Change the interval for "hard" answer

Scheduling
1

I would like to change the interval for the “hard” answer option, or alternatively add a new button with a custom interval logic. I sometimes answer a vocab card incorrectly, but not because I have to relearn the word. Sometimes I answer a related word, like answering “strainer” when the intended answer was “colander”. If I know both words and just misinterpreted the prompt, then it’s not efficient to fail the card and relearn it from scratch. But the hard interval, on the other hand, is too long. I want to decrease the interval and be tested again sooner.
Unfortunately I didn’t see a way to change this in the options. How can I achieve this?

2

I know exactly what you mean. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet found the perfect way to deal with it.
The problem with the Hard button is also, that it reduces the card’s ease, so I try to use the Good and Again buttons only, which are more predictable.
I think it’s generally a good idea to set the interval for lapses to at least 50% and reduce the Leech threshold significantly. That way, if you consistently press Again for said cards, they will be shown to you much sooner than with the Hard button and finally be dealt with if you keep mixing them up.

In the end, the true issue is the ambiguity of the front side. I know too well that it can be bothersome to deal with these kinds of cards. But no Anki option will ever be able to fully compensate for bad card design.

3

You can do even better; there is add-on “Rememorize…” which lets you have ANY interval you want; just click ‘m’ and input the number; ‘Return’ will accept your input. And (!) the Ease will not be decreased.

The add-on has a few options but you want the ‘Reschedule’ one; to make it even more efficient, you can change the default input.

When the card comes back for the next review, you can

  1. Accept the Anki interval or
  2. Reschedule the card as far to the future as you want.

Related:
Another add-on has 1d interval option; it is [Slackers’ Delight (Postpone/Defer Button)]; but 1d ivl is too small – in this case, IMO.
But it is nice to have 1d ivl available at any time - with One click.

4

I have 2 solutions to prevent such a misfire:

  1. Front. append the question / picture with the first letter of the word you do NOT want to recall; example: mmmmmmmmm - c
    That means you want the word which dont start with ‘c’.
    Curious: years ago i had stumbled upon similar suggestion by /dae :slight_smile:
    He recommended typing the whole word: mmmmmm -colander.
    One letter is better because we don’t want to see the word which may be due in a few days. But that is another story.
5

@vit Thanks for the rememorize ad-on suggestion, I will check it out!

6

The intervals can be adjusted using v3 custom scheduling. I’ve used the following in the deck options to set “hard” review interval to be about half of “good” interval, and “easy” interval to be 1.5 times as long:

if (states.good.normal && states.good.normal.review && states.good.normal.review.scheduledDays && states.hard.normal.review) {
    states.hard.normal.review.scheduledDays = Math.ceil ( states.good.normal.review.scheduledDays/2 ) 
    states.easy.normal.review.scheduledDays = Math.ceil ( 3*states.good.normal.review.scheduledDays/2 )
}

But, currently it doesn’t work on AnkiDroid, and I can’t (yet) speak to the effects on long-term behavior, ease factors, etc.