Skritter: Online Character Practice, want feedback!

[fabiothebest]

You are welcome. I downloaded the app and I've tried it for a couple of days. I like the UI, it's nicely designed and the app contains all the main features of the web app. One thing I feel is that it seems a bit resources heavy. It probably runs much smoother on ios, anyway that's normal I guess since the owner of Skritter is a iOS app developer and the iOS version exists from long time. The android app is still in beta, there are some improvements to do anyway it's on the right way. On my phone the app is a bit slow and sometimes it just hangs there with a white screen. Maybe this problem doesn't affect all phones, mine is a phone that is getting old, I have a Nexus S. Anyway I think it can be furtherly optimised. It could be that I'll switch to iphone when I change my phone anyway I have been an android user for long time and I always wanted an android version of this app. There's a huge number of people using android so keep up the good work. Everyone serious about learning chinese can take advantage of and deserves your app no matter the OS they are using

[imron]

This post is a first impressions review of Skritter, as part of the Scoop up a Summer of Skritter giveaway.

 

With the exception of some list management which I've done via the web, I'm using the iPhone app exclusively.  All comments are therefore in reference to that.

 

Unlike what I imagine is the typical first time Skritter user, I already know how to write a large number of characters and so to make things interesting I've decided to use this opportunity to learn how to write Traditional, which I can usually read without too much trouble, but completely fail at when it comes to writing.

 

Currently I'm working through a list of characters based on the info provided by Renzhe here, mixed with some of the default word lists provided by Skritter.

 

I'd like to start my review by stating that documentation for the iPhone app is sparse.  There is a general introduction which serves as a good overview for typical use, but little information on the specifics of some settings.  Personally I'm someone that likes to go through settings and understand what a program can and can't do before jumping in and using a program, and so it took some time to track down what things meant and to configure the program to suit my needs.

Some settings are obvious (enabling/disabling 'Writing', 'Reading', 'Tone' 'Definition', setting Style = Traditional or Simplified), others can be worked out through enabling and disabling and then seeing what the differences are during reviews ('Hide Reading', 'Auto Advance') and others were just completely opaque ('Eccentric Flavor', 'Star Emphasis', 'Characters in Words').  There is documentation of sorts for these in the web app, but nothing specific for the iOS app (the FAQ is also heavily centered around the web version), so I guess there was an assumption that people would be familiar with the settings from the web app and therefore be able to understand them in the iOS version.  That was probably true when the iOS app was first released, but I think that's not something that can be assumed anymore as I imagine there will be plenty of people who are only interested in the mobile app.  There are also features that exist in the web app that don't appear to exist in the iOS app (stroke animations), and this isn't well documented anywhere (unless you count googling and reading forums posts as 'documentation').

 

There are also other features that don't seem to be well documented - single tapping to show the next stroke, double tapping to show an outline of the full character, and although hunting through forum posts and googling can help out somewhat, it would be nice to have a single place outlining all of the functionality.  See for example the Pleco documentation, which is very thorough, despite having a vastly more complicated set of options and configurations.

 

So my first suggestion would be to improve the iOS documentation - either in app (e.g. like with the 'Raw Squiqs' settings, except having this for all settings), or having a separate page on the website documenting the iOS app, so that users completely new to Skritter and who will only be using the iOS app can have a single place to go to understand what the program is and isn't capable of.

 

My next impression is that the default settings for the app seemed geared towards someone doing reviews of known characters, rather than someone learning new characters.  For example, the auto advance is set to a very short interval so as soon as you finish it moves on to a new character and doesn't give you any time to go over and analyse character you have just written - even if you got it 'wrong' (by wrong I mean you got enough strokes incorrect during your writing that the character turned red even though the character is eventually written correctly).  I can understand how this is useful for someone with a large amount of reviews that they will mostly get correct, because it reduces time and effort for reviews.  Someone learning a character for the first time however has a different set of requirements, and it's useful to be able to spend some time after writing a character to analyse it in more detail before moving on.  Sure a user can just go and change that setting themselves, but it might be worth having some sort of prompt when using the iOS app for the first time whether they want settings suitable for a beginner, or settings for an advanced users and configure appropriate defaults based on that.  You can probably even auto detect that to some degree for people with existing accounts for the web app based on that user's total vocabulary, and/or also have a prompt to upgrade people who chose the beginner settings once they reach a certain level.

