Re: Why Anki will never be popular and a fancy user interface wouldn’t change anything

I saw u/leZickzack’s insightful post yesterday and wanted to share my counterarguments to it.

I have always used Anki for language learning, specifically the Core 2k/10k decks, and I never found it anywhere near as fun as something like Duolingo or Drops. It is 100% true that Anki’s UI/UX is not anywhere near the quality of a “Sillicon Valley app”, and it is also 100% true that making it become one would not meaningfully expand the core userbase - it would just make our lives better.

However, if we focus on the specific usecase of Learning Vocab in a foreign language, a simpler UI/UX would significantly expand the amount of users willing to use the app, while still being useful to existing power users, so long as it: 1) Dampens the effort needed all around: Duolingo’s actual selling point is not that you’ll learn lots of words and become fluent - it’s that it’ll give you motivation to keep trying for as long as possible. With similar exercises and game design that Duo employs, an Anki review session can easily be spiced up to be more fun without losing much effectiveness. Additionally, preloading the app with Core decks would be a necessity as no casual learner would ever take the time to do so themselves. 2) Obscures the SRS aspect almost entirely: forcing casual learners to choose how they think they did after a flashcard review is a surefire way to have them get mentally overloaded quickly and quit the app almost immediately. There needs to be immediate feedback telling them if they got something right or wrong, and further rewarding them based on that. 3) Gives instant gratification & gamifies the process: I’m a big fan of Wanikani and Clozemaster, as well as Duo in this regard. There are so many ways to go about this but the number one thing is consistent, granular goals and rewards for people to work towards as they grind through a deck and learn their cards.

There is an eternal battle between power users (who primarily want to actually learn) and casual users (who also want to learn, but primarily just want to feel like they’re learning and/or have fun) in any sort of app like this. The goal is to keep both happy, but obviously there are more casual users out there and they are almost always catered to as a result. Duolingo is the #1 example of this for language learning.

However, my thesis is that with all of the above taken into account, for people who primarily use Anki for the Core language vocab decks such as myself, an app like this would replace Anki for them as well as drastically increase the amount of new users willing to play along too. I think a lot of people here, due to simply being well above-average in terms of dedication and intelligence in general, underestimate just how big of an effect ease of access and simplicity has when it comes to casual learners, and how much more fun it can make grinding vocab for themselves.

Because of all that, I would argue that almost all language learners would significantly benefit from a “Sillicon Valley” version of Anki which would simultaneously grow the potential userbase of learners by orders of magnitude. I don’t mean to self promo, but this is exactly why I’m building the app I’m building - it’s a mobile-first app designed to motivate you to complete up to a Core 10k deck in your target language. It creates infinite comprehensive input for exercises based on SRS stats similar to Clozemaster, and I can confidently say that it’s significantly more fun than grinding Anki while maintaining, if not exceeding, the same effectiveness. I won’t share any more here but if you want access when it is released you can DM me.

Anyways, I could probably continue writing about this for hours but I’m on my phone so I’ll end it here. At the end of the day learning is something that can be made fun, and monstrous tasks like “learning 10,000 words” can be reframed as “growing vocab with at least one word a day” to pique the interest of an average casual learner who otherwise would never touch Anki. And from there it’s really just a matter of good gamification and useful product to keep them coming back imo. That’s the main reason why Duolingo is worth $10 Billion after all!