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Tell HN: Duolingo blatantly ignores users in favor of A/B testing

3 points by herogreen ↗ HN
There is currently a very annoying "feature" that is pissing off many users and that has been present for roughly two years. This feature consists in "supportive" messages that shows randomly depending on your success or failures when answering questions. The message blocks the whole screen, interrupts you and patronizes you. You cannot disable these messages from the site settings.

Here are proofs that users are ignored when they report the problem: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/21679860 (2 years ago) https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/24458901 (1 year ago) https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/33040003 (1 month ago) https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/33072610 (3 weeks ago) https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/33180176 (2 weeks ago) https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/33398782 (last week) https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/33343246 (last week)

My only explanation is that they have an A/B test that shows increasing engagement when these messages are shown. Why they do not allow us to disable them from the settings on the website (but do in the smartphone apps), I have no clue (I suppose this is less than 1 man/day of work to add the setting).

Clearly there is room for an alternative free software solution that will truly empower language learners.

9 comments

[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 37.7 ms ] thread
tompark
I've gone through the Portuguese language program on Duolingo twice, doing all the exercises at level 1, then level 2, and am now on level 3 (of 5 max). I agree the owl encouragement interstitials are very annoying and I wish they'd allow users to disable it. However, I don't let it bother me.

Duolingo does change the UI a lot. During the time I've been using it, various features have come and gone. Just in the past couple months, it has changed appearance on me 3 times. It's amazing that they'll do that but won't provide a setting to allow you to disable something that's clearly and understandably annoying some users.

All I can say is that I'm glad it doesn't bother me as much as it bothers some people. I appreciate Duolingo and benefit from it for free, so can't begrudge one or two boneheaded features.

babygoat
This reaction seems a bit over the top. How often are you getting these messages? What is patronizing about them?
realty_geek
> Clearly there is room for an alternative free software solution that will truly empower language learners.

I agree. There is also room for a free solution that will give me massages.

btkramer9
I would love to contribute to an open source alternative for DuoLingo. Overall I'm happy with it, but there's so much room for improvement
sushid
If you think that’s “blatantly ignoring users in favor of A/B testing” definitely don’t look into what your average growth team does.

It looks harmless and possibly a morale booster for some. So what if you’re not the intended audience? Close it and move on.

[dead] duoproblemas
I totally agree with you.

My first impression was that these kinds of degenerate SJW messages just serve to further infantilize the world.

I created a crappy grease monkey script to get around it:

// ==UserScript==

// @name Fix Duolingo

// @version 1

// @require http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.9.1/jquery.min...

// @grant unsafeWindow

// ==/UserScript==

setTimeout(function(){ $('.cVLwd').click(); }, 500);

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
duoproblemas
Actually more like...

setInterval(function() { try{ if (!$(".jJFkx") && $('.cVLwd')[0] && $('.cVLwd')[0].textContent === "Continue") { $('.cVLwd')[0].click(); } } catch (e){ console.dir(e)} }, 500);

Avalaxy
Interesting that you conclude that it's based on A/B tests and present this as a fact in the title when in fact you have no clue and are just guessing.