 

For me though, because I'm mostly learning new words, I've currently disabled auto-advance so I can spend a bit more time familiarising myself with the character after I've written it down.  That being the case, another option I'd like to see is having all the 'correctness level' options ('Forgot', 'So-So', 'Got It' 'Easy') visible once I finish writing the character.   I have a strong background with simplified characters, and so some characters/words move to 'Easy' very soon, and while I can tap and slide to select this, that's considerable more effort than just tapping.

 

On a similar topic, I'm not sure how the SRS algorithm works, but sometimes I'll repeatedly mark a character as 'easy', but it still keeps popping up regularly in reviews.  Ideally something I've marked as 'easy' several times in a row would move quickly to longer intervals rather than being shown so often.  The FAQ says that using 'easy' several times in a row should push the review out to a year but that doesn't seem to be happening for me.  I've taken to using 'ban' for some words that I know well and won't need to repeat soon, rather than marking them as easy and have them keep showing up so regularly.

 

The next issue I have is that when encountering a character for the first time, Skritter just presents a blank screen.  This is not so great and for new characters I'd like to be able to first see an outline of the character before writing it, possibly I'd also like to see stroke animations (coming from simplified, the stroke order for some traditional characters is not always obvious), and I'd like to be able to spend time writing it a few times before moving on, and the SRS algorithm shouldn't record anything until the next time I see that character in review.

 

There are ways to sort of work around this e.g. you can tap once to get a hint for the next stroke, or double tap to view the full character, however these have a number of shortcomings.  Firstly, this functionality is not well documented anywhere so the user might not know about it.  Secondly, stroke by stroke is also not so useful because I don't learn characters stroke by stroke, I'd like to see what component to draw next rather than what stroke.  Finally showing the full character isn't so useful because it disappears shortly after you begin writing, and if it's a character with many strokes I'll need to pull it up again before continuing - except sometimes it registers my double tap as me trying to draw the next stroke and so it fails because of that.

 

Other times, I'll analyse the character first, and then get it correct first go, but coming back to the problem mentioned above, now the character is automatically marked as 'got it', but really I'd like to mark it as 'so-so' because I've only just learnt it and I think maybe it needs a bit more reinforcement - so it's tap and slide to change this, rather than just having all the options available so I can single tap.

 

Anyway, my suggestion to improve this is to have an option to enable learning mode for new words.  The way this would work is that if enabled, then when I am shown a character for the first time, I get a faint outline of the full character on the page, with the next stroke highlighted in blue.  Once I draw that stroke, the blue stroke moves to the next stroke and so on.  Once I finish writing it, I'd then be given the option to write the character/word again, or to add this character/word to normal reviews (i.e. I've now decided I've learnt the character well enough so next time I see it, don't show the outline), or to say something like 'not yet ready, show me again later' (e.g. it doesn't get added to the main SRS queue, and the next time I get shown the character it still is in learning mode).

 

You could also have an option on the main screen in addition to 'Study' and 'Advanced Study' called 'Learn New', which would only show new words/characters in the above mentioned 'learning' mode.  In this mode, it would work as above for each character, but the total characters shown would be limited to some low amount (configurable by the user but say no more than 10 to prevent overload), that allows the user to go through and commit a bunch of new words to memory.  This mode keeps cycling through that set of N words, until they have all been marked as 'ready for normal reviews' (for example, much the same way that Pleco lets you review incorrect words at the end of a study session).

I think this would be really beneficial for learning new words.

