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I’ve been using Anki for about a decade now, and as far as I’m concerned, the only real improvements needed are design/UI based. It is functionally irrelevant i

I’ve been using Anki for about a decade now, and as far as I’m concerned, the only real improvements needed are design/UI based. It is functionally irrelevant if the algorithm is optimized or not when the actual user interface seems boring to potential users. While I do like that Anki has power user options, it’s also very unintuitive to the average person just looking into it. Which is really a shame, as the spacing effect itself is such an underrated aspect of human learning that it almost feels like cheating.

arrowsmith 1y ago
I love Anki but it’s an archetypal example of “designed by an engineer”. It’s powerful, with a lot of depth to its features - but it’s also hideous, clunky and unintuitive, and it takes a long time to figure out how to use it effectively. An HN-reading tech nerd can probably figure it out, but your average Duolingomaxxing normie? No chance.
- cenamus 1y ago
  Sorry, but what's clunky about it? All buttons in reach of your thumb on the mobile app and usable keybindings on desktop? Is there not enough useless whitespace around every button?
  - dustincoates 1y ago
    I'll give you one example. Occasionally, I come across something that needs to be not be shown anymore. I realize that the question wasn't a good one, or my template spit out something empty. Now, do I suspend card or suspend note? Every single time, I have to go search for which is the right one. (Okay, okay, maybe user error, but still.) Another example until recently was the extremely useful image occlusion enhanced add-on. Can you easily tell the difference between overlapping and nonoverlapping? At least they renamed those settings to the much more intuitive "Hide One , Reveal All" and "Hide All, Reveal One."
  - felipeerias 1y ago
    I have been trying to use Anki for years. Every time it is the same story: I keep it up for a few months until I miss a couple days, then due cards accumulate far beyond what can be reasonably managed, and I end up spending more time trying to fix the app than actually learning anything.
    - pm215 1y ago
      This is an area where I feel like there's scope for improvement in the SRS space. All the SRS systems I've seen essentially assume the user is a perfect robot who will do their reviews every day without fail. But most people will have off days or go on holiday for a week and not look at the app, or whatever -- and as you note, the user experience in that case is awful: you come back to a huge number of reviews which is pretty discouraging to even start, you probably get more of them wrong than usual, so you likely do fewer reviews than you normally would, and the situation tends to get worse instead of better. An SRS system which took more account of the human failings of the user might: - let you pick a "max daily reviews" and then keep you from putting in too many new items up front, rather than letting you accidentally give yourself a huge daily workload after a few months - let you tell it "I'm going to be on holiday in a month's time" and have it figure out what to do with reviews and new items to minimise disruption - when you do come back after a break, pick the most useful reviews to offer the user up to the daily limit (e.g. something whose review interval is six months can wait a few more days, something the user added very recently and has seen only once could be put back into the "new items" bucket to relearn later, so if the user is only going to do 100 of their 300 due cards, other cards are more important to review today)
      - _Algernon_ 1y ago
        >- let you pick a "max daily reviews" and then keep you from putting in too many new items up front, rather than letting you accidentally give yourself a huge daily workload after a few months Anki allows you to do that. It's in the deck preset options under deck limits. Nowadays you can also set weekday workloads, to reduce workload eg. during the weekend.
        1y ago
  - watwut 1y ago
    First thing that comes to my mind is that it is basically impossible to make it show you both sides of all the cards you are about to see for the first time today at the same time. So that you can actually try to learn it in more effective and less frustrating way then flashing cards on you in random order. Second thing, control over workload should not be that hard. Anki requires too much tweaking to work reasonably. Third thing, both old and new algorithm have a notion of "you are pressing the buttons wrong". If you are pressing the buttons wrong, you will end up with absurd intervals - like 4 months interval on something you just learned.
- Pooge 1y ago
  I think the default settings are fine for 99% of the users. I've used them to "master" a language and I've been more than fine. Actually, I'd argue I was more effective than people who didn't use SRS.
- federicotdn 1y ago
  Reminds me of how I'm using Anki on iOS to learn German, and my phone's configured language is German, except for the Anki app, which is ironically the only app I've configured to be in English because I couldn't understand what 80% of the buttons meant.
- Muromec 1y ago
