Language
App
About
This project is part of UX/UI : Accelerated Program held by a design school, LASALLE : College of the Arts, which was conducted over a period of 1 week, where I worked from research to prototyping and stakeholder presentation.
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Tools Used
Sketch, InVision, Google Slides, Keynote, Illustrator, Photoshop
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Background
Personal experience in learning Japanese using language apps had me realised that not many learners are using them which led me to suspect the problem of limited functions as users like myself wants more functionality and flexibility.
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User Research
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Affinity Mapping
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Competitive Analysis
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Prototyping
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Area of Focus
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Target Audience
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Pros & Cons
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Ideas
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Motivations
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Problem Statement
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Hypothesis
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Persona
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Comparison Matrix
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Competitive Map
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Minimum Viable Product
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User Flow
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Low Fidelity
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Medium Fidelity
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High Fidelity
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Iterations
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Usability Test
1. USER RESEARCH
A research was done to understand the behaviors and trends of language apps users and to identify opportunities to develop optimum design solutions.
AREA OF FOCUS
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To know what they think of learning apps
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Discover what they like and dislike about them
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Find out their definition of an ideal learning app
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How to give user a better learning experience on app
TARGET AUDIENCE
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Active Working Adults (25-54 years old)
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Male and female
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Workers and students
2. AFFINITY MAPPING
Based on the user interviews conducted, I categorised them into three main categories :
pros, cons and ideas, with ideas being the biggest category.
PROS
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Flexible, don't have to go to fixed schedule classes
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Good addition to offline learning
CONS
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Payable apps, users want value for money
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Hard to use, to navigate through the apps
IDEAS
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More functions, word search, word translation, word explanation, conversation scenarios, examples of sentences, ability to choose level, topic and test, chat to practice conversational skills
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User want more than just clicking words or flash cards
KEY QUOTES
"Some apps are hard to use."
- Nikita
"...would be helpful if can search words as google translate is not 100% accurate."
- Haris
"Apps have to go through paywall while google translate is free."
- Justin
USER MOTIVATIONS
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Active working adults (25-55 years old) needs a way find a more flexible and meaningful way of learning because the apps they know have limited functions to get the information they need.
HYPOTHESIS
We believe that by creating an app which gives user more options and flexibility for active working adults (25-55 years old), we will achieve a more interactive and informative learning.
PERSONA
This is the persona of the ideal target user of my language apps.
Someone busy who wants to learn a language on the go while commuting.
Price
Functionality
Flexibility
3. COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
A market research is done to identify five potential competitors in the language apps business.
COMPARISON MATRIX
I categorized the competitors based on the 3 user motivators : price, functionality and flexibility.
Here it is clear that currently none of the competitors have all 3 aspects which what motivates the user to use the app.
COMPETITIVE MAP
My app hopes to fill in this gap in developing a cheaper alternative or free but functional and flexible app that maximizes the user's learning experience.
4. PROTOTYPING
MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT
Ideally, these are the features that my language app has or will have eventually but due to time constraint of the short course,
I focused on one feature: the word search.
USER FLOW
The task scenario is for the user to use the word search function to search for the Japanese word, "Chotto" in the app, after watching a subtitled Japanese drama.
LOW FIDELITY
At the time I did not have a specific idea in mind so I tried to create something simple.
HOME PAGE
WORD SEARCH PAGE
KEY IN PAGE
WORD PAGE
MID FIDELITY
The focus at this stage is functionality and user flow as I wanted to ensure the users know what to do.
HOME PAGE
WORD SEARCH PAGE
KEY IN PAGE
WORD PAGE
At first, I thought of using a standardised theme for every languages so the key differentiator is the country flag on the top menu.
However, I later wanted to give each language a theme such as Japanese language with a Japanese theme concept.
HIGH FIDELITY
Once users are satisfied with the functionality, I focus on the visual design to make it more aesthetically pleasing.
I chose blue colour as it gives a calming yet refreshing feel for learners.
HOME PAGE
WORD SEARCH PAGE
KEY IN PAGE
WORD PAGE
I wanted to give a clean and minimalistic look but realise that it looks a bit generic.
So I include some unique Japanese elements such as the Kanagawa Wave, Calligraphy and Zen illustrations.
HOME PAGE
WORD SEARCH PAGE
KEY IN PAGE
WORD PAGE
Ideally, the icons and illustrations used will be tailored according to the specific language.
ITERATIONS
Here are the changes made based on the users feedback.
USABILITY TEST
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Users understand how to search a word
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Users also understand that they can search word by audio
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Users feel that it's user friendly
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Users are able to know what to do at one look
The purpose of the iterations based on user's feedbacks are to provide easy access, avoid confusion, cut process time and make word searching easier.
LANGUAGE APP
Your task is to search for the Japanese word, "Chotto" the word.
SELF-REFLECTION
LESSONS LEARNT
The accelerated short course of UX/UI was intense but interesting.
I had no idea that I was already doing "User Experience" throughout my line of work in engineering, banking and start-up, without me realising it until I took this course.
It was already challenging to learn something which take months in just one week, much less, for someone who does not have any design experience or background.
Even so, I pushed myself forward being all ambitious, wanting to do all the app functions to show how good my app is but learnt at my own peril that I have only time to focus on one function.
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Ultimately, the goal of this course is to ensure that we understood the core concepts of UX/UI and more emphasis was placed on the context and thought process than visual designs.
I was nervous on the day of the stakeholder presentation but was glad and relieved when I was praised by the course instructor, Kathryn Shannon Sim, as I understood the concepts. ​
Having said that, the key concepts I learnt are that UX/UI :
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is not about the creator's idea and taste but the user's
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is about tailoring the design according to the target audience
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is about creating a design that is functional, simple to use and visually stimulating
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is about simplifying complex processes to create a pleasant experience for users
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is more than just visual design but a systematic and thorough design process
KEY TAKEAWAYS
FUTURE POTENTIALS
If I were to have more than a week, I would...
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insert more functions:
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word search by speech recognition
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word, phrases and sentences translation tools
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chat and call with learners and native speakers
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video clips of scenarios and conversations
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quizzes, tests and exams
improve the visuals:
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different illustrations, icons, for different languages
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more research for design app screens
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conduct more user interviews and usability testing
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more focus on visual designs