I was wondering: on the totals of the progress page and in the weekly progress reminder email, what do the retention rates in orange mean? I thought for a while that it meant it was above the retention rate that you have set, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Can anyone help?

I believe the green is 85-95%, while orange is 75-85 and above 95, and red is below 75. I could be wrong with the actual numbers, but I'm pretty sure that it's based on the idea that the optimal retention rate is approximately 90% (higher and you're learning too slowly, lower and you're not learning deeply enough), so green means you're within fair reach of the optimal rate, orange means you're somewhat off, and red means you're in trouble.

Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure I'm on the right track, but I'd count on there being multiple factual errors in what I just wrote, so take it with a shaker of salt.

Sweet! I am so surprised that you got that. We made the colors a long, long time ago, before we really understood that most of the subtler stuff we were trying to do with design was entirely impenetrable. Since then, we had just assumed the colors wouldn't hurt, but no one would see through to their true purpose, either. But at least one person has!

Looks like the range we're using now is red for < 80, orange for 80-84, green for 85-96, and orange for 97-100. Just very rough ranges.

I apprecaiate the clarification. It was confusing me because most of my oranges were in the higher section, but now and then I'd have one in the lower. Thanks a lot.

Just for the record, I had noticed this sometime back... I rather like it.

Not to toot my own horn, but I figured too this out after watching for a while. I'd have to say it was confusing right at first, but then my rates improved and the colors changed; now my rates are down again.

Haha. This system is actually kind of funny... you're equally rewarded for below average AND above average performance! HAHA.