How Quizlet Could Become the Next TinyCards Studiers definitely need another TinyCards in 2021. As I’ve stated before, TinyCards was just unparalleled. I have tried a few other digital services and read about and viewed a video involving another one, but none are exactly like TinyCards, and that’s a problem. There are a couple of features Tinycards had that no other service had. These two features gave TinyCards unbeatable efficiency, which studiers badly need whether they are studying for a diploma, a degree, a certification, or possibly another purpose. Among all the flashcard services I have looked at, the most likely TinyCards successor is undoubtedly Quizlet. (Studylib cannot possibly become the next TinyCards considering how it is never updated, it’s broken on mobile and it doesn’t even have an app.) Quizlet already has some advantages over TinyCards, but it is missing the following two features to be the app and/or website that every studier needs. Winning Feature 1: Term Grouping This is breaking down the terms into small groups (usually of five terms per group) when studying them. TinyCards would automatically group every five terms together in chronological order. It may seem simple or unnecessary, but once I started using this technique for studying my supply chain terms, I found that I could finish studying them all more quickly. That made me realize one aspect I was missing from TinyCards that I hadn’t thought of before: the “bite-size lessons” the app would occasionally mention. Currently I group my words on Quizlet using the starring feature. In most cases I would use groups of five, but if a term was very long (say, more than three lines on a flashcard), I would group it with four short terms (rather than whatever the next term was) or if I ran out of short terms I would study the remaining terms in groups of three. There is also a situation in which I would group more than five terms together or use a different non-five number when grouping terms: when studying related Spanish verb conjugations. When I study conjugations, I group every term with the same base verb and tense (for example, all six hacer present tense forms and its past participle would form a group of seven). Unfortunately I tediously have to star and unstar words a ton of times as I move from word group to word group or from study set to study set. It would be so much more convenient and efficient if I could just mark dedicated groups in my sets once, then select each group when I’m ready to study it, especially since I tend to work on a number-order-based system and study the same words together often. The current system only distinguishes between unstudied, studied but not mastered, and mastered terms, which can change with each study session and often causes dozens of terms to be grouped together. Groups seemingly must contain no more than seven terms in order for a study session to be efficient. My concept: a new feature that let users create dedicated groups of terms: Students would be able to click once to select/star that group of terms together and the same terms would always be grouped together. Quizlet Plus users could have small icons next to each group that they could click or tap on to enter Learn Mode or Test Mode with the group’s terms similarly to how currently they can click or tap a button to enter Learn Mode will all the terms in the “Not Studied”, “Still Learning”, or “Mastered” category. Mockups PC Version (Free): PC Version (Plus): 1. Mobile Version (Free): 1. 2. 2. Mobile Version (Plus): (Notes: The circles and squares are one-tap buttons for Learn and Test (which I mislabeled “Quiz” on one of images) Modes like in the PC concept for Plus. The circles are Learn Mode buttons while the squares are Test Mode buttons. Also, I know the mobile mockups look terrible compared to the PC version mockups; blame the editing system’s quality (plus that I was trying to hurry, so I didn’t touch up the mobile versions on my PC’s editing program. Feature as Seen in Tinycards Winning Feature 2: Spaced Repetition with Automatic Tracking and the Superior SpacedRepetition Algorithm Spaced Repetition is prompting the user to review terms repeatedly at different times (and usually on different days) according to data from the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve. What most people don’t seem to know, however, is that there are multiple memory algorithms based on the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve, one of which is much better than the rest. Unfortunately, however, almost all services I’m aware of that use a memory algorithm use the most inferior one or a modified version of it that still isn’t great. The reason why one algorithm is so much better than the others is that it is designed to keep the studied information strong rather than just existent in the user’s memory; the most common and inferior algorithm only brings back terms for review when it detects the user is about to forget them. The most common inferior algorithm allows users’ memories of the terms to get shaky, which can cause users to take a long time to answer test questions about the terms and possibly choose a similar-looking wrong answer on a multiple choice section. If the users used this algorithm to study language vocabulary, they can have choppy thoughts and speech when either involves the studied terms. The crazy thing about these algorithms is that the difference between the smooth memory algorithm and the shaky memory algorithm is just one study session. This review session occurs before the shaky memory algorithm’s first review session; after it, the review spacing seems very similar. The first review session that the superior memory algorithm recommends would become available seven hours and twenty minutes after the initial learning session. If the users only studied the terms once per day at around the same time, they would study the first three days in a row using the superior memory algorithm versus the first two under the currently common memory algorithm but would take the same three-day break after studying the terms for the continuous days. For more information about the superior memory algorithm, see my compare-contrast digital flashcard service article, specifically the section labeled “How to (try to) Best Recreate a TinyCards experience with these Services.” By “Automatic Tracking,” I mean that the system automatically generates the next review time from whether the user gets the questions right or wrong; there isn’t a set of buttons labeled “Hard,” “Okay,” or “Easy,” for the user to choose from to determine the next review time (like on Anki). This keeps the system simple and efficient. Winning Feature 3: Term Mastery in Learn Mode This is a feature that Quizlet had in its Learn Mode before. The way it worked was that users had to get a term correct twice in a row in Learn Mode for it to be removed from the cycling pool of terms to review. It really is that simple: Quizlet only needs to add term grouping and spaced repetition with automatic tracking and the superior spaced-repetition algorithm as well as re-adding term mastery to Learn Mode to be TinyCards’ even-better successor (which sounds a bit funny considering that Quizlet was founded earlier).