OVERVIEW
CHALLENGE
Provide foreign language speakers with a tool that empowers them to learn new vocabulary.
SOLUTION
Develop a language app prototype that allows users to practice what they want to learn, when they want to learn it.
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COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
My first step in the design process was to look at several competitors who had made mobile apps similar to the one I was looking to design.
Researching competitors allowed me to get more of a feel for the issues that existed in the language app space and the solutions that had already been created. By assessing the strengths and weaknesses of my competitors, I could see what features worked well, what features could be improved, and where there were opportunities for innovation.
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USER RESEARCH
USER INTERVIEWS
Since user-centered design puts the users of a product or service at the center of all development decisions, I interviewed several members of my target audience to better understand their needs, behaviors, and thought processes when using vocabulary tools. This type of qualitative attitudinal research allowed me to identify user pain points and the features they liked or disliked from the tools or methods they had used in the past.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
I created a list of eight questions in advance and asked each user the same questions in order to more accurately and easily compare the responses from those I interviewed. My questions were open-ended, simple, and focused on uncovering the motivation behind the user's actual behavior.
INTERVIEW INSIGHTS
I extracted quotes and organized them into doing/feeling/thinking categories. Analyzing the interviews in this way helped me create an Experience Map which allowed me to see what types of features were already supported and where there was space to develop new features.
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USER PERSONA
USER PERSONA
After conducting and analyzing my user interviews I was able to create the hypothetical persona Brooke Jacobs, who represented the the needs, goals, and behaviors of the users I had interviewed.This persona helped humanize my users by giving them a face, helped me develop more specific statements about their needs, and also helped me create a problem and hypothesis statement.
USER STORIES
I created user stories to help define what my persona would want to accomplish.Translating a human need into a feature allowed me to pinpoint solutions and necessary functionality from a user’s perspective.
JOB STORIES
I also needed to define the context in which my persona wanted to accomplish an action. To do this, I created five job stories to help me understand the motivations and situations driving my persona to complete an action.
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INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
TASK ANALYSIS
The next step in my design process was to identify and break down the most important user tasks into steps to find the points of friction from a user's perspective. I selected the most important tasks for my persona, identified an entry point, defined the success criteria, and wrote down the steps needed to complete each task.
USER FLOWS
I then created user flows to illustrate the path a user would take to complete a particular task. This helped me find the the quickest and most effective way to get a user from the entry point to successfully completing a task.
SITE MAP
After creating personas and identifying key tasks in my user flows, I was able to begin sketching out the primary screens of the app using pencil and paper. I then used Omnigraffle to build out a more refined sitemap with a numbered hierarchy and a strict hierarchy pattern.
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WIREFRAMING & PROTOTYPING
WIREFRAMES
After creating a persona, identifying key tasks, and developing a navigational structure, it was time to sketch a low-fidelity visual representation of my app using pencil and paper. I sketched onboarding, login, and admin screens, designed the flat navigation menu, and sketched out the screens that would allow my persona to upload and review new vocabulary words.
RAPID PROTOTYPING
Once I finished drawing the wireframes I took photos of each sketch and linked the screens together to create an interactive, high-fidelity, prototype using the Prott tool. In this interactive form I could test key features and functionality with real people who would be able to move between screens and click buttons during testing. I would be able to see how users interacted with my app and make sure it worked properly before putting time and resources towards developing the final design.
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USABILITY TESTING
USABILITY TESTING
Usability testing allowed me to test my prototype and get real user feedback before dedicating time and resources towards developing a high-fidelity, polished design. These moderated tests allowed me to dig further into the “why” behind a participant's behavior, which in turn helped guide the direction of my design and next prototype iteration.
USER TASKS
Before I even met with test participants I wrote out six direct tasks I wanted them to accomplish. I then added real-world context to these tasks to make the testing more realistic. I met with test participants in-person and asked them to complete the tasks using the prototype on my iPhone. I observed and took notes, evaluating whether they could complete the action or not, how many errors they made, and how severe the errors were.
USABILITY TEST REPORT
After the testing, I summarized my findings in a usability test report. Jakob Nielsen’s error severity scale is one framework for analyzing usability tests and I used it to rank and prioritize the issues that arose during testing. From this I was able to develop recommendations on how to solve the issues and improve my original prototype.