The Quizlet Blog

Archive for August, 2008

200,000 people on Quizlet / New Learn mode / iPhone

Thursday, August 14th, 2008


The learn mode, now more awesome.

Hey,

Today, I’m launching the new learn mode! Finally, right? It’s been in the works forever. Learn mode was the “original” Quizlet feature – it’s been the same since we started. Now it gets a much-needed makeover. It may not be quite perfect yet, but it’s a lot better than the old one.

While I was launching the new code, I just happened to look over at number of accounts on Quizlet, and it just happened to PASS 200,000 PEOPLE TODAY. Wooo!! Thanks everyone.

Here’s your feature list:

  • New learn mode. Since the beta launch, I added a discrete “override: I was right” link, and a few bugfixes.
  • Customizable symbols and accents on every page
  • Fixed the grading on the Test page when your symbols were turned on.
  • Updated search to be more accurate and do a better job of counting results, and be much faster.
  • Renamed “tags” to “subjects” – same feature, just easier to understand.
  • Massive speed improvements – reducing the weight of every page, and also doing some caching that should make everything a bit faster everywhere and make the servers a little happier handling more people. (As of right now, some of the data is still being imported, so don’t worry about funny word counts and missing usernames)
  • You can now use Learn mode without being logged in (it just won’t save your place if you navigate away)


Quizlet works on an iPhone now, but it could be more awesome…

Lastly, we’re going to start work on a Quizlet iPhone application very soon. I’d like to hear your ideas on what it should do, what it should look like, and what killer things you’d like to see on it that you wouldn’t be possible on the web. Write a comment!

Back from France; Help beta test the new Learn Mode

Friday, August 8th, 2008

Hey all! I’m back from my two-week trip to France! I spent about a week in Paris, and another week traveling the country and visiting my French teacher at her house in France. Here are some pictures:


Me pretending to drive a tank on Bastille Day


Fireworks at the Eiffel Tower on Bastille Day


The pre-race caravan of the Tour de France (yes I saw it!) had some funny cars


Just back from swimming in the Mediterranean

It was a great trip…But now I’m back and I’ve just about finished up what I promised y’all before I left.

I’m going to try a new thing: I’ve launched a secondary site for adventurous Quizlet users at beta.quizlet.com … It has all the latest Quizlet features, but it may have a few bugs here and there too. It uses the same database as regular quizlet.com, so what you do there will sync up with the regular site.

So what’s on beta.quizlet.com now?

  • A better Learn mode: completely rewritten from the ground up, it shares most of the same interface as the old one. It’s much much faster (no more having to wait while the next item loads), and it has better visuals on the status of your studying. Also, if you give up or type nothing in to the box (or press escape!), it will have you copy the answer before moving on.
  • Better customizable accents and symbols: There’s a new interface for customizing your accents, which allows you to change them in-page. A lot of people didn’t know you could change your symbols box – now it’s more obvious.
  • Streamlined downloads: I’ve spent a good while refining the HTTP requests and download size of the entire site. The total page weight of each page is down approximately 20-40%, and the number of HTTP requests is down about 30%. This should make the site faster for users on shaky or slow connections.
  • The usual micro-improvements here and there :)

Try it all out at beta.quizlet.com

Your feedback on all of this new stuff is essential, so please tell us how you like it in the comments of this post, or via the top-right Feedback button. Thanks! Lastly, I’m hoping to put all of this new stuff on the main site in a few days.

Hope y’all are enjoying your summers!
-Andrew

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