NATIVE SPEAKER APP

About the proJECT

‘Native Speaker’ (working title) was intended to help people to improve their language skills when they already know a language at (at least) an intermediate level and when they want to polish it in a relaxed and informal manner, outside a classroom, just through interaction with chosen native speakers from around the world.
Since there are a lot of language learning apps and websites available on the market, we wanted Native Speaker to be more than yet another language learning tool and we put a lot of effort into defining and addressing some aspects usually not directly associated with learning, but creating extra value for future users.

 

MY ROLE

I was the only designer on this project and it was my responsibility to carry out the project through all stages.
I planned and conducted research, proposed possible solutions to the Client, prepared the wireframes and lo-fi prototypes for testing, and finally designed UI and visual elements.

DESIGN PROCESS

Understanding the user

Summary

In order to be able to be able to design a useful app that people would use, I needed to get to know the app’s target audience. I used both qualitative and quantitative research methods in order to best to understand people’s problems, needs, wants, expectations and opinions.

RESEARCH GOALS

When setting the objectives, it was important for me to make sure they focused on the challenges themselves and allowed for gathering the most relevant information. Having too much data to sift through, fascinating as it may be, would, in fact, be counterproductive and might lead to an uncontrolled scope creep.

MAIN OBJECTIVES

  • Who learns foreign languages? Why, where and how do people learn?
  • What are the situations that most often make people fill that they need to improve their language skills? Why, when, where and how often do they happen?
  • What are the most common problems faced by people when using a foreign language? Why and how often do they happen?
  • What are the most common problems faced by people when trying to improve their language skills?
  • What can make improving one's language skills easier or more difficult? In what way?
  • What would be the perfect way of improving one's foreign language skills ? Why?
  • What apps and/or websites do people use for improving their language skills? How often people use them? What are users' opinions?

RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES

In order to properly identify projects challenges as well as the opportunities to create the best user experience possible, I chose a number of user research methods that would ensure answers to the research objectives in the most efficient way. I started with the qualitative research to discover insights and understand people’s ways of thinking as well as their behaviors, motivations and needs. Then I run a quantitative study on a larger sample to validate hypotheses and generalize the results of the qualitative research.

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

  • Secondary research (resources: research reports, industry studies, sociological and psychological studies, articles, social media etc.)
  • Field studies
  • User interviews
  • Expert interviews
  • Competitive audit

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

  • User surveys
  • Competitive audit
native_research graph

RESEARCH INSIGHTS (just some)

DEMOGRAPHIC INSIGHTS

  • 72% people seriously engaged in improving their foreign language skills are based in Europe and their native language is other than English
  • 57% people engaged in improving their language skills are male
  • The majority (69%) of people actively working on improving their foreign language skills are 26-55 years old, 18% are older than 55 years, and 13% are younger than 25

PSYCHOGRAPHIC iNSIGHTS

  • Most people want to improve their foreign language skills just to feel comfortable and relaxed about using the language in all kinds of situations, not only in a class or for work. Over 90% people are working on their language skills for themselves, because they want to. Only 8% do it only because they feel they have to (87% of those people are 25 years old and younger)
  • The majority of people willing to improve their foreign language skills are open minded and have multiple interests, often including art and culture, history, travelling, learning and self improvement
  • The things interviewed people value the most are: stability and safety, confidence, freedom of choice and time
  • Most representatives of the target audience like to make conscious choices based on their needs and expectations rather than on current trends or first impressions.

PERSONAS

USERS' Journey MAPS

Creating user journey maps always helps me to discover typical user experience over time and understand the factors that impact that experience. 

I created a separate user journey map for each persona, based on persona’s characteristics, needs, motivations and pain points.
The maps were revised and updated several times, as the personas were being refined and the design iterated.

STARTING THE DESIGN

DESIGN PRINCIPLES:

  1. People first: design for needs
  2. Create a safe space for users, let them be in control of their experience
  3. Give people reasons to interact
  4. Make it easy to use
  5. Design, test, iterate, repeat

Information Architecture

I started with rough IA diagrams that were being revised and tweaked along the way, as my understanding of both users and the product was growing.

BASIC APP STRUCTURE

DIGITAL WIREFRAMES

USER TESTING

Good understanding of users’ preferences and expectations as well as their mental models was especially important for the interaction design. I wanted to be sure the flows would be intuitive and the possible interactions clear and obvious.

I created low fidelity wireframes and turned them into clickable prototypes the users could test. After conducting the tests I presented the findings to the stakeholders, so that we could discuss what and why should or should not be changed in the app design.

Contact And availability

Thank you for your interest in my work!
You are welcome to contact me for more details and projects.
And I will be happy to hear about your projects, maybe there is something that we could work on together ;).

I am a freelancer and I’m always open to new challenges and possibilities.
I usually work remotely, but I also love to travel.

So please, get in touch. You can use the short form on the right, drop me an email or message me on LinkedIn.

MY Projects:

jagnabirecka.com