  >An HN-reading tech nerd can probably figure it out, but your average Duolingomaxxing normie? No chance. Me, the person who reversengineered obfuscated code doing weird crypto primitives and submitted patches to linux kernel can't figure it out either. Maybe I'm not HN nerd enough, so I had to do the duolingo to pass my citizenship exams. Anki seems like it works for a lot of people with a very specific flow, but I don't know what the flow is and why it doesn't work for me. It's weird.
- _Algernon_ 1y ago
  Those reasons are why I love Anki. I'd rather have a program that exposes every mechanism of how it works and allows me to access it than a program that doesn't and the program appears to appear to work by magic. Give me visible cogs that I can tune and a good manual any day of the week. Anki is refreshing function over form design. It's beautiful.
yellow_lead 1y ago
Compared to i.e Duolingo, the app is quite boring. I still have been using it for years. But I sometimes wonder if adding a bit of gamification may help. For instance, streaks, sound effects, etc. Obviously, those should be optional
- keiferski 1y ago
  I used to be something of an Anki evangelist and recommended it to anyone that would listen. But the minute I showed it to someone that isn’t already technically-minded, their eyes glazed over and they lost interest immediately. I think it just needs a fresh minimal design, a tutorial, and some premade decks that aren’t just the half-baked free ones.
- dustincoates 1y ago
  There are streaks, but they're hard to find. There is a heat map add-on that makes them a lot more obvious.
- wccrawford 1y ago
  I've quit Duolingo because of the gamification. It's far, far too much, and it puts me in the wrong mindset for learning. Instead of concentrating on the knowledge, I'm gaming the system to improve my score the most. There were times I would stop learning because I knew if I saved it for later, I could use a multiplier for a higher score. And the daily emotion-tugging streak reminders started to actually piss me off. On top of that, at one point they were changing the icon regularly and made it really ugly. Despite a ton of complaints, they left it that way for a long time. So I canceled my subscription and I'm done with them. I'll find another way to study that I like (I've already tried Anki and it works, but I don't like it) and isn't mentally abusive.
  - watwut 1y ago
    > On top of that, at one point they were changing the icon regularly and made it really ugly. Despite a ton of complaints, they left it that way for a long time. My kids loved it. I did not cared. So, the likely explanation is that many people like that icon changes or dont mind it.
brightball 1y ago
I’ve been reading about spaced repetition and Anki for years. Never got around to actually trying it on anything. I wonder if there are any good recommendations for something to try it on?
- keiferski 1y ago
  Language learning is the classic use case, but I also use it from everything from historical facts to encyclopedia entries on a subject I’m trying to master. Probably the simplest use case to get started is improving your English vocabulary. (Assuming English is your first language.) I try to add a card for any word I come across that I don’t know the meaning of, and it works very well.
- Muromec 1y ago
  Try to learn a different writing system, alphabet or not. Arabic, Cyrillic, Hangul, whatever. It has finite number of cards and you don't need large context to understand them.
- sn9 1y ago
  A quick and easy one is learning the NATO phonetic alphabet. You can find premade decks for it.
- yCombLinks 1y ago
  Leetcode patterns, and common problem types to apply those patterns to.
david_allison 1y ago
AnkiDroid maintainer here: we're actively working on a new design for the reviewer (currently available in the Developer Options in the production app). I don't think any of us are satisfied with how most things look, but we're severely under-resourced. Feel free to email me if you'd be interested in getting involved with the Android side of things.
rsanek 1y ago
it'd be nice to have a better UI. but the reason people don't use Anki isn't because it's hard to use. it's because the time to value is high, and the value really only comes from long term discipline and motivation. people that are motivated and will succeed with Anki regardless of design will power through an annoying UI. so with better design, you'll increase top of funnel but radically decrease conversion.
cosmic_cheese 1y ago
My biggest gripe with it is how clunky the editor window is. That’s the main part that’s due for a redesign in my opinion. It has other oddities too though, like the tab bar in the main window that doesn’t act like a tab bar. It should also really have two button mode (Again and Good only) for the review screen as a built in option, too — the addon that adds this is very popular and it’d be dead simple to implement.
jameshsi 1y ago
Ah i've been curious about what improvements folks would like to see most in SRS learning and this thread is gold! It does seem as though Anki’s core is undeniably solid, yet its power can also feel like a hurdle for non power users. Additionally, i'm not sure "boring" is necessarily bad, as i've heard and to agree that learning may be best when it feels like a strenuous workout. I've been exploring some of these questions in my personal foray in design. If anyone’s interested, I posted an early experiment here: https://dribbble.com/shots/25737616-Descartes-Design-Flashcards https://dribbble.com/shots/25737616-Descartes-Design-Flashca...

