Comment by domenicd

The four buttons is apparently a contentious topic in the community. It's gotten more serious because in FSRS misusing "hard" to mean "I didn't get it, but I felt close" is really bad and throws off the algorithm.

I like the design suggestions proposed at [1] and [2] for this particular problem. [2] in particular gives tooltips which are supposed to guide you toward exactly what the buttons mean:

- Again: "My answer was completely incorrect"

- Hard: "My answer was correct, but I hesitated a lot"

- Good: "My answer was correct, and I hesitated a little"

- Easy: "My answer was correct, and I didn't hesitate"

That said, you can also just reduce it to a two-button system: only ever use Again and Good. There is some evidence this works better, especially with FSRS which is doing enough machine-learning behind the scenes anyway that it doesn't need the extra signal from Hard vs. Good vs. Easy.

[1]: https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/how-to-prevent-users-from-misus... [2]: https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/how-to-prevent-users-from-misus...