I've never studied chess formally or played in a tournament, but my parents taught me the rules when I was 3, so I've picked up some of the basics and recreated things that look like the openings in the "moving past the basics course" over time, even if I don't know the official names for them.

The videos here are great. I've tried to pick up chess books and sites before a couple times, but I always very quickly feel like I need to memorize a few hundred board positions before anything will make sense (or worse, the "lessons" consist of nothing but THESE 3000 THINGS ARE GOOD, DO THEM). Putting things in a logical order for learning is very helpful.

I have to say, though, the exercises really need a better gradient of feedback, especially when you get to the later lessons with some more ambiguous positions. I only "solved" the "make your pieces happy" test by trying moves at random - I had correctly identified f5 as the target square, but I'm still unclear as to why it needs to be the left-hand knight that works its way over there. I know it would be a lot of work, but an after-action walkthrough of the solution and a couple wrong answers would be extremely helpful.