Duolingo is making a big change: it is moving away from hearts in favor of a new “energy” mechanic. The idea is to move from a system that punishes mistakes to one that is more motivating – and a little more gamified.
Under the old system, you lost a heart if you made a mistake during a lesson. To get your hearts back, you could watch an ad, pay for a full recharge using Duolingo’s Gems currency, or simply wait for them to refill.
Under the new system, you will spend one unit of energy to complete an exercise, and a mistake will cost one unit of energy. But you will also receive additional energy at a randomized rate for completing several lessons in a row. As a result, users will be able to complete more lessons, and that’s what the data shows, says Moses Wayne, senior engineer at Duolingo, in an interview with The Verge.
“We believe that this way we can motivate you to focus on what you’re doing right, rather than penalize you for what you’re doing wrong,” says Wayne. He also says that “we wanted to find a way to gamify the experience a little bit more.”
A full energy bar contains 25 units of energy (versus five hearts). According to Wayne, energy regenerates over time, just like hearts. You can also buy more energy with gems, and Super Duolingo and Duolingo Max subscribers will have unlimited energy, just as subscribers at those levels have unlimited hearts, according to Duolingo spokesperson Monica Earle.
Wayne notes that with the heart system, you may not be on time for the first class of the day. “In the energy world, that’s not going to happen because we no longer penalize you for making mistakes,” Wayne says. Duolingo’s aggregate metrics show that overall, people are able to interact with Duolingo “a lot more” than before.
Over the coming weeks and months, the changes will be rolled out first on iOS, and we plan to bring them to Android later this year. If you’re currently playing Duolingo on iOS and Android, you’ll see hearts appear on your Android app and energy appear on your iOS app; they’re not in sync, Wayne says.
Duolingo’s CEO recently announced that the company is going to become “AI-first,” and it has just doubled its language courses thanks to artificial intelligence.
