Feedback - First time user experience

[crantok]

Reproduction Steps

1. Make sure you have never heard of Anki or any spaced-repitition flashcard apps.
2. Get told about Anki by a friend and think, "Spaced repetition? That's what saysomethingin.com uses. I liked that. I'll try Anki."
3. Go to the Android store, type "anki", click on the first app you notice. You are now using Ankiapp.
4. Find the interface very intutuive and gamified, despair at the quality of the available decks and lack of feedback mechanism, easily download the one deck you find usable.
5. Spend a lot of time on that deck.
6. Months later, stumble across an open source app called Ankidroid that is part of an ecosystem called Anki, from which Ankiapp is catching crumbs.
7. Feel a mixture of emotions.
8. Download and open Ankidroid.
9. Tap the eye catching "+" icon in the lower left.
10. Tap "Get shared decks". (Feel excited.)
11. See a repository of rated and commented decks with useful descriptions.
12. Cry quietly with joy.
13. Download a deck.
14. "Hang on. I'm in a web browser. That's going to my downloads folder."
15. Back in the app, tap the eye-catching "+" icon in the lower left.
16. Tap "Add".
17. "Hmm. 'Add note'. It has a front and back, so I assume that is like a card in a deck. I'm guessing this is not what I need."
18. Go back to main screen. See exclamation mark in red circle. Tap on that.
19. "Cloud sync? Login? Is this the problem? Do I need to create an account to get downloads into the app? I'll just have a look around before doing anything as drastic as generating another password..."
20. Notice the three dots in the top right.
21. Remember the three seashells in Demolition Man. Chuckle. Click on the three dots.
22. "Yikes! Lots of options. Guessing this is more fully featured than Ankiapp."
23. "Ooh, check media!"
24. ...may take a long... "Nope."
25. Tap import. Get taken to Recent files. Tap on apkg file. Wait. (My phone seems be slow today.)
26. Feel relief. Use deck. Find it at least as useable as previous app. "What was it called? Can't remember..."

Expected Result

Getting to use an intuitive app with limited functionality and moderate quality content, and recommending it to people.

Actual Result

Getting to use a partially intuitive app which probably has a lot of functionality for me to discover, with high quality content, that I would think twice about recommending to half the people I know because Import.

Debug info

As far as I can tell, both the app and myself are bug free.

Research

Enter an [x] character to confirm the points below:

No, no, no and no. I have ADHD. If I try doing those then I'll either end up on twitter for 3 hours or start a rewrite of the app.

• [ ] I have read the support page and am reporting a bug or enhancement request specific to AnkiDroid
• [ ] I have checked the manual and the FAQ and could not find a solution to my issue
• [ ] I have searched for similar existing issues here and on the user forum
• [ ] (Optional) I have confirmed the issue is not resolved in the latest alpha release (instructions)

[welcome[bot]]

Hello! 👋 Thanks for logging this issue. Please remember we are all volunteers here, so some patience may be required before we can get to the issue. Also remember that the fastest way to get resolution on an issue is to propose a change directly, https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/wiki/Contributing

[david-allison]

Hi @crantok , thanks for the detailed feedback! What would you say the actions to fix this would be, and which are the most important issues?

[mikehardy]

I also appreciate the feedback. What I wonder is, if the download of shared deck finishes and you just clicked open, did our configured file association between apkg and AnkiDroid work, so that it did just import? Because it is supposed to be that if you tap, it just works.

That said! Perhaps there is something we can do in our captive WebView for the shared deck website on AnkiWeb, where when a download finishes, if it's an .apkg we get control and can operate on it more intuitively? I have not scanned the available WebView APIs but that could be a game changer if there was a hook to get control again on apkg load. Or maybe we can catch the click itself and download via our controlled logic vs the standard WebView download logic, allowing similar more intuitive behavior - I think the API for that does exist

[david-allison]

That said! Perhaps there is something we can do in our captive WebView for the shared deck website on AnkiWeb, where when a download finishes, if it's an .apkg we get control and can operate on it more intuitively?

They don't support getting the current URL for privacy reasons. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33343917/how-to-get-url-change-from-customtabsclient

We can get navigation events (page finished etc...)

But we can't query the download events/status from other apps: https://stackoverflow.com/a/17575025

We can potentially poll the downloads folder, but that's a little hacky

[mikehardy]

I didn't realize CustomTabsClient had a different interface from WebView. Perhaps switching to WebView is an improvement, we haven't had great fun with CustomTabsClient (multiple crash bugs) and if it's going to be finicky perhaps just having one finicky way (WebView) to wrap web content is a system improvement, at the same time it allows us to decisively improve a long-standing source of customer support load / complaints

[crantok]

Hi @crantok , thanks for the detailed feedback! What would you say the actions to fix this would be, and which are the most important issues?

