Nick, Scott, Maksym and I were thinking last night about how we can improve the vocabulary interface and make the nomenclature easier to understand. In particular, we were struggling with a more intuitive name for the Queue and we were wondering if anyone has any thoughts about how we could rename it to make its function more obvious.

To give everyone a little background (in case you personally don't use it), the Queue is essentially a more convenient micro-list builder. If you want to add 3 words but don't want to create a formal list, you can simply drop them into the Queue and they will show up in the course of your studying. Similarly, if you add a few words from a list, they get added to the Queue. Eventually we want to allow users to add any Chinese characters that appear on the site to their Queue just by clicking them. And then we have even more grandiose long term plans for a firefox plugin of sorts that would allow users to add characters from anywhere on the net to their Skritter Queue.

We've suggested My List, My Words, the Hopper, and the Feeder. So given its function, can you think of a better name for it?

How about the Cauldron (or, in Chinese, ding3: 鼎)? It has nice connections with ancient Chinese art - see the cauldron here - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bronze_square_ding_(cauldron)_with_human_faces_01.jpg - and also, for what it's worth, with the Yijing Hexagram 50 where it is apparently associated with great progress and success: http://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/yijing50.php

Of course, you'll probably be wanting to spell it without the "u" - i.e. "caldron", which looks all wrong to my UK English eyes; but nevertheless, I like the idea of chucking things into a cauldron and cooking up a Chinese-learning storm... All we'd need then would be a few bats, a lizard or two, some frogs and a full-moon night, and who knows what might happen?

Coming from a programming background, "the Stack" or "the Heap" comes to mind. But english isn't my mother tounge, so I haven't the deep knowledge of the language as a native english speaker has. But for me, at least a Heap is more of a big pile of things, as opposed to the queue which is more ordered.

Speaking of Firefox plugins, I customized a plugin so I now can ctrl+click on the pinyin in Skritter and have a page in the sidebar look up custom definitions from Heisig in a database. Combined with the chapter info I no more have to wonder which hanzi Skritter asks for - yay!

I understand the need for this. After four months with Skritter, I just now figured out how useful the Queue can be.

So I want to say something in Chinese, but can't. I look up the word online or I ask my girlfriend. Then into the Queue it goes...

Since then, I've been having a blast dumping all manner of vocabulary I don't know into the Queue. Fax machine, stapler, breast-feeding, giraffe, whatever. It's an awesome tool.

As for George's post... I'm not sure the name is the issue. The "Queue" could've been "My List" or "Cauldron" or "Chopsticks" and I still wouldn't have used it. A name is important, sure, but I didn't even know the functionality was there.

Maybe this could be highlighted in the Help part of the site? I know the Queue is mentioned in the Guide and FAQ, but it never clicked for me before last week. Which is a shame--it really is a great tool.

Good point murrayjames, I'm starting to go back through the site and figure out where we fail to communicate with users, and it sounds like this is something I should try and clear up. I've never actually used the Queue myself as I am studying Chinese primarily for class, so I stick close to the book. Nick uses the Queue pretty frequently though and it's something we would like to highlight.

PlutonB, just to let you know, I shared your comments with Nick and Maksym and they understood the CS lingo even before I had finished the words. And your modified firefox plugin is fairly impressive.

Thinkbuddha, the Cauldron metaphor is pretty good. Thanks for weighing in on this one. We'll probably steer clear of the lizards and full moons for a little while, if only because Nick and Scott don't like me spending much cash on stock photography. :)

quick word add, user word input, individual vocab... I'm still struggling for something more intuitive and English is my first language.

"The Stack" - because it makes me think of actual flashcards.

Good one Pluton

I like the Stack too. Cauldron is fun, and I like the "u" even though I'm American. Brain insertion tool? The Brain? My Brain? I just learned a new word, better stick it in My Brain so I don't ever forget it....I love the queueueueue thingy too but I can't spell it, being American and all. New name definitely needed.

Oh, and here's one to stick in there for today: 日全食！

Although English is my mothertongue and I understand the word cauldron (and quite like the idea of using it here) most people whose first language isn't English will have problems understanding that particular word. That would then obviously defeat the purpose of the whole change...
I think murrayjames hit it spot on when saying that more important than the name is a explanation and knowledge of it.
Maybe one of those flash videos would be a good idea like you have on the first page (not sure though whether you would think it's worth the effort).

Hi, I am a little confused about the relationship between the queue and custom lists. If we added items to our queue, and then wanted to create a custom list out of the queue so we could share it with other users, would we have to re-enter all the characters?