 

Other issues I have are that sometimes the handwriting recognition sometimes doesn't get my stroke correct - this is especially common for hook strokes like the 乙 in 飛 or the the hook part of '力' in 男, or the right hook in 月.  Sometimes this might be caused because I'm writing to quickly or too sloppily and I should look at improving that.  Other times I'm tracing almost directly over the blue 'next stroke' guide and it still keeps saying incorrect.  This can by quite frustrating, especially when writing fast because I've already moved on to the next stroke or two, but it then registers those as attempts to correct the previously 'incorrect' stroke.  I've taken to slowing right down for all hook strokes to try and avoid this, but it's still a pain.  I'm not sure what's the best way to address this.

 

On a pedagogy note, I also notice that some of the default Skritter lists include tone sandhi in the pinyin (e.g. 不是 búshi in the Skritter Chinese 101 list).  They have an item in their FAQ that points to a post on their blog, explaining why they are showing some tone sandhi, but it's applied completely inconsistently.  Why for example indicate tone sandhi for 一 and 不, but then not for things like 很好 hěnhǎo or 你好 nǐhǎo. In any case the rules for Pinyin are are clear that tone sandhi should not be indicated, and this is something that someone should probably look at.

 

All of that said, I'm really enjoying using Skritter.  My comments above are just suggestions for how I think the app can be made even better.

 

Things I like: 'Raw Squiqs' - Firstly because it turns off the annoying auto-snap for strokes, but also because it lets me compare what I wrote to a correctly proportioned character, and I can then make adjustments the next time I write it.  It would be nice if there was also some way to enable strict writing, so that not only was the correct stroke order needed, but also correct proportions and locations.

 

Chinese Definitions - As an advanced learner, it's great that many of the word and character definitions are available in Chinese rather than just English.  A big thumbs up for this.

 

Easy to just pick up and put down, for quick studying when you have a spare moment.

 

Anyway, by the end of my three month free trial I expect I will have achieved my goal of learning to write Traditional.  Although at that point I think it's unlikely that I'll continue my subscription, that's not a reflection on the usefulness of the app, rather more of a reflection that my level is high enough to no longer need it.  I would still recommend it other learners - especially those who have focused on reading characters but not writing, and who would like to improve on that, or for those who feel their writing has lapsed.  In these cases it could well be worth subscribing for a few months to brush up on writing skills.

 

People are probably also going to be interested in my opinions on using Skritter vs something like my own Hanzi Grids.  To that, I would say that although there is some overlap (writing Chinese characters), the products have a completely different focus and they are actually complementary to each other rather than competing.  For me, Skritter is about learning stroke order and the structural components of characters (plus it can also be used for definitions, pronunciation and more).  Hanzi Grids on the other hand has always been about developing fine motor skills to write with a pen in a confined space.  Perhaps a good comparison is that Skritter will teach you how to write characters, and Hanzi Grids will help you write characters you already know in a neat legible manner with a pen on paper.  Both are useful and important skills.

 

Finally, for those interested, here are my Skritter settings:

 

Auto Advance Off - This gives me time once I've written a character to analyse it, study its component parts, look at proportions and sizes of the strokes relative to each other, reset the character and write it again and so on.

 

Hide Reading - Off.  I'm not interesting in hiding the reading because I typically know the reading anyway and just want to practice the characters.

 

Stroke Order - Strict.  I prefer to study correctly, rather than pretend mistakes aren't important.

 

Raw Squigs - On.  Mostly to avoid the automatic snapping of a stroke to its correct position, but it's also nice to compare what I wrote with a correctly proportioned character and see where I need to make adjustments.

 

Auto Pronounce and Sound Effects - Off.  Too distracting for my liking.

 

Style - Traditional

 

Parts - Writing only.  As I already know most of the words I'm learning, just not how to write them in Traditional, I'm only interested in the writing part.

 

Heisig Keywords - Off.  Not interested in these.

Download sentences - Off.  Not interested in this.

Language - 繁体中文.  Big fan off how Skritter provides example definitions in Chinese, wish that Chinese definitions were available for more characters.

Characters in Words - Off.  I'm of the opinion that characters are best learnt in the context of words.

 

Anyway, that's quite a big post so far, so I'll stop writing here, and come back and provide a final update once my trial is up.

