The largest reason for the change (all the changes, really) is the need to make the Skritter experience consistent across all platforms. We have been dealing the technical debt of supporting three very different platforms and experiences for a very long time and it’s killing our ability to improve the overall Skritter experience. We’re a small team and having three apps working in three different ways doesn’t make sense for our team, or for the brand–not to mention the fact that many users jump between platforms often during the day.
We can improve the auto-advance experience, and we will continue to do so, but if we’re going to take Skritter to the next level, we’ve gotta be able to work off of a single source of truth. That is one of the primary goals of the new mobile. We realize that this process is going to take some time, and we recognize that this app is not old-iOS. It’s the main reason we decided to support two versions of the iOS app for now.
Furthermore, user interviews and feedback over the years would suggest that a large number of Skritter users are learning things they’ve never encountered before on Skritter. When we get feedback like that (and we get a lot of feedback about that), it made us realize that the review tool we built really needs to be a teaching tool, and we’re trying to put auto-advance into that context. Finding a balance between super fast (for pure review), and super useful (for learning) is something we’re still working on improving.
From a learning context, having to go back is bad. Keeping info about various words straight in your head is hard enough. Add in the fact that you’re writing characters and words, or guessing at tones you’re not sure of and accidental taps and the like start occurring at a greater frequency.
3.0.8 auto-advance tries to address that by having as consistent of an experience as possible on all card types-- the first tap on non-grading areas pauses the auto-advance (if fired). Taps on grades move auto-advance forward based on the grade given. In my opinion, grading buttons shouldn’t be both a grade and a pause event, which is the main change from old-iOS.
Flow is obviously going to be a bit subjective, and we’ll continue to work on giving varying degrees of control where we can. One thing that didn’t make it into 3.0.8 auto-advance is the ability to set default duration of time for things marked “got it.” We are not opposed to adding that level of control, but we wanted to make sure that the underlying behaviors are working well first.
I hope that helps answer your question and put some of the changes into a larger context. Also, I’m personally on build 40 of the new Skritter Mobile, and I’m in the opposite boat at this point. Old-iOS behavior feels strange to me, so I really do appreciate all of the feedback from you and others who are less attached to some of the things Josh and I might consider as “normal.”
Quick question as I wrap up this lengthy reply, what is your old-iOS app auto-advance speed set to? As I said above, we’re not opposed to offering some level of control to how fast things move, but we wanted to get the underlying behaviours correct first.
-Jake