There don't seem to be too many custom lists at the moment, so I would really like other Skritter users to create and share as many custom lists as possible. If they can't easily move items from the queue to a custom list, that would tend to impede that process.

I also ran into a problem with the queue, which I just started to play with. I entered

茶馆 cha2 guan3 Tea house

and it worked fine, but when I entered

多保重 duo1 bao3 zhong4 Take (a lot of) care

it said it didn't recognize it and made me re-enter the pinyin and definition. Then when I clicked "Add word" it said "Submitting" but then apparently got stuck on that step and never finished submitting.

The queue used to be the main (ie only) way you could really customize your study. We just had our own set textbook lists, so we added the ability for users to add words or characters on the fly, independent of our lists, and that was the queue.

Now that there are custom lists, it fits more of a niche purpose but nonetheless is still important. It is for convenience adding, when you don't want to have to associate a word or three with others, or go through with the trouble of making a list to add some words. You see a word, you add it to the queue, and it's in your studies. You wouldn't want to make a one word list just to add it. It is also used to add a selection of words from another list, or later on, from other web sites.

Because of the way the system works, managing when to add words, you need a place to store those added words until they're ready to be added, hence the queue. It's where you can manage the words you add and see what's coming up, and add more. We'll be adding the ability to see what you've added to the queue in the past later on.

I agree the more custom lists the better. But the queue isn't a great way to create lists, especially since they'll be disappearing from the queue as you study. If you want to make a list out of a set of words and study from it, then make the list and study from that. It would be redundant to both make a list for study and put the words in your queue, since the list would be a better place to add words from anyway.

The second one you tried to add was a word we didn't have, so it gave you a box to create it with so you don't have to wait for us to support it. The parser didn't work because it's not particularly easy to separate out definition and pinyin if there's not a clear separator. Try separating the pinyin and definition with tabs next time and it will probably do better. If our parser's able to sort out the information in the line you provide, it will fill in those fields automatically so you would just need to click the 'Add word' button.

Not sure what happened with the 'submitting' bug. I tried it and was able to add the word. Perhaps it was a one time timeout that will just have to be handled, but works on the second try. Will look into it!

I just wanted to chime in and say thanks for the suggestions. I'm actually creating a mockup right now that will hopefully clear up some of the confusion surrounding the Queue.

Thanks for the quick response, Scott. Maybe there was a server problem before, because the "Submitting" bug now seems to be gone.

As for tabs, it's not very convenient to enter tabs on that screen. When I hit the tab key it jumps to the "Validate Words" button. I had to paste a tab character in from another program. What if I put | between the character, pinyin, and definition?

James

It currently searches for the delimiters tab, comma, and space, although if there are too many examples of a delimiter it ignores it, so spaces probably wouldn't work well, and commas would only work if commas aren't used in the definition. I'll add the pipe as a delimiter it will look for, so you should be able to use it next time we update, which tends to be daily.

If you're not pasting in a bunch of characters, but rather typing things in one-by-one, try just typing the 汉字 and not the pinyin or definition. If we don't have an entry, then you can fill in its pinyin and definition, but if we do have the word already, then it just uses the existing information.

Scott - you mentioned the ability to see past words from the Queue. I'd love to see this--it's a little weird to add words to the Queue and then have them "disappear" once you study them.

Yeah it's one of those things that has been asked for multiple times so it's on the schedule for the not too distant future. So much to do, though!

I had started to respond but thought a bit about the UI more generally for adding lists to study. I think it might be much easier to let people add words from the practice page directly. Take the "Queue" call it "My Custom Word List"
and have a textbox widget underneath it to add one word at a time. Have a second list with "All Studied Words List" and then have the various lists you are studying from. Have a (+) for each list that will show all the words in the list (with a scroll bar for more than say 8 items and a more... button) and a drop down box at the very bottom of all the lists to add additional lists. For each list, have a button that says "Start Studying" or "Stop Studying" (aka play/pause with play/pause icons) and a "Cram" button (Fast Forward icon and mouseover explaining that "Cram studies all the words in this list immediately"). Just before the drop down box have a button showing all the lists that you have studied already (so people can cram them). For most people, this will mean they never have to leave the study page (a good thing) and that they can begin studying almost right away.

Ex. A new user:

+ My Custom Word List
[ ]
1. Word1 Pinyin [+++--] Hanzi [+++++]
2. Word2 Pinyin [-----] Hanzi [-----]
[ ]
+ ChinesePod Lesson Zaijian
- Studied Lists/Lessons
+ ChinesePod Lesson Duibuqi
[Add a list to study from...]

Hmm, my post got cut-off mid-way. I'll email you guys.