I don’t consider myself obsessed with Duolingo, but I do utilize it for keeping up on my Spanish skills. When I launch the website, however, I tend to immediately obsess about my stats. I scroll along the right side of the page, scanning my stats to see where I stand. Typically, nothing really changes.
After checking in with my stats panel, I’ll look over my practiced skills on the left side of the page. It’s interesting to note that while the skills section takes up a majority of the page, I always start by scanning the stats bar on the right.
Once I’ve reviewed my skills and their respective strength bars, I decide on my plan of action. I always start by trying to fill up at least one strength bar on my previously full skills each time I’m on Duolingo. If all of my bars are full, I’ll go on to the next skill lesson on my path (which would cause another strength bar to show up).
Below, you can see two screen shots showing the strength bars in various stages of completion. In the top image, you can see many full strength bars. The skill icon even turns gold when that skill is fully strengthened. In the bottom image, you can see mostly in-progress strength bars. The icons are in full color, which helps to draw my attention to them.
Part of my obsession with checking my stats and running through a certain path has to do with how Duolingo determines my stats. As per the usual, completing a task fills up the meter. However, my strength bars will go down after inactivity. In the top image, you can see how my Basics 2 skill has gone down — that’s only the third level on Spanish! This is because I haven’t interacted with Duolingo and the content that’s in the skill section. When I took these screen shots, I was actually compelled to fill my Basics 2 strength bar all the way up, even though that’s not my normal path. The individual meters and declining stats due to inactivity definitely has me a bit hooked to keep them filled. If anything, it gives me something to look forward to doing each time I log in.
