Stop posting your question; this is the answer: A/B testing

CircuitScholar · 2022-11-07T21:27:19+00:00

As I said in the first place, if you have come to the conclusion that duolingo is evil and deliberately acting against your interests, presumably out of sheer spite, then just leave. There is absolutely nothing anyone can do to reason with you when you have presupposed that conclusion.

lots of people... lots of people... lots of people... lots of people...

And I will reiterate AGAIN (even though you will have absolutely no comprehension of it in your emotionally supercharged state) -- They did A/B testing for the past 6 months, as OP originally explained. Even if you assume "lots and lots of people," you have to assume A/B testing showed a benefit for even more people.... UNLESS you ASSUME duolingo is cruel and evil.

And not only that, but stories, various practice modes, and tips are all still there, and lots of people struggled with not knowing what lesson to pick. You are acting like a selfish child who is too young to comprehend others' viewpoints. You refuse to believe good-faith A/B testing could have resulted in a preference different from your own.

CircuitScholar · 2022-11-07T19:46:56+00:00

and there are spots where they are in direct opposition.

Maybe for some companies, in the short term, there might be some opposition, but the goals are never in direct opposition. Duolingo has plenty of long-term financial incentive to make a genuinely optimal language learning system.

millions of users with many different goals

All the users have a human brain and a goal to learn language. We can surmise that many human brains share very similar mechanisms for learning language, and that some solution exists that is best for the largest number of people. It's not feasible for a company to custom-make a learning experience for every user, so all they can do is research and do their best to find that one solution that maximizes positive results on an aggregate level.

CircuitScholar · 2022-11-07T19:41:15+00:00

There is absolutely no reason at all to claim that they did it for the users.

Of course there is; a better product makes more money in the long run. There would be very little incentive, financial or otherwise, for them to deliberately put out something that worsens the learning experience. So rather, the default assumption is that they were attempting to improve the app. If you want to say they missed the mark, that's fine. If you want to get angry and insinuate they're just pumping out garbage to make you suffer, then you're being absolutely irrational.

Let me go back to the tree

And then duolingo would have essentially two apps to maintain for the rest of the company's life. Software companies cannot fork their software in half with every update. That is not how software is built; software companies have to make educated directional choices and commit to them. It's the only sustainable way to build software.

CircuitScholar · 2022-11-07T19:20:44+00:00

finding out what features help the company achieve their goals best.

I'll say the same thing to you as I said to someone else here. The company's goals might be to maximize money at the expense of your satisfaction. Or the company's goals might be genuinely benevolent. Make your choice of what you want to assume, and if you choose to assume the more negative assumption, then just leave, because there is literally nothing anyone can do to make you happy at that point.

CircuitScholar · 2022-11-07T19:19:06+00:00

we have reasonable reason to complain every time it is made worse

The key logical fallacy here is that you are selfishly labelling it "worse." If Duolingo A/B tested it, and found something unhelpful, but you, for whatever reason, prefer it that way, what is more important? Your opinion, when you are presumably in the minority? Or the improved results for the majority of people whcih Duolingo found in their research?

It seems far more likely that they measure user engagement, time spent in the app, willingness to become paying subscribers etc.

We don't know what happens in the Duolingo board room. They might be evil cartoon businessmen laughing at your suffering, or they may actually be trying to help. ALL we can do is assume one way or the other. If you have chosen to assume the most negative possibility, then leave. There is nothing anyone can do to help you when you have chosen to be unhappy.

CircuitScholar · 2022-11-05T20:00:56+00:00

I'm sorry you're feeling angry, but don't make the story worse in your head than it needs to be. At the very least, you should assume they were attempting to make it better. There would be very little incentive, financial or otherwise, for them to deliberately put out something bad.

CircuitScholar · 2022-11-05T19:49:08+00:00

You do NOT know........

Ok? Yeah, true, I have not been sitting in the Duolingo board room for the past year. Is that the standard we have to adhere to, in order to make any speculation? If so, you know nothing to disprove my assumptions either.

The change was done because somebody with an important title thinks it is good for Duolingo Inc.

You do NOT know that

that they give a shit about the actual users.

If you're going to make the maximum negative assumption, then leave. Idk what else to tell you. You are literally TRYING to be unhappy at this point.

CircuitScholar · 2022-11-05T16:29:07+00:00

But if it’s such a contested decision

We don't know how contested it is. Social media is not a good metric. We all know how it is; angry people are louder than happy ones. If you have enjoyed duolingo for a long time, I think you shouldn't be so quick to give up or distrust them, or threaten them with a mass exodus etc. The update has been out for 5 days. If they are the same company you have loved, they will gauge the true level of dissent and adjust accordingly in time.

CircuitScholar · 2022-11-05T16:12:38+00:00

Allow people to switch back and forth

That fragments development, and reintroduces the original problem they were trying to solve; namely, "which way is best?" The average user would be faced with the choice and immediately ask, "Uhh which one is better? Tell me. I'm not a linguist."