IMHO a seamless import (or one with barely noticeable seams) of a downloaded deck is the most important issue for app users like me. I am not yet considering making a deck. I'm just finding out how useable the app is as a learning device.

I also appreciate the feedback. What I wonder is, if the download of shared deck finishes and you just clicked open, did our configured file association between apkg and AnkiDroid work, so that it did just import? Because it is supposed to be that if you tap, it just works.

Ah! Good point!

• The deck I downloaded was over 40mb. I suspect I moved on while it was still downloading.
• Today, I tapped on the apkg file in downloads. Ankidroid (after a suitable pause for loading 40mb) popped up with a dialog titled "Importing".
• I then downloaded a (much smaller) deck and tapped on "Open" when that popped up at the bottom of the browser screen. Successful import.
• I downloaded another deck and crudely timed the period that "Open" showed at the bottom of the browser. Roughly 2.75 seconds.

You mentioned a few options about trying to interface to the web browser or polling the downloads directory. Will the captive web browser tell you that it has completed a download, even if won't allow you to have any other details about it? At that point, the most recent apkg file in downloads is highly likely to be the desired import target. Alternatively, when the browser closes, any apkg files downloaded since the browser was opened are potential import targets.

Thank you very much for the quick replies to this. I was not expecting that :)

[mikehardy]

This path is as you say the most important for new users and we receive a lot of justified complaint, so it's a natural area of really high interest for us. I'm glad to hear the "tap .apkg -> import" does work, but I think we still have some prototype tests to do to see if we can take the work in between "I clicked on a share deck to download" and "it's imported and ready" away from the user. Seems like the sort of thing where the user expressed intent and the machine should do the work, having the user need to then find the deck and do something is friction.

Thanks again for the feedback

[david-allison]

Had a spike at getting the download done in a WebView + DownloadManager / BroadcastReceiver, it works without leaving the app, but to productionise:

• We may want some form of "download" screen - stop the user leaving while a large download occurs
• We need a way to stop multiple downloads
• We may want to consider how to handle a user leaving the screen.
• We need to better define how to use ImportUtils if we're not in the DeckPicker - the assumption is that Handler.sendMessage is handled straight away
• We need to set up the WebView to not launch an "open with" on the first link click
• But, we do want an "open with" if the user moves off AnkiWeb
• We need some form of escape hatch to "open in browser" if anything fails
• I've now got 200MB of apkg files in my downloads folder - how to deal with that for the user? We may not be able to use DownloadManager to download to the cache - AsyncTask to download would work, but that has its own caveats.

[mikehardy]

I think the best way is to hook into the actual native Download Manager APIs somehow, they do background transport and I think handle the persistent foreground service notification that keeps things alive (and provides nice feedback to users). Not sure if that's possible but it has all the notification / wake lock / efficient transfer stuff all done if it was possible to hook into it somehow. That's just addressing transfer and app focus though

[github-actions[bot]]

Hello 👋, this issue has been opened for more than 2 months with no activity on it. If the issue is still here, please keep in mind that we need community support and help to fix it! Just comment something like still searching for solutions and if you found one, please open a pull request! You have 7 days until this gets closed automatically

[github-actions[bot]]

Hello 👋, this issue has been opened for more than 2 months with no activity on it. If the issue is still here, please keep in mind that we need community support and help to fix it! Just comment something like still searching for solutions and if you found one, please open a pull request! You have 7 days until this gets closed automatically

[github-actions[bot]]

Hello 👋, this issue has been opened for more than 2 months with no activity on it. If the issue is still here, please keep in mind that we need community support and help to fix it! Just comment something like still searching for solutions and if you found one, please open a pull request! You have 7 days until this gets closed automatically

[github-actions[bot]]

Hello 👋, this issue has been opened for more than 2 months with no activity on it. If the issue is still here, please keep in mind that we need community support and help to fix it! Just comment something like still searching for solutions and if you found one, please open a pull request! You have 7 days until this gets closed automatically

[david-allison]

9229 fixes most of the issues listed.

The other points raised:

• Cloud sync is not relevant to the user desires
  • There was pushback, but I feel we shouldn't show the badge on "cloud sync" until after a few days. Maybe an onboarding screen
• "Check Media" might be better named as "cleanup media"
  • This is an ecosystem compatibility issue if we perform a rename, but it's worth considering the change
  • We don't need to show "check media" until the user has media
  • We may want to explain it better

@ShridharGoel - pinging in case this brings out any ideas, no action required

[github-actions[bot]]

Hello 👋, this issue has been opened for more than 2 months with no activity on it. If the issue is still here, please keep in mind that we need community support and help to fix it! Just comment something like still searching for solutions and if you found one, please open a pull request! You have 7 days until this gets closed automatically

[david-allison]

Now #9229 is merged. The majority of complaints are resolved in V2.16