android is still in the works, am I right to assume that these apps were built independently rather than using a cross platform toolkit (e.g flutter/RN). Is that so?

jimmyloi92 8y ago
Thank you very much. It is built with React Native. I'm building tests for Android. It should be released in 1 or 2 weeks after all bugs are fixed and it passes all the tests.

inawarminister 8y ago

>name is Ulangi >No Malay or Indonesian in the examples Oof To be serious, I am excited to recommend this to my iPhone using friends though just for the clean design and focus on vocabulary. I myself am using anki(droid) and it's amazing, but a bit ... Too flexible for easy usage

jimmyloi92 8y ago
Thank you very much. Indonesian and other few languages were initially listed in the app but I decided to remove them to avoid confusing users as I couldn't build all features for them . But I will definitely add more languages as time goes.

cyborgx7 8y ago

This looks great. Excited to check it out when it comes to android. You hooked me in with your examples all being japanese. Also, I want to know how that Atom minigame works.

jimmyloi92 8y ago
Thank you. I'm excited about the Android version too as a creator.

samuraiseoul 8y ago

It looks nice but there's no android version(I know its coming but I can't try it til then) and more importantly, is I have anki decks already that I would want to migrate but it doesn't look like that's possible. I like the SRS that anki has, but I like the synched, public decks that I've been using and don't want to put more effort into this. I would be VERY inclined to try it once it comes to android if I could easily migrate my anki decks.

jimmyloi92 8y ago
Thank you very much. Migrating from Anki is not possible now. Ulangi is free so there is no lost to try it out to see the differences.
- samuraiseoul 8y ago
  I definitely want to and will try it, but its just gonna be a pain to remake decks is all and I assume it's all about the same.
  - jimmyloi92 8y ago
    In Ulangi, you can click "add" to add specific vocabulary you want to learn. You can also click "add all" to add all of them from a deck (or set). This way you only choose to learn what is essential to you. I mean it's really painless to manage your own decks (or sets). Moving things around are also easy in Ulangi. Although I only watched the AnkiDroid app from youtube, I'm sure there are many significant differences between Anki and Ulangi.

jimmyloi92 8y ago

If you are interested in the Android version and want to get notified when it comes out.You can subscribe to us at ProductHunt. https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/ulangi https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/ulangi It should be launched in 2 weeks.