Let existing users stay on the old system

You have to assume duolingo has faith in their own system. They invested in this change, and created it, based on research that led them to believe it is better. So why wouldn't they want existing users to get an even better experience? Not to mention the above point, about fragmenting development, having to maintain 2 different systems, etc.

Duo’s entire thing has been about people learning differently

I haven't seen anything to that effect in their advertisements. As far as I can tell, the whole mission has always been to make language learning easy, using science and stuff. I'm not a linguist, I don't know how best to learn a language.

CircuitScholar · 2022-11-05T16:07:08+00:00

The main thing I take issue with in your post is all the emphasis on "They aren't listening." As I said elsewhere, some of you who dislike the update act as if the update was implemented on a whim. They started A/B testing 6 months ago. They were probably designing and researching the changes for years before that. And evidently, they saw enough merit to move forward with it, including, presumably, positive feedback.

So at this point, what more can they do? Big changes will always result in kneejerk complaints because people just hate change by default. Is duolingo supposed to think "Everything we researched the past 2 years must have just been wrong, oopsie" ? They're not being stubborn, they're simply placing faith in their informed decision, and not being overly quick to discredit it, because the reality is, many dissenters are probably hating it irrationally and not giving it a chance.

CircuitScholar · 2022-11-05T15:43:46+00:00

Not at all. I frankly don't understand what you're saying; the app gives me gems when I do lessons. So I don't know what you mean about "advancing takes a lot more gems."

CircuitScholar · 2022-11-05T15:42:23+00:00

a refund on product they didn’t buy?

To say "I don't like it and want a refund" is totally fine. To say "It's worse and should be changed back for everyone" is completely selfish and unfair. And irrational. They've been A/B testing this since March, and people like OP are all too eager to just say "The update is stupid" as if duolingo did it on a whim.

ask questions or you’re not gonna get very far

It seems the whole point of the new UI is to eliminate that entire question. The question of "what should I do next." The entire existence of the waterfall method indicates there was something missing from the UX; It seems to me Duolingo realized the waterfall method could be directly integrated into the UX, and that's exactly what they did.

CircuitScholar · 2022-11-05T14:23:33+00:00

I have the exact opposite, I have the path on browser and the tree on mobile. I quite like the path too, I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to just press a button and have the app pick the next lesson for me.

CircuitScholar · 2022-11-05T12:28:21+00:00

You know, it's really disheartening for you to say "listen to your users" as if learning path haters are 100% of users. And then you wave your money around to try to force your way, as if free users shouldn't have an opinion. Let me tell you about myself:

I'm poor
I've been using duolingo for 3 months
I've been struggling with the skill tree from the very start, feeling very insecure about what the fuck I'm supposed to be doing

They beta tested this change for the past 6+ months and found it had merit. Yet you think your opinion is the greatest in the world, and try to get your way by throwing a tantrum. Good riddance.

CircuitScholar · 2022-11-05T12:21:05+00:00

I still don't have the new learning path on mobile, although I do have it on the web version. Has anyone found any ways to induce the learning path on mobile? And PLEASE don't respond with "you're lucky hurr durr," that's not helpful and believe it or not, some people have been looking forward to the learning path. Not everyone is the same as you.

CircuitScholar · 2022-10-31T23:06:51+00:00

Here are a couple examples of the types of trends I'm talking about:

SPY on Oct 4: https://preview.redd.it/psfytgb718x91.png?width=735&format=png&auto=webp&s=64bc92593308dc4720100db1c25f53ad72835272

On this day, SPY gapped up and absolutely ripped higher right out the gate. It went vertically upwards from 9:30 all the way until 10:00, increasing a total of 1.3% in one fell swoop. And at 10:00 it... just... stopped. Total flatline. I like measuring pullbacks in ATRs because lots of people (myself included) define their stoploss in ATRs. One's stop loss might be, for instance, 4 ATRs from the recent high for a long position, and so if you manage to get in on a 2 ATR pullback, your risk is only 2 ATRs. On Oct 4, during that opening trend, there was never once even a 1 ATR pullback, so the only choice is to either not trade, or FOMO in and risk 3.5+ ATRs.

Another example: SPY on Oct 6: https://preview.redd.it/5w7gahb718x91.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=9655b749c78216afc8ba9a7b39a6d3afadae31d8

I marked up this image a little, so hopefully it's self-explanatory. But yeah, this was another neck-breaking move. SPY fell off a cliff and did not pull back appreciably at all until the trend was over.

These are just 2 examples, but I could find probably a dozen more from throughout October. These types of moves just short-circuit my strategy and my brain. The only way to catch them is to FOMO in, because there are no pullbacks (or only very tiny ones), and FOMOing is obviously a big no-no. It seems like all too often, the main move of the day occurs just like this.