[SkritterJake]

Dear imron,

 

 Thanks for giving such a thoughtful and detailed review of Skritter on iOS thus far. After reading, and re-reading your comments, I found myself shaking my head in approval of almost all of your critiques of the application. Rather than address each of your points individually, I'd just like to say that we're working on fixing and improving upon almost everything that you've mentioned here. Unfortunately, with such a small team (a team of five, with one developer right now) it's very hard to say when some of the changes take place, and in which order, but they're all on the list of things to improve and update. Most of our efforts are being put toward getting the Android app ready for public release, and once that is accomplished we'll be working toward updating the iOS and Flash (website) applications to match the feedback we've been getting.

 

One of the big features that now exists on Android is a teaching feature, which, as you suggested above, actually creates a teaching opportunity for new words that you're studying on Skritter. No more blank study screens for words that you've never seen before... instead characters (and the correct stroke order) are presented in a way that allows users to visualize and trace the new character/word that they're seeing for the first time. I can't wait to bring this feature over to iOS and the web once we've polished its functionality on the Android app! 

 

We look forward to hearing more about your experience at the end of your three months on the app, and I hope you reach your goal of learning every traditional character you'd ever need to write during your time using the app! 

 

Best,

Jake and the Skritter team

[imron]

After reading, and re-reading your comments, I found myself shaking my head in approval of almost all of your critiques of the application

Although it seems like a long list of criticisms, I don't think any of them are real deal-breakers for anyone - it's more a list of niggling things on top of a really useful program.  As a developer myself, I also find it useful getting detailed feedback like this, and understand how features can take time to get in to the released product.

[spiff]

I'd also like to chime in with my impressions of Skritter, having tried it out for a couple of weeks as part of the Scoop Up a Summer of Skritter giveaway.

 

I'm using the iOS app exclusively; I've been learning Chinese off and on for a few years, and writing has always been my weakest aspect. In fact, I'm not interested in learning to write characters by hand beyond what is required by the HSK exams, but I hope that Skritter might be able to improve my reading by helping me to distinguish similar characters.

 

First impressions are definitely positive; everything seems fairly intuitive (barring the could-mean-anything options that imron mentioned) and works well. Compared with, say, the memrise app last time I tried it, Skritter is much more polished and functional. However, a few things could certainly be improved:

 

• Adding characters to study seems only possible via lists, and not on an ad-hoc basis. Being able to examine a word via the info button, look at it's component parts, and then add those parts to one's collection of characters to be studied would be very helpful. For example, I know most of the radicals, but there are a few that trip me up, and I'd like to add those when I encounter them as parts of characters I'm tested on.
  

 

• It would be great to be able to drill down more than one level of component parts.
  

 

• Also, I think it would be an improvement if mnemonics and example sentences were viewable on characters' information pages, so as you drill down to the different components you can also look at mnemonics and examples.
  

 

• Example sentences seem extremely rare, and it doesn't seem possible to add them via the app. It also doesn't seem possible to look at any other mnemonics. 
  

 

I'll stick with it, and come the new term in September, I'll see if it's had any effect in helping me retain characters.

[Yadang]

@Imron:

 

 

People are probably also going to be interested in my opinions on using Skritter vs something like my own Hanzi Grids.

 

I would also be very interested in what you think are the advantages to using Skritter vs. visualizing the strokes and components and then full characters popping into your head, as you described here.

 

I'm also interested in how you plan to keep from forgetting what you've learned once you stop using Skritter. This is something I'm worried about - if I use Skritter for say, a year, how do I stop using it without either putting all of those cards as new into Anki and spending hours going over cards that I know well, but still want to be reminded about at some point in the future with Anki, or forgetting a lot of them by not reviewing them with Anki?

[imron]

I would also be very interested in what you think are the advantages to using Skritter vs. visualizing the strokes and components and then full characters popping into your head

Difficult to say, because I use that technique in conjunction with Skritter, e.g. if I come across a word that I don't know, I go to the info page to see the full character, then I break it down in to its components and visualise it, and then once it's good I go back to the writing page and write it down (and then typically mark it as incorrect even though I get it right, because I didn't know it at the beginning).

