How to prevent users from misusing Hard? Ideas are welcome

Anki Suggestions
1

Previously, I suggested the following UI changes (don’t mind that it says Hard - Good - Hard, I messed Easy up):
image
This would very clearly and unambiguously indicate which button is not like the others and solve the problem, so obviously, it was rejected by Dae. There are a few other ways:

something-something manual

The majority of users don’t read the manual.
image

add a tooltip that tells the user how to use the buttons

I’ve suggested this once:
image

and nobody agreed on what the text (that would appear when you click the question mark) should say. Also, it was rejected by Dae, too.

If anyone has any proposals, please post them.

Also, @dae, I get that you are in the “Anki UI is flawless as it is, if someone is misusing Anki - it’s their problem, not mine” camp, but please consider changing the UI to make it clear to users that Again = fail and Hard/Good/Easy = pass. And yes, this is the third time I’ve made a forum post about it.
EDIT: how about a tutorial that activates the first time someone launches Anki? I believe this was proposed before, seems like a good solution. And, as the other user said, this would help not just with this particualr problem, but with making Anki more user-friendly overall.

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Third time, why?

:popcorn:

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3

Because Dae didn’t do anything to solve this problem the last two times.

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4

It needs editing Review Cards

Since this is a common problem, it deserves a special mention in the FAQ

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As I said (and showed a poll), most users don’t read the manual.

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6

They can still communicate with the person who read the manual.
Could it be that some of them don’t read the manual because they don’t have problems with anki? Or because they found an alternative in the form of articles and video guides that were based on the manual?

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7

I mean if Dae refuses to change the UI then the optimal solution would just be a simple on boarding tutorial for new users, that almost every modern app has at this point. Quickly tell the users what each button does on the UI then let them repeat the tutorial at any time. Most people do indeed not read documentation, but will sit through a short concise tutorial.

However this would only help with new users, current users would likely skip it thinking they are using everything 100% correct.

To prevent current users from misusing hard a few ideas I have:

  1. Add a tool tip when hovering over any of the answer buttons that says when to press them. ex: hovering over hard “You got this card correct, but struggled to recall it, don’t hit it if you couldn’t recall the card!”. This is similar to your rejected idea but would be less intrusive as you would just hover over the button.
  2. Show a message to all users when they press hard a reminder that hard should never be pressed if you get the given card wrong, and within the notification message, tell users that they can turn the notifications off in the settings. This notification could be displayed non intrusively on the bottom left.
  3. Notify users if their stats are abnormal, and therefore suggest that they are pressing hard too much instead of again. ex: User A rarely presses again, if ever, instead he presses hard quite often, therefore notify him that he might want to review his review habits, and that hard should only be used if you get a card wrong
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I would also add that a simple on boarding tutorial would help not just with this issue, but also make it easier for new users in general to start using Anki. When I first found it, I found it intuitive to use for the most part, but non-tech savvy people struggle with any new UI, since they arent as chronically attached to a screen, adding a on boarding tutorial would be great for converting that demographic of users into anki cultists instead of them just dropping it after being confused and frustrated for x minutes.

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I didnt read the manual until after many months of using Anki, simply because I didn’t know it existed, I had just started using it from yt videos of med students recommending it for studying.

People also in general are lazy, after all we are hard wired to be lazy from evolution. Add to that the fact that people are frequently busy, and that documentation is boring to read, then its pretty obvious to conclude that the vast majority of users wont read the documentation for things they use. This also isn’t limited to just Anki, people don’t read the documentation for countless things and fall into anti patterns as a result of not understanding the thing they’re using.

So if possible it makes way more sense to just force people into correct patterns of using software instead of relying on them to read the docs.

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10

2 is too intrusive, 3 would be complicated and would probably result in a lot of false positives.
1 is good, but as I said, nobody agrees on what exactly the text should say, and people will bikeshed it until the end of times, unfortunately.
The idea of a tutorial was proposed at some point too, but, well, here we are. It does seem like the most comprehensive solution, though, so I would vote for the tutorial. But it would also require a lot more effort to make and maintain, so a tip that appears when you hover over the button would be ideal.

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11

@dae ok, how about this?

Buttons tooltip
Buttons tooltip864×409 28 KB

  1. Easier to make than an entire onboarding tutorial, which would take weeks or even months to make
  2. Hard to miss for the user (unlike tooltips in the deck options, which are easy to miss)
  3. We can add a new setting in Tools → Preferences to turn these tips off, so that users who don’t want to see them anymore won’t be annoyed

Please :pray:

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12

Tell them if they know the answer partially, then make it hard. Then, they’ll probably get it the next time tomorrow.

I don’t know, that’s how I thought of it since the start of my use in Anki

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Or add an interactive tutorial in Help button. Just like what vim does in their manual (forgot what’s it called, but helped me used basic vim)

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No, I’m in the ‘too many things to do, and not enough time’ camp. I am not against changing the tooltips that are currently shown, but getting wording that everyone agrees on will likely take time, and I would rather prioritise other work like getting a new beta out (which you are also nagging me about).

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Ok, but please tell me you’ll implement the idea I proposed above, or an onboarding tutorial, or something to make the intended button usage more clear in the foreseeable future (<6 months from today).

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I think a better solution and a cleaner solution is to make a 2 button mode and make it the default.

People hate all that text we show in the congrats screen. Pretty sure more text will just make people think the app is too hard to use.

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That’s a MUCH more intrusive change than a tooltip that appears when you hover the mouse over the button, and will make people much more confused and/or mad.

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The tooltip idea is interesting, I will try to develop some add-on for it later.

Perhaps to actually incorporate something like this someone would need to write the code and send a pull request, e.g. an obvious high demand feature was Image Occlusion, even though it was not incorporated into native Anki for over 15 years until developer krmanik developed it. I think this means that even if there are a lot of votes it will not be incorporated until someone develops it.

For now a tutorial like this is being developed by Ankihub, there is a sample deck available. AnkiForums : Revisiting onboarding decks and tutorials

Since I am developing game add-ons I tried to develop a tutorial add-on for Anki that looks like a visual novel game (Under development). Anki tutorial like visual novel game add-on

In my opinion it would be better to develop Anki’s Fork for Anki beginners with FSRS as default and 2 buttons (as sorata said).
Perhaps a tutorial like add-on can be developed but beginners may not know how to install add-ons, so it would be ideal to Fork Anki and incorporate add-ons from the beginning, plus all the advanced options, menus, and buttons can be hidden. (In short light ver of Anki for desktop.)

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Are you suggesting we respond to the wishes of nerds in reddit? They are just a very vocal minority of people. There is a huge untapped market of non-nerds using other educational apps, and here we are thinking the reddit population is Anki’s core base.

As for confusion in the form of “my buttons went away!” I think keeping 4 buttons mode for existing users is possible. But if it’s not, see Longtermism - Wikipedia.

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Are you suggesting we respond to the wishes of nerds in reddit?

I don’t get what you mean. Misusing Hard is not specific to r/Anki users, I’m willing to bet it happens outside of r/Anki just as much, if not more.

Do you really think that having two Anki apps is going to cause less confusion?