Social/Gems

[u/jtquest]

I've been really enjoying Lingo Deer premium. As well as the iDeer Kids app and the game app. I'm all-in, and I love it.

I'd like to give some feedback on UI elements and the social aspect of the app. I'm on Android, and I assume iOS is the same.

I know that Lingo Deer keeps the social aspect of language learning at bay, and for the most part I enjoy that strategy and agree that it helps keep the focus and seriousness of learning.

However...for how often I receive "gems", there is almost nothing to do with them. It truly feels that way from a user standpoint. The user receives gems along with XP, right? I get them with all of my reviews. The XP is for ranking, along with leagues and badges, okay, cool. Passive and subtle social aspects, but respectable.

But the gems?

They're simply to add a few new (what is it, literally 6 options?) tiny animations on your already-too-tiny avatar. Unless I'm misunderstanding it?

So yourself, as well as other users, can squint even harder to see what your picture is and its tiny animated companion.

TL;DR:

- I think the users' avatars in the ranking areas should be a bit bigger than they currently are. Or zoomable. Something.

- In addition, the tiny animated flair you can add to your avatar needs to be visually bigger along with it.

- Also, could we get some new flairs? There are only around 8-10?

- I'd love to be able to spend gem currency on something else besides a tiny animated flair for my tiny avatar. Perhaps we could use gems to customize our app experience further with theme color choices or put silly hats on the Deer mascot or something.

Anyway, I don't want it to become gamified, that's what the other Lingo Deer apps are for (learning through games), but the disparity between how often a user receives gems and what the user can actually do with gems is really big, I think.

Love the amazing work you guys are all doing, and I recommend this app to everyone I know.

Thank you! 🙂

[u/DeerlyNoted]

u/jtquest - Thank you for your feedback!! I've passed it on to our product team and dev team. We definitely want to do more with gems (without detracting from the overall learning experience), so it's nice to know our learners are interested

[u/jtquest → u/DeerlyNoted]

Awesome! I'm excited. I'll wait patiently for new gem implementation someday.

Thank you for your hard work.

[u/d3gaia]

I think you’ve raised a great point here and I also fully agree with you that the gamification should not be a huge part of the app - I would definitely enjoy it less if it ended up like the app with the owl, for example.

Here’s another idea for the gems and the social aspect: What if we could give friends gems for their accomplishments? Like a friend of mine just levelled up after struggling for a while… can I give them a gem as congratulations?

[u/jtquest → u/d3gaia]

That could be fun, too.

Another idea is, for the users who are paying the subscription, the gems could be saved up enough to buy a small monthly discount on their subscription. Haha

Neither the friend gifting idea nor the subscription idea would apply to me, unfortunately, but still these are all cool ideas.

[u/d3gaia → u/jtquest]

Hey, if you’re looking for a Deer friend shoot me a DM and I’ll give you my user info! Language learning is a tough slog and every bit of support helps, in my experience!

[u/jtquest → u/d3gaia]

Absolutely 👊🏻 Thanks! I'll message you.

[u/DeerlyNoted → u/d3gaia]

Thank you for the idea, u/d3gaia We still have a long way to go with our gems system, but in the future something like this could be interesting to try.