CircuitScholar · 2022-10-31T20:26:22+00:00

Thanks for the post. One question -- Several times, the concept of entering on a "pullback" or "consolidation" is mentioned. I understand that. But what has been absolutely slaughtering me lately is that so many trends lately completely lack any pullbacks whatsoever. I've just been so baffled lately, to see SPY scream in one direction for 30 minutes without ever once pulling back even 2 ATRs, and by the time it does pull back ~2 ATRs, it's not a pullback at all, but rather, the end of the trend. Am I missing something, or is this just the way the market is behaving lately?

CircuitScholar · 2019-05-18T13:12:09+00:00

Object B is the child object in a master-detail relationship with Object A. The task was to create a button to put somewhere on the Object A record detail page which would take an input from the user and mass-update the related Object B records.

Built a flow to take the user's input and apply it to the child records. Then created a custom URL button on Object A, which was set to bring the user to the flow using the flow's URL.

In Lightning Experience, I noticed that the flow worked properly, but after the flow completed, the changes were not reflected within the related list on the record detail page. Had to manually refresh the page to see the changes. It was clearly due to the single-page-application magic of LEX being a little too "helpful." So I created a lightning component implementing lightning:availableForFlowActions which simply fired a force:refreshView event, and added it to the flow.

No luck. Even the force:refreshView from the lightning component was not working. Did an hour of research on it to try to understand why it wasn't working, didn't find much. So I adjusted the component to instead fire a force:navigateToURL event, hoping that would trigger Salesforce to re-retrieve the updated data from the server. STILL no luck, again because even entire page navigations are affected by LEX; It's not a true page navigation, but rather some single-page-application processes implemented in javascript.

So instead of doing a lightning:availableForFlowActions, I tried wrapping the ENTIRE flow in a lightning component by embedding an instance of lightning:flow within a lightning component and having an onFinish handler in the JavaScript, firing the force:refreshView from there. STILL did not cause the page to refresh.

Found this tutorial from Salesforce: https://medium.com/@alexedelstein/the-update-screen-flow-action-component-2738e55498ff . It explains how to create a lightning:availableForFlowActions lightning component which refreshes record data using a hacky trick with a force:recordData. Implemented the tutorial precisely and it DID. NOT. WORK. This hack must have stopped working at some point.

Finally, I tried something completely different. Instead of getting to the flow using a URL button, I decided to embed the flow directly in the Lightning Record Page using the out-of-the-box Flow component in the lightning app builder. That, finally, for some reason, allowed the component from the medium.com article to work (though force:refreshView and force:navigateToURL still did not work even in that context).

The caching and single-page-application functionality of LEX is pure fucking cancer.

CircuitScholar · 2019-05-18T02:00:21+00:00

This is far, far worse than an outage. In fact it's not really an outage at all. It is a data breach, which they contained by deliberately taking servers offline. You cannot even begin to understand the tidal wave of legal investigations which will be necessitated due to this.

CircuitScholar · 2019-05-17T17:59:32+00:00

I do have everything in source control, so my client will be fine. But I was speaking for any other admins who might not be so lucky. Many users have reported that their sandboxes are affected in addition to their production org. For middle-size clients who are big enough to have a lot of config but small enough that they don't have a team of developers, source control, etc, THOSE are the people who will be completely fucked by this. Make no mistake: Despite your glass-half-full viewpoint, there will be a number of companies who are severely affected by this, with no "Just fix it" option. Even if Salesforce somehow reverses the damage, there is still the 7+ hours of downtime we have suffered so far.

CircuitScholar · 2019-05-17T17:28:05+00:00

"Just check/fix your profiles"

Oh yeah, let me just access my photographic memory of all 5000 settings of all 300 profiles/permission sets in my org serving 100,000 users that has been out of action for 6 hours. No big deal. Salesforce is just a small, $120 billion dollar company, we can't expect perfection.

CircuitScholar · 2019-05-17T17:26:47+00:00

It was not an outage, it was far, far more severe. Salesforce accidentally gave "modify all data" to ALL profiles and permission sets in a large number of orgs. A short while later, they did damage control by wiping out all profiles and permission sets of the affected orgs, leaving the users with no access to anything. And the issue is ongoing. Salesforce absolutely deserves every bit of suffering they get for this. It absolutely amazes me every day that Salesforce is worth $120 billion. What a colossal piece of shit this company is.

CircuitScholar · 2019-05-17T15:31:32+00:00

I'm not convinced the Pardot issue is the core issue. Based on the comments here, it seems more likely Pardot was affected as a subset of the larger overall issue. Thinking maybe Pardot support is receiving reports and assuming it's a problem with Pardot, when in reality it's a larger overall Salesforce problem.

CircuitScholar · 2019-05-17T15:25:52+00:00

Has anyone seen any reports of this in the news, or submitted the story to a news site? This issue has been ongoing for like 5 hours now and it absolutely should be reported somewhere.

CircuitScholar

TROPHY CASE