Request for some critique on our startup
Hi all, we'd like some criticism on our startup. It's Ingolingo, and the url is http://www.ingolingo.com. Be harsh, I don't mind!
Furthermore, don't require an email address as part of the signup. Make it optional (see reddit).
1. Many of your translations are wrong. I took the Spanish lesson. All of the Spanish verbs are infinitives, but the English translations are all gerunds.
2. Learning a language one word at a time doesn't really teach you the language. You need to learn more than just vocabulary, you need grammar, conjugations, declinations, etc.
But I hasten to add, the idea of a language tutor that keeps track of what you know and only drills you on the stuff you don't is a really good one and very promising if you can actually make it work. But it's not an easy problem. (For an aspiring entrepreneur this is a good thing. If it were easy someone else would have done it already.)
And try to keep the user's progress in a cookie if it's possible. Make the login optional if a user wants to save their progress permanently.
It lists 6 languages, plus "other languages", but won't let me even see what the others are without registering. ("Hi, Joe's Repair Shop." "Hi, can you replace the clutch on a '96 Volvo?" "Let me get your name and number before I answer that." "...")
The flowers that overwrite the words on the top-right of the page are kind of annoying.
The "help", "about", "staff", etc., links are all 404, which doesn't exactly look promising.
It claims "3000 words in 3 months", which is over 30 words a day. This seems pretty incredible. I've studied several languages, and I don't think I've ever learned 30 new words in a day (much less consistently for months!). According to <http://www.balancedreading.com/vocabulary.html>, "The average student learns about 3,000 words per year in the early school years -- that's 8 words per day". So I'm skeptical a webpage will help me learn something 4x faster than when it was basically my full-time job.
It says "Read more in our “About the system” page", but I see no such page or link. Do I have to register for that? (What's the point, then? If I have to register anyway, I'll just try it.) Do you have any people who have learned 3000 words in 3 months with your method?
It's not clear if this is written, or verbal. Will I be hearing native speakers? Or is the goal of this simply to read a newspaper?
Right now I've got a stack of flash cards I carry with me everywhere. Whenever I'm not being productive at work, I pull them out and flip through them for a few minutes, sometimes many times a day. If I can learn (and remember) 5 new words, it's a good day. So I'm still skeptical if the trick is simply "repetition".
I really like the idea and the interface once you get logged in, although I don't really like the background color, except for the purple on the bottom of the front page
Selecting German and clicking on Start brings me to the page featuring a photo of dude wearing what looks like an Afghani hat. Also bunch of text is in bold - this is really annoying, you should really ease off on neurolinguistics :)
The overall impression of first two pages is "amateurish", which means that I am leaving even before I had a chance to learn what the site is about. Work on your design, make sure it's as visually polished as it gets. Then poll people again, this time - regarding the functionality of the service.
I certainly think this is a problem ripe for hacking, but I think the application won't stick. What I've seen so far is a decent supplement to a traditional course for those who want to broaden their vocabulary repository, but not (IMO) a complete way to learn a language.
Another note: What about for people who already know a portion of a certain language? Maybe you could implement a test that checks where they are and provides lessons accordingly.
- after I signed up, it asked me to login. There's no need for this.
- I went through German lesson 1, but at the bottom it says "You are doing Lesson 0".
- progress went over 100% towards the end - a bit surprising - restarting a lesson probably shouldn't reset the fact that it was completed
- I would like to see a list of the lessons I completed, maybe some stats to see how I did (maybe there is one and I missed it?) to track how I'm doing over time
- the links at the bottom of your homepage are broken
- being asked to pay for more than 3 lessons felt a bit like bait-and-switch, since the homepage promises 3000 words in big letters, but has no mention of cost (true, if it had, I might not have registered in the first place)
Al in all, a good idea, and good implementation. Clean, clear, and simple to use. I'm actually considering signing up.
In my opinion there are too many words off the bat to remember if you are new to the language. How about doing a delay of one where you define a Spanish word and its image(s) and then the question after next is the image to assign the Spanish or English word to it, then a few questions later its the Spanish word to assign the English word to it? That way you get a 1-2 punch to help memorize it.
The second page is a nightmare, too much content not enough call out/ organization, just calls to action.
Registration is painless, contrary to the feedback here.
The app is easy to use, but it's missing something. What I'm not sure...?
Once I farted around a bit, I liked your site. I should get that interest within 1-2 seconds though.
Either allow everyone to just use it, or at least show them a demo, or let them play with something.
Because it's free sure -- but many people have tried and failed many language learning systems, so what value does ingolingo provide that an established player like Rosetta Stone doesn't?
What library of languages did you use to create your definitions?
the service itself seems valuable, though.