VocApp

vocabulary learning app

The design process

I started the design process from understanding the problem at hand that this app could solve. I made a research about a possible target audience and conducted interviews to shaped my user persona.

Understanding the problem

Users’ Problem Brief: Users need a practical way to strengthen new language skills in short time.

Possible solution: An app which offers simple and fun learning process, which will motivate and engage users to use the app.

User Research

Interviews - I conducted interviews for my target audience to have a better understanding of what their goals and needs are and which features will be required to design in order to achieve their goals.

User Persona

One of my users persona is Simha Reef. Simha works long hours and needs to strengthen his language skills and technical terms, in the little time he has. He searches for practical ways to improve his new language skills in his daily life in the new country. He wants to communicate and collaborate with colleagues better.

Innovative solutions for the persona

• I believe that by creating fun, simple and exclusive features, I will motivate him to use the app, to give good reviews, and to spend money on purchasing some of the features.

• An audio search option will meet his needs of having a fast way to search for new words and to achieve his goal of managing his time efficiently.

• Technical zones for different subjects, to have better fluent professional verbal skills.

User Flows

Based on the key objective of the persona I designed tasks flow for achieving the users' goals.

Low Fidelity Wireframing And Prototyping

I created low fidelity wireframes for the app’s core functionalities and used them in the first version of the prototype.

Usability Tests

I took the prototypes to their first round of usability test to test some core functionalities: search for a word, add new word to MyZone, create a new account and start a new image game. I asked the study participants to try and complete these four direct tasks.

Test results and next steps

In the usability tests I realized that the early versions of my prototypes were lacking elements that were required in order to complete these basic tasks.

Test results

The participants were able to complete the tasks on the usability tests, however, some of that some functions weren’t intuitive enough for them. Also the overall UI was load with text and images that made it hard for the user to navigate in the app. For instance:

• The users got confused with adding new words to MyZone.

• There are too many steps to start a new learning game.

• There is a need for a search feature.

Iterative cycle

As a result of usability testing I needed to improve some functionalities:

• Redesigned the search bar with an extra button for easy translation.

• Designed a cleaner interface to the game screen for making it easier to start a new game.

• Added an option to click on the ‘play’ button in the navigation bar so that starting a new game will be accessible from any screen.

• Changed the ‘add to MyZone’ icon so it will be more visible.

High-Fidelity Wireframes

Next Steps

My role as a designer is to make their experience with the product as easy, useful and desirable
as possible.

Some of the next iterations are:

• Cleaner and intuitive interface to help complete tasks.

• Advanced audio study mode, to make better use of the little time most people have available and shorten the time it takes to complete critical tasks.

• Advanced personal zone so the users could save their learning progress and continue from where they stopped.

• More useful and enjoyable features, for instance, features for continuing learning through games and lessons.

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