The App
The learnbuddy app helps people learn languages by playing games and connecting to other students.
Project Summary
The aim was to create a vocabulary learning app in a very short timeframe, with the help of UX methodologies. This was part of the intensive course I did with Careerfoundry, to broaden my knowledge about UX tools and techniques.
My Role
I had three weeks to do research, conduct user interviews and analyze the results, create user personas and user flows, come up with a feasible sitemap, as well as sketch wireframes and finally test a clickdummy that was put together with the help of Prott.
Below I show my process and results in greater detail.
Competitor Research, User Interviews and User Surveys
The first step was checking what the market offers and analyzing what works well and where users might have pain points. I picked four apps in particular and spent time testing them.
In addition, I did four interviews with persons that use vocablary apps regular and learn languages with them. I wanted to see what they like about the apps they use and where they found was room for improvement. The interviews were conducted in person and remote.
A very short survey with 21 participants allowed me further insights into goals, habits and painpoints of vocabulary app-users.
User Persona and User Flows
Based on my research I created a persona, Jonas Schreiber. I came up with a description of his behaviours and actions, with his needs and goals and created general user stories as well as concrete job stories for him.
Finally, I came up with a concrete problem Jonas has when he tries to learn new languages and a hypothesis how this might be solved with my new app.
User flows helped getting a good idea about how a user might move through an app, I created several, always with my created persona in mind.
Wireframes and Clickdummy
I sketched out sites for the apps, following the user flows I created beforhand. I went with different approaches and tried to find one that would work for my users, having the research and user persona in my mind. The wireframes were made into clickdummies with the help of the Prott webapp.
Usability Test
Based on a script I wrote beforehand, I conducted usability tests with four participants. I gave them five short tasks to complete and watched them closely fulfilling those, while they provided feedback. I gained a lot of insights from what they said, but also from what they didn‘t say (for example by being impatient or excited). The resulting notes from these tests gave me a good idea what to work on and how to progress with the app.
Feel free to try the clickdummy I created yourself here:
https://prottapp.com/p/7d1b8c
https://prottapp.com/p/7d1b8c
Learnings & What‘s next
This project was great for seeing what is possible in a short time frame with the right tools. It also showed how valuable user interviews are and usability testing, as they are tools for immesurable insights. And it was fantastic to see how well usertesting works even with basic sketched wireframes, to find problems early on.
The next steps would be to create mid-fidelity wireframes and build more pages, to have more extensive prototypes that show the test-users better, where the app is heading. A well done information architecture is in order and a general graphical direction needs to be found, to then progress to high fidelity wireframes. Ideally all this - and the steps described above, happen in close exchange with other stakeholders of such a project.