 

If I don't do that, and just rely on Skritter reps (which I've done for some words) I find that it takes significantly longer for the word to hold.  There could be other reasons for this though due to the way I'm working through the characters, because I basically don't have any context.  In hindsight this was probably not a good way to go about doing things.

 

I'm also interested in how you plan to keep from forgetting what you've learned once you stop using Skritter.

Reading more traditional content and text messaging with handwriting input.

[Shelley]

I feel that I have had a good amount of time now enjoying a Free Summer Of Skritter, so that I feel I can give reasonable feedback.

 

I was not a fan of SRS learning, but now that i have been using it I understand and have benefited from this way of learning. I am using the Beta version of the android app.

 

There have been some teething problems with the software, but these have been sorted quickly and as part of the beta tester group reporting problems and receiving  answers and getting results has been very easy and friendly.

 

There is going to be another update (quite a big one from what I understand) and so should fill in missing bits and help with syncing.

 

As for the actual Skritter app. I am absolutely hooked. it is a great aid to character learning, I am actually learning lots and they are sticking.

 

I am really enjoying the way it looks and the content,

 

Unfortunately i cannot justify paying for a subscription because learning Chinese is my passion and my hobby, I don't need to learn for any reason and at the moment its not something i can think of paying for. However I do have a plan to ask for subscription money as Christmas and Birthday presents so we will see how that works out.

 

When my free three months is up I plan to keep my learning going by using the flashcard addon in pleco, with handwriting available on my tablet one of the tests does include writing characters. also I am going to just try writing more Chinese, not necessarily rows and rows of the same character but actual sentences using the characters that I am trying to remember and some from earlier lessons so it won't be so boring and I hope to practice my grammar by writing sentences.

 

I will also continue with writing rows and rows of characters in little boxes (using the great prog Hanzi grids) but not the same ones in the same row to alleviate boredom and to emulate one of the things I like about skritter the fact that it doesn't show the same one time after time but a few different ones at a time. it opened my eyes to the fact that it is more enjoyable this way and I think more productive.

 

So all in all its thumbs up from me. excellent app on android and I assume it is this good on  other platforms.

[Mr John]

Hi,

 

I've been playing around with Skritter recently on an android device, but I can't seem to find the "teaching feature" the developer mentioned in this thread. Can anyone point me in the right direction, as this is a bit of a deal breaker.

 

Kind regards,

John

[Shelley]

@Mr John If I understand you correctly, I think you want to have the stoke order shown, you can do this by clicking on the little magic wand on the left hand side near the top of the screen on my tablet,

 

This walks you through the strokes of the character that you are on. So if you get stuck with a character you click the wand and follow the strokes. Using the magic wand will automatically mark this character as wrong, which is fair enough as you get to practice it some more.

 

Also if you find that you have gotten through say half of a character and get stuck, if you make 3 or 4 (can't remember which) wrong strokes, it will flash up a light grey hint about the next stoke. Again it will then be marked as wrong.

 

Hope this helps.

[Mr John]

Hi Shelley,

 

Thanks for your reply. Perhaps that is the feature described above and I have simply misunderstood the nature of the "teach function". I assumed it would be a setting you could activate, whereby the first time you learnt a character it remained visible (rather than the blank screen that's usually shown). The problem with the magic wand - as Imron points out - is that it's not very useful for remembering the components which each character is made up of. Even the eye feature doesn't help much, because the character disappears as soon as the first stroke is made. I was hoping the developer that responded to Imron's feedback was saying that they had developed a new feature for the android version, where the character would remain visible, and the strokes would be demonstrated, in order to help users learn the character from scratch.

 

Thanks again,

John

[Shelley]

Interesting, I find the magic wand and the eye very helpful to prompt the memory.

 

I have to admit I don't use skritter until I have put in practice with other methods. I use Pleco flashcards with the handwriting input, the character practice in my text book, pages of Hanzi Grids, old fashion paper flashcards and lots of reading, and writing in general.

