Show HN: Spaced Repetition System for iOS
cleverdeck.com
cleverdeck.com
First, I was a long time power user of Anki and don't mean to disparage it, but I think CleverDeck has a much better user experience and design.
Second, we've spent a tremendous amount of time putting together high quality frequency lists (mostly for languages right now) that incorporate professional imagery, native-speaker audio, transliterations (where relevant), and example sentences. Usually, making or piecing together your own decks and cards is the most time-consuming part of using an SRS - and user content is often of dubious quality.
In terms of the spaced repetition, though, CleverDeck and Anki actually use the same algorithm.
I've recently started using Anki, but have only found it useful for taking a mental model that I sat down one weekend and learned, and re-enforcing it. How valuable are these frequency lists for learning something entirely new? If I wanted to use them to say, memorise the api exposed by ActiveRecord, would they be useful, or would they ask me a series of questions that I couldn't yet really put in context?
Repeat revenue makes it easier for me to make a living as an indie dev, so I wanted to give this model a try while charging what I think is a fair price. I'll keep an open mind about it and adjust if enough people want it. Appreciate the feedback!
Of course it does! "And a pony."
You have to realize that most people are exceptionally leery of subscriptions as they are open-ended long-term commercial relationships with some random entity. There gotta be rock-solid clear benefits for a subscription to be justified. There are none in your case. What you have is a product, not a service. A subscription makes no sense whatsoever.
With regards to the fixed pricing - 3000 word pack is not the best option. What's more useful from the language learners perspective are packs that cover specific domain area - foods, kitchen utensils, car parts, body parts, weather elements, household tools, etc.
"3000 words" = "Unclear what you are getting"
"100 words, Garage" = "I may be able talk to the mechanic"
If you have smaller packs, you can sell them at few bucks a piece. You can try and experiment with discounted bundles of packs. And you can also try an all-you-can-eat option with a monthly access (yes, subscription), but as one of the options, not the only one.
PS. Have an option of switching off photos on cards.
Buying the language a few hundred words at a time won't get you to fluency as quickly as learning words by frequency until you have covered the most frequent ~80%. Only then does it make sense to focus on specific domains that are most interesting to you.
For example, I am learning German. I would rather have a pack with the 25 most frequent nouns, 25 most frequent verbs, and maybe 25 most frequent adjectives. Then I have a foundation of vocabulary to learn the dativ and akkusativ. I don't need the adverbs yet.
Also, if I'm learning the modal verbs, I'd like a pack of those.
I just think that's interesting in the context of your use here.
It definitely looks nicer than Anki. It's also better for creating simple cards, something which I haven't really been able to do on the Anki app. The workflow for adding a new card is a great experience. I do think that creating my own cards is an important part of the memorisation process. I've downloaded pre-made cards before, but the stuff I use in conversation is almost always the stuff where I've created the card. Those are the words/phrases that leap to mind.
One issue - my recorded audio didn't play when I reviewed the card (either on the front side or the back side). Maybe a bug?
Based on just 5 minutes of experimentation, I expect that this will become my "on the go" card creator, while I'll keep Anki around for the time being because, when I create cards on my laptop, I can import Forvo pronunciations etc.
Have you thought about how to monetise this?
This is also my current project. Although not mobile first. I use Anki a lot and personally find the UI to be insufferable.
Somewhat related: a lot of its horribleness comes from the fact that the UI is written with QT, which is equally horrible for Windows and Mac, and basically okay for Linux as long as your DE is KDE.
I would agree with this. It also doesn't appear that much thought went into how the application should flow. It really feels like a smattering of UI components were picked out because they could accomplish the goal at hand without much thought as to what would optimize the user experience. For example, the way you browse through cards leaves much to be desired. Even stuff like the size of the buttons when you're reviewing cards. It DOES feel like the kit used to handle the GUI limits the application.
One thing that I think Anki got right (and I got wrong in my first iteration of a spaced-rep app) is doing away with the visual metaphor of a card. The reason you put information on a back of a real-life flash card is so you can review the question without seeing the answer. The answer is obfuscated, but readily available (you don't have to go look it up). There is NO reason to keep the metaphor alive in an app. It is actually less optimal to animate a card flipping over when you want to see the answer. It is better for the answer to simply appear underneath the question so you can easily reference each aspect.
Re: monetization. It's freemium right now - 100 cards to try out the app, then three bucks per month for access to all the decks we've made. Completely free to create your own content.
I'll look into Forvo integration - that sounds useful.
Something that is really key for me: When I create cards, sometimes I want the audio to play on the front, sometimes on the back (and perhaps sometimes both). But there is just one audio value and I need to decide whether I want it to play on the front or the back across the entire deck.
For example, card 1: FRONT: Text says "écureuil", audio reads out "écureuil" BACK: Text says "écureuil", audio reads out "écureuil", and there's a picture of a squirrel
That's good for vocab comprehension, but what if I want the converse exercise?
Card 2: FRONT: Picture of a squirrel BACK: Text says "écureuil", audio reads out "écureuil", and there's a picture of a squirrel
At the moment there's no way for me to create both cards at once. I would need two separate decks because it's one template to a deck. And I would need to make the card twice.
