Major Update - LingQ 2.0

We have just pushed a major update to the site. Our team has been toiling for months on these changes and we hope you enjoy the new feel of the site. We haven't changed the look and feel of the site but we have changed the way many of the pages and functions work. We think the new LingQ will be more efficient and user friendly for existing members and more intuitive for newbies.

The Home Page - A Dashboard

We have had many requests for a dashboard displaying key information about your account with convenient access to the key functions. That is what you will find on the new Home page. The Home page replaces the old Welcome page. It's simpler, cleaner and more useful for all members.

At the top of the Home page, you will see your last 5 active lessons as well as the new 4 step progress/task widget for each lesson. Click on each task to see information on it's status and to complete it. Each task will turn red once it's complete. The previous 5 steps have been condensed into 4 tasks, as the Download step has been removed. We still want you to download :-) but it's no longer a task!

The progress/task widget will appear on the Lessons list and on the Lesson page itself. You will see that you can now update your reading and listening counters everywhere you see the task widget. Task 2 is the Vocabulary task and asks you to LingQ unknown words and click the I Know All button when you are done. It will take you to the list of created LingQs for that lesson once you have completed the task. Task 3 still takes you to Submit Writing page until you have submitted but will take you to the correction report after it's ready. Finally, task 4 either displays your current conversation details or, if you have no attached conversation, takes you to the Speak page and automatically attaches the current lesson to whatever conversation you sign up for.

Looking further down the Home page, you will see the last 10 of your Friends' Activities. Click "See all" to go to the Community page to see the full list. This lets you stay in touch with what your friends are doing without having to go to the Community page.

Beneath Friends' Activity you see the My Conversations list which is the same list that appears at the top of the Conversation list on the Speak page. Again, it's more convenient to always see this at a glance on the Home page.

Finally, at the bottom of the page you'll see your recent writing submissions so you can easily submit writing and view correction reports.

You will have a quick snapshot of your weekly progress in the sidebar. We have condensed the Progress Snapshot from the Profile page. For more detail, you can click through to your profile, of course.

Below that we have re-introduced the Top 25 (formerly Priority LingQs) which are the 25 most frequent (important) words you are currently trying to learn. We had many requests to bring this list back, so we did! As words become Known, of course, they are replaced by the next most important words you are studying.

Finally, we see the Tutor Reports list which shows a list of all recent writing, conversation and progress reports you have received.

A New Way of LingQing!

LingQing, the key activity on the site, has been completely reworked. No longer do you have to highlight a word or phrase and then click the LingQ button. Instead, you will see that when you open a Lesson, all New words are highlighted in blue. Existing status 1-3 LingQs are still highlighted in yellow and status 4 LingQs are now underlined with a dotted gray line.

When you place your cursor on a blue word, a popup will appear containing the top 3 User Hints for that word as well as a "New Hint" and "Known" button. You can either choose a User Hint by clicking on it or choose to create a "New Hint" which will open the LingQ widget. That's right! The widget is no longer permanently placed at the bottom of the page. It's like someone opened the curtains! :-) Finally, of course, you can click the "Known" button if you know the word and want to tell the system this.

If you place your cursor on a yellow or gray term you will see the Hint and Phrase for that term in a popup, as well as an option to edit that term which will open the widget.

The next thing you will see on the new Lessons page is the New Words counter in the sidebar. This counter shows you the number of New Words in the Lesson. As you LingQ new words the counter decreases. Once you click the "I Know All" button all remaining blue words will be considered Known and the number will go to zero. This is the same action as the old "Update" button. Below the counter is the new audio player and below that is the list of your LingQs from this lesson. This information will float in the sidebar and follow you down the page as you scroll. That way the counter and audio player are always visible.

There were a few other minor adjustments to the controls on the page. The print and download audio buttons are now just above the text. As well, you will see the new Task/Progress widget in the top right corner. As well, the Lesson Forum now appears under the Tutor Notes and Comments heading at the end of the lesson. That way you can see at a glance any notes on the lesson and quickly add your own comments.

A Better Way to Write

When you go to the Write section you will see that the Writing List has been improved. It's a little cleaner and more condensed. You will also see a significant improvement on the Submit Writing page. No longer is the bottom half of the page taken up by the LingQ widget. The Top 25 is now shown in the sidebar. As well, you will see that you can now select your corrector using a switch just beneath the Submit button. You can even change your corrector from the writing list if you change your mind.

Conversation List Improved

You will see that the Conversations List now displays results by day and by tutor so that it is easier to navigate. You can also use the calendar and tutor filters in the sidebar to find a suitable time more easily.

Library Redesign - The Bookshelf

The Library also has been completely re-designed! We have implemented a bookshelf system. We have tried to show more useful results in the main area of the page and done away with the lists of categories, types, etc... There are no lesson images in this screenshot but it gives you the idea.

In the bookshelf you can click through the different shelves and look at the top 15 results on each shelf. You can see that some of the shelves are based on popularity and others are random selections of different types of lessons. As well, you can see your imported lessons on a shelf, as well as, the Collections that you have chosen from previously. You can even star lessons of interest and then review these lessons on the Starred Lessons shelf.

We have also added filters for Level and Accent. All filters affect the results that display in the shelves. As well, the filters affect the Search results. In addition, you will now be able to preview the audio for all lessons and collections. As well, the new lesson popups make it that much quicker to select a lesson to study. All in all, a much better experience in the Library!

Remaining Changes

There are too many other minor changes and fixes to mention but here are a few notable ones:

• A new Active Lessons filter on the Vocabulary page which shows the list of LingQs from all active (not archived) lessons
• The imported text limit has increased from 6000 to 10000 words.
• The language switch at the top left of the page has been changed and allows the banner to shrink in height allowing more room for the work area to appear.
• The course swithc has also been changed and Open Course is now called My Lessons.

Sorry for writing such a long update but we've made that many changes, as you can see! :-) Not much has been left untouched. As usual let us know how you like everything. Happy LingQing!

Comments

[tum]

It is very difficult to add new words. I like the old version more.

[Kazuyo(owlmind)]

Hi, Mark
I like to use a new interface especially new LingQing.
Please let me make sure some points, will you?

1. LingQ status (1 to 4) will be changed when I change the status or I study LingQ using Flashcard? (Sorry I am not sure old version.)
2. I did flashcard for top 25 in homepage. In spite of I changed status into 4, those words keep to appear.

Thank you

[Mark]

Hi Kazuyo,

You should be able to make words Known the same way as before, by changing the status or studying flashcards.

There is a problem with status 4 words appearing in the top 25. We will fix this.

tum,

It's too bad you find it more difficult to LingQ words. Most people are finding it significantly easier now. There are some other issues which we continue to resolve but that is not one of them.

[Drake Smith]

I am not able to creat lings in Russian or Chinese, the words are highlighted but I am not able to see the meaning or tag them.

[Mark]

Sometimes, you just have to refresh or ctrl refresh your browser a few times to fix the problem. It doesn't make sense that you wouldn't be able to see the popups only in certain languages. The Chinese has a whole other set of issues and we will resolve the Asian language issue in the next week or so, so that hopefully the Asian language functionality is the same as the other languages.