I’m always curious about the “Anki should be prettier” comment.
I use Anki a lot, so I’m not in the best position to judge its first-hand impression. But, what would you say should change? Both in terms of visuals and interaction?
Genuinely asking.
I use Anki a lot, so I’m not in the best position to judge its first-hand impression. But, what would you say should change? Both in terms of visuals and interaction?
Genuinely asking.
- The UI is an ugly light gray with too much text. I'd make the design far more minimal.
- Too much of a focus on text. Video, audio and GIFs should be more integrated into cards, especially for stuff like foreign languages.
- Way too many options: note types, sort fields, tags, on and on. I've been using Anki for years and I don't even know what half of these things do.
- The entire process of adding cards is confusing and not immediately obvious. There's not even a tutorial.
- Premade decks have zero quality control and you have to go looking for them online.
- Above all, Anki just looks and feels like a chore. When I show it to people (like OP), the overwhelming reaction is always, "Meh." There's nothing exciting, beautiful or futuristic about it.
I can't imagine why anyone would want to use the original desktop Anki, which chains you to a PC or laptop. Though in the pre-mobile-computing era, such a program would have been attractive.
This technique begs to be mobile, so you can do reviews in any occasion when you would be otherwise idly waiting for something, like standing in line somewhere. Buses, trains, planes, waiting rooms, washroom stalls ...
You can micro-review. If you have just a few seconds to spare, you can whip out your phone and just do one review and put it away. That's one less to do later.
I sometimes do AnkiDroid reviews lying down in bed, before sleeping. You can turn of screen rotation and work sideways.
I've woken up in the middle of the night and completed the last few reviews of the day. That's possible from having the phone near the hand; no way would I get up, and sit at a desktop PC to do that, or even laptop.
The desktop Anki is completely pointless except for (1) serving as the reference implementation and (2) certain complicated maintenance tasks on large decks.
It really isn't even a comparison...the mobile app is only useful if I'm on the go and have a minute to do some cards. An hour on the desktop version will let you do hundreds, even thousands of cards, while mobile is maybe a hundred, tops, assuming you want to stare at your phone that long.
(For languages with an ideographic writing system, there is a benefit to writing by hand, but that's a whole separate story.)
It sounds as if your flashcards are in a format where the foreign word is the answer, or embedded in the answer via a cloze. That's not the only way Anki is used. If the flashcards are in a foreign-word -> definition format, the typing would have to be definition-side, to which there is little benefit. All the more obviously so for definitions that are in your native language. Definitions are too verbose to type out, and difficult to machine-grade due to variations in wording.
I understand the efficiency benefit that keyboarding can bring, but it's not realized in Anki.
I made a very good application for kanji memorization, where the keyboard is the key to efficiency. The reason is that in this program, all of the characters you are tested on appear on the same screen simultaneously. You type answers into blanks next to each character, and use Tab to move from one to the next. The machine grades your answers when you're done; you don't have to engage in time-wasting self-checking. This is extremely fast because you can operate in pipeline mode: your eyes scan ahead several characters while your fingers type without stopping. Also, if you're having trouble recalling, you can just leave the answer blank and then easily return to it before submitting the test for grading. Often, your mind will come up with the answer in the background, while you are filling other answers.
The main source of inefficiency in Anki is the stop-and-go blocking: being shown one card at a time, and not being able to go to the next card until passing the current card. Anki is best used for the cards for which that is the most efficient approach: cards that have a simple front, and a complex back that requires self-evaluation. For cards that have a one or two word answer that can be machine-checked, I would find (or develop) something much more efficient than Anki.
https://apps.apple.com/app/ankimobile-flashcards/id373493387
It looks just as dodgy as “doctors hate this one weird trick”, and costs a ton up front. Why would I believe something like that?
I use it daily and I just find it functional, but I’m also very used to it.
The success of WaniKani for example is notable because you can effectively make the exact same thing for free using Anki (and the unofficial decks are available) but it is still quite popular to pay for the managed experience.
From the workflow of downloading Anki and adding to the default deck, how do the settings and knobs factor into it?
I’m not here to just argue. I am legitimately interested. I just don’t want to assume too much.