I realise this is jumping ahead to 'power user' territory but it's definitely a feature I would use.
Currently only a web app with a React/Redux/Node/Firebase stack. Anyway, hope it goes well and good luck with your project!
PS. I'm probably not the only one who stuffs his wallet deeper in the pocket upon seeing an "auto-renewable subscription." I would strongly encourage you to add non-subscription way for people to give you some money. I like what you made, it's useful and I'd like to support you, but no way in hell I'm entering a recurrent $ committment with a vendor of any app that I may or may not be using few weeks from now.
I don't necessarily feel like I have nailed the business model right now - I'll see how it goes. More broadly speaking, I think the jury is still out on subscriptions in productivity apps. Everyone is trying to get away with it now - and it is very attractive as an indie developer.
For what its worth, I feel similarly to you. I buy year long auto-renewable subscriptions, immediately cancel them, and then resubscribe if I'm still using them next year.
I almost skipped over this because I didn't know what "spaced repetition system" was. My only suggestion is to market it around what benefit the user will get out of it, and not SRS / or the algorithm behind it.
My thinking was that I wanted to differentiate it from the very gamey branding of apps like Memrise and Duolingo. "Spaced repetition system" sounds more serious, more academic - and I do want people to get the impression that CleverDeck takes the spaced repetition implementation as seriously as Anki. I think I can probably still do that while being more clear - thanks for the feedback.
Quick feedback: flicking away a card takes too long (vertical distance) of a flick. I have to carefully drag it from top to bottom for the card to flick away. Wish it was more sensitive. Perhaps 30% of the screen height is enough of a threshold. Otherwise, thank you. Going to be using this!
If open source and super customizability are important to you, Anki is probably a better choice for you. For many people, I think having the ready-made decks and a nice interface is more important. And CleverDeck does have some features, like three-sided cards and siblings, that I personally loved in Anki.
Two things, I think.
First, I was a long time power user of Anki and don't mean to disparage it, but I think CleverDeck has a much better user experience and design.
Second, we've spent a tremendous amount of time putting together high quality frequency lists (mostly for languages right now) that incorporate professional imagery, native-speaker audio, transliterations (where relevant), and example sentences. Usually, making or piecing together your own decks and cards is the most time-consuming part of using an SRS - and user content is often of dubious quality.
In terms of the spaced repetition, though, CleverDeck and Anki actually use the same algorithm.
One piece of feedback: The toolbar UX in the deck is confusing as it's inconsistent with every other iOS app. The 'back' button should be on the left and the 'options' button needs to be on the right.
You're not the first to mention this, though. I should probably change it.
Apart from official content, most of the content is contributed by bilingual users. So I don't know the quality/accuracy of them, but the result is that they have lots of courses.
https://www.memrise.com/courses/english/serbian/
It is a bit hard to pick up grammar or conversationnal skills but to learn some vocabulary it is great.
Spaced repetition system for iOS
Might be effective to have "memory" in there somewhere?
Also, somehow the first 3/4s of the linked page (before scrolling) put me in the frame of "this product is primarily about making my own decks".
I'm kind of doing a balancing act right now - I've built out CleverDeck to be a fully functional SRS that could be used for any subject, and I want to convey that. At the same time, people primarily use it for learning languages and I also want to communicate my dedication and efforts toward that particular niche.
I'm sure I can do a better job with messaging. Thanks for your feedback.
I'm enjoying the app, which is very nice! I think it, too, could make its bundled content a bit more upfront without losing the emphasis on DIY.
I just have one question: Do you gain any rights to user-made decks? Ownership or usage rights or otherwise.
It's next on the agenda.
Is there any way I can sign up to be notified when you add support for it?
Otherwise, you can always just create your own cards. If you do that on top of one of CleverDeck's decks, it will autocomplete if we've already made a card for a particular word.
I probably don't have the bandwidth to support a full-blown API, but making a web app that makes bulk creation faster is a priority.
I'm currently working on an accompanying web app that will allow importing of lists from more services and allow for faster bulk content creation.
Also, can decks be shared?
Love the design and it's a welcome change of pace coming from other SRS apps.
Right now, the import is pretty rudimentary. It just parses and creates a new deck.
I've been working on - and now will redouble my efforts based on the feedback here - a web app that will make creation and import much easier and flexible.
In case you revisit this decision in the future, using the extra space isn't the issue. The "improvements" I'd be looking for on iPads would be much more mundane: support for the basic stuff like using the iPad keyboard, supporting split screen and landscape orientation, and text quality that doesn't look like it's from pre-retina days.
Two things, I think.
First, I was a long time power user of Anki and don't mean to disparage it, but I think CleverDeck has a much better user experience and design.
Second, we've spent a tremendous amount of time putting together high quality frequency lists (mostly for languages right now) that incorporate professional imagery, native-speaker audio, transliterations (where relevant), and example sentences. Usually, making or piecing together your own decks and cards is the most time-consuming part of using an SRS - and user content is often of dubious quality. In terms of the spaced repetition, though, CleverDeck and Anki actually use the same algorithm.
> Show HN is a way to share something that you've made on Hacker News.