arrowsmith 1y ago

I love Anki but it’s an archetypal example of “designed by an engineer”. It’s powerful, with a lot of depth to its features - but it’s also hideous, clunky and unintuitive, and it takes a long time to figure out how to use it effectively. An HN-reading tech nerd can probably figure it out, but your average Duolingomaxxing normie? No chance.

cenamus 1y ago
Sorry, but what's clunky about it? All buttons in reach of your thumb on the mobile app and usable keybindings on desktop? Is there not enough useless whitespace around every button?
- dustincoates 1y ago
  I'll give you one example. Occasionally, I come across something that needs to be not be shown anymore. I realize that the question wasn't a good one, or my template spit out something empty. Now, do I suspend card or suspend note? Every single time, I have to go search for which is the right one. (Okay, okay, maybe user error, but still.) Another example until recently was the extremely useful image occlusion enhanced add-on. Can you easily tell the difference between overlapping and nonoverlapping? At least they renamed those settings to the much more intuitive "Hide One , Reveal All" and "Hide All, Reveal One."
- felipeerias 1y ago
  I have been trying to use Anki for years. Every time it is the same story: I keep it up for a few months until I miss a couple days, then due cards accumulate far beyond what can be reasonably managed, and I end up spending more time trying to fix the app than actually learning anything.
  - pm215 1y ago
    This is an area where I feel like there's scope for improvement in the SRS space. All the SRS systems I've seen essentially assume the user is a perfect robot who will do their reviews every day without fail. But most people will have off days or go on holiday for a week and not look at the app, or whatever -- and as you note, the user experience in that case is awful: you come back to a huge number of reviews which is pretty discouraging to even start, you probably get more of them wrong than usual, so you likely do fewer reviews than you normally would, and the situation tends to get worse instead of better. An SRS system which took more account of the human failings of the user might: - let you pick a "max daily reviews" and then keep you from putting in too many new items up front, rather than letting you accidentally give yourself a huge daily workload after a few months - let you tell it "I'm going to be on holiday in a month's time" and have it figure out what to do with reviews and new items to minimise disruption - when you do come back after a break, pick the most useful reviews to offer the user up to the daily limit (e.g. something whose review interval is six months can wait a few more days, something the user added very recently and has seen only once could be put back into the "new items" bucket to relearn later, so if the user is only going to do 100 of their 300 due cards, other cards are more important to review today)
    - _Algernon_ 1y ago
      >- let you pick a "max daily reviews" and then keep you from putting in too many new items up front, rather than letting you accidentally give yourself a huge daily workload after a few months Anki allows you to do that. It's in the deck preset options under deck limits. Nowadays you can also set weekday workloads, to reduce workload eg. during the weekend.
      - 1y ago
- watwut 1y ago
  First thing that comes to my mind is that it is basically impossible to make it show you both sides of all the cards you are about to see for the first time today at the same time. So that you can actually try to learn it in more effective and less frustrating way then flashing cards on you in random order. Second thing, control over workload should not be that hard. Anki requires too much tweaking to work reasonably. Third thing, both old and new algorithm have a notion of "you are pressing the buttons wrong". If you are pressing the buttons wrong, you will end up with absurd intervals - like 4 months interval on something you just learned.
Pooge 1y ago
I think the default settings are fine for 99% of the users. I've used them to "master" a language and I've been more than fine. Actually, I'd argue I was more effective than people who didn't use SRS.
federicotdn 1y ago
Reminds me of how I'm using Anki on iOS to learn German, and my phone's configured language is German, except for the Anki app, which is ironically the only app I've configured to be in English because I couldn't understand what 80% of the buttons meant.
Muromec 1y ago
>An HN-reading tech nerd can probably figure it out, but your average Duolingomaxxing normie? No chance. Me, the person who reversengineered obfuscated code doing weird crypto primitives and submitted patches to linux kernel can't figure it out either. Maybe I'm not HN nerd enough, so I had to do the duolingo to pass my citizenship exams. Anki seems like it works for a lot of people with a very specific flow, but I don't know what the flow is and why it doesn't work for me. It's weird.
_Algernon_ 1y ago
Those reasons are why I love Anki. I'd rather have a program that exposes every mechanism of how it works and allows me to access it than a program that doesn't and the program appears to appear to work by magic. Give me visible cogs that I can tune and a good manual any day of the week. Anki is refreshing function over form design. It's beautiful.