 

I never really thought of skiritter as a teaching aid more of a memorising aid.

 

Really wouldn't have got as far as I have without all the above mentioned study materials.

[SkritterJake]

@Shelley, thanks for your helpful replies! 

 

@Mr John, you initial understanding of the "teach function" was correct. Unfortunately, the scope of the feature had to be put on hold until we could integrate it into a larger update. The goal is still to teach new characters/words that appear in the Skritter study queue and our development team is working with a designer right now to make that happen. My best guess would be that this is ready for the Android app and website in the next few months. In the meantime, I've asked the development team to include a grey, traceable character on the canvas when the magic wand is pressed. That element should be included into the Android app update scheduled for early next week. 

 

Thanks  to both of you for the comments and feedback! 

 

-Jake

[Shelley]

@SkritterJake that sounds like a really good plan. I didn't realise this was going to happen.

 

The grey traceable character will be a big help to go on with. It is good to see the whole character as you learn it and not just as successive stokes.

 

As always thanks for a great app and keep up the good work

[Mr John]

@SkritterJake

 

Thanks for the feedback. I'm still enjoying the app. Hopefully the next update will help.

 

Kind regards,

John

[Shelley]

Just successfully updated Skritter, had to do a reinstall but all working now.

 

New Teaching mode is good, use the magic wand and it shows the whole character and leads you through the correct stroke order.

[kawakusong]

Skritter is thought by many users as the best app for learning Chinese characters though it's expensive.  And I also think its handwriting feature is really fun.

 

But, what's the real requirement/purpose of "learning characters"? Do most character learners really want to be able to handwrite the characters on paper? Personally I don't think so. IMO, recognizing characters is the real motivation of people using apps like skritter.

Then what feature makes skritter really effective, or better than others?
Is it the stroke recognition accuracy? Its SRS algorithm? or any other feature?

[Shelley]

IMHO learning to write characters however you do it, Skritter or pen and paper or other methods, is because it helps you remember the character.

 

If you only want be able read characters you still need to learn them.

 

Using the correct stroke order helps you remember how to write them and it ensures the character is written correctly. It also helps with "muscle memory" by doing something the same way every time helps build muscle memory.

 

IMO not learning characters is a bad idea, I think it rounds out and solidifies your chinese.

 

Skritter is excellent, but as I am only studying for pleasure I can't justify the cost. If I ever started studying seriously for an exam or other reason I would try to afford skritter. Until then I use other methods. One is pen and paper using Hanzi grids http://www.hanzigrids.com/

 

Another option is a nice little app called Hello Chinese - Learn Chinese this has a character writing section sort of like, but not the same as skritter as well as other learning material. Have a read of my blog http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/blog/108-my-chinese-learning-blog/ to see what I use and more details for this app.

[fabiothebest]

I started using Skritter again after long time and it seems to me that the web version is more convenient than the iOS app I tried. I might be wrong as I need to spend more time using it..anyway it seems that when I use the web version I see the whole character the first time, instead on the iOS app it asks me directly to write it without showing me first at least once. Does it happen also to you? Did I do anything wrong? I don't see any setting in the app for enabling that option so I thought it'd be automatic..hmm, can anyone help?

[SkritterJake]

@fabiothebest  you're not missing anything. Sadly, the feature you're describing isn't in the release version of our iOS application at the moment, but we're working on deploying it along with a lot of other changes in the next major release for the app for both Chinese and Japanese. Our website works well in mobile browsers, so if you're finding the character tracing useful in the learning process, I would encourage you to keep studying there while we roll this update out. 

 

The latest version of Skritter that is coming out will be a new release and a separate application from the one currently offered in the App Store. I'll be sure to jump back on the forum once it has been released and provide some more details about what's new in the app. We're currently working the Japanese version of the application and ironing out a few minor details for that launch before we switch back to the Chinese version. These updates have been a long time coming and we're very excited about bringing them out soon! 

I'll be sure to post a more comprehensive update in the near future along with some more info about beta testing and release dates once we have them locked in!

Best,

Jake and The Skritter Team