yellow_lead 1y ago

Compared to i.e Duolingo, the app is quite boring. I still have been using it for years. But I sometimes wonder if adding a bit of gamification may help. For instance, streaks, sound effects, etc. Obviously, those should be optional

keiferski 1y ago
I used to be something of an Anki evangelist and recommended it to anyone that would listen. But the minute I showed it to someone that isn’t already technically-minded, their eyes glazed over and they lost interest immediately. I think it just needs a fresh minimal design, a tutorial, and some premade decks that aren’t just the half-baked free ones.
dustincoates 1y ago
There are streaks, but they're hard to find. There is a heat map add-on that makes them a lot more obvious.
wccrawford 1y ago
I've quit Duolingo because of the gamification. It's far, far too much, and it puts me in the wrong mindset for learning. Instead of concentrating on the knowledge, I'm gaming the system to improve my score the most. There were times I would stop learning because I knew if I saved it for later, I could use a multiplier for a higher score. And the daily emotion-tugging streak reminders started to actually piss me off. On top of that, at one point they were changing the icon regularly and made it really ugly. Despite a ton of complaints, they left it that way for a long time. So I canceled my subscription and I'm done with them. I'll find another way to study that I like (I've already tried Anki and it works, but I don't like it) and isn't mentally abusive.
- watwut 1y ago
  > On top of that, at one point they were changing the icon regularly and made it really ugly. Despite a ton of complaints, they left it that way for a long time. My kids loved it. I did not cared. So, the likely explanation is that many people like that icon changes or dont mind it.

brightball 1y ago

I’ve been reading about spaced repetition and Anki for years. Never got around to actually trying it on anything. I wonder if there are any good recommendations for something to try it on?

keiferski 1y ago
Language learning is the classic use case, but I also use it from everything from historical facts to encyclopedia entries on a subject I’m trying to master. Probably the simplest use case to get started is improving your English vocabulary. (Assuming English is your first language.) I try to add a card for any word I come across that I don’t know the meaning of, and it works very well.
Muromec 1y ago
Try to learn a different writing system, alphabet or not. Arabic, Cyrillic, Hangul, whatever. It has finite number of cards and you don't need large context to understand them.
sn9 1y ago
A quick and easy one is learning the NATO phonetic alphabet. You can find premade decks for it.
yCombLinks 1y ago
Leetcode patterns, and common problem types to apply those patterns to.

david_allison 1y ago

AnkiDroid maintainer here: we're actively working on a new design for the reviewer (currently available in the Developer Options in the production app). I don't think any of us are satisfied with how most things look, but we're severely under-resourced. Feel free to email me if you'd be interested in getting involved with the Android side of things.

rsanek 1y ago

it'd be nice to have a better UI. but the reason people don't use Anki isn't because it's hard to use. it's because the time to value is high, and the value really only comes from long term discipline and motivation. people that are motivated and will succeed with Anki regardless of design will power through an annoying UI. so with better design, you'll increase top of funnel but radically decrease conversion.

cosmic_cheese 1y ago

My biggest gripe with it is how clunky the editor window is. That’s the main part that’s due for a redesign in my opinion. It has other oddities too though, like the tab bar in the main window that doesn’t act like a tab bar. It should also really have two button mode (Again and Good only) for the review screen as a built in option, too — the addon that adds this is very popular and it’d be dead simple to implement.

jameshsi 1y ago

Ah i've been curious about what improvements folks would like to see most in SRS learning and this thread is gold! It does seem as though Anki’s core is undeniably solid, yet its power can also feel like a hurdle for non power users. Additionally, i'm not sure "boring" is necessarily bad, as i've heard and to agree that learning may be best when it feels like a strenuous workout. I've been exploring some of these questions in my personal foray in design. If anyone’s interested, I posted an early experiment here: https://dribbble.com/shots/25737616-Descartes-Design-Flashcards https://dribbble.com/shots/25737616-Descartes-Design-Flashca...