Dingo Lingo

For foreigners who are planning to go to Australia, but struggle to understand the Australian accent.

As an Australian living in Amsterdam, I am often confronted with puzzled looks on peoples faces while trying to have a conversation with them. To be honest, I cannot blame them since our accent derived from drunk criminals and we use sayings like, “Flat out like a lizard drinking” for being busy. With that said, I have learnt to tone down my accent and steer away from phrases like “A few (kanga)roos loose in the paddock” — meaning crazy. But what happens when when foreigners go to Australia for study, vacation or work? This led me to Dingo Lingo, an idea I created in one week for IronHack Amsterdam.

Like any great user centric idea, Dingo Lingo came about through research — a combination of 50 surveys and 7 interviews. There were some very interesting numbers. Everyone surveyed or interviewed spoke English as their second language — 89% started learning English over ten years ago, yet 78% have difficulties understanding the Australian accent. People going to Australia want to go for a long time, given that 80% did or would, only go for the one year working holiday visa. Also, 81% said that they would want to get used to the accent and phrases before going there.

Let’s not forget some of the famous quotes pulled from the interviews:

So after identifying the key research themes (language learning, thoughts and feelings towards australian accent, understanding ability, and integration) through an affinity map, a how might we question naturally occurred.

— How might we help prepare people for Australian slang and phrases prior to their one year year working holiday visa?

But to put the “Proof in the pudding” (meaning, to have a result to measure), a hypothesis statement was needed:

I believe that learning to understand the Australian accent and slang will help individuals with a working holiday visa to integrate with the locals, creating an even better experience.

With these things in mind a persona was created. Meet Jerome…

Jerome has a customer journey mapped out for one month. At the beginning of that month, he gets accepted for the one year working visa in Australia and at the end of that month he boards the plane for the mystical ‘Land Down Under’. This means that Jerome has one month to prepare him for spiders, crocodiles, sharks, snakes, drop bears, but most importantly — the Australian slang words and phrases.

To do this, the minimum viable product (MVP) must have; listening and speaking exercises, slang knowledge, and the ability to learn at your own pace. The could/ would have elements would be; find an aussie in your local city prior to departure, job board for landing a job on arrival, tips and guides, and an aussie dictionary.

With this in mind a few ideas came about:

• ‘Choose an Australian ‘buddy’ app, here you video/ chat, voice message an Australian to get used to the accent slang. It also allows you to have your first australian friend on arrival.
• ‘Find an aussie in your city’ app, where you could buy them a beer and get some tips in australia while getting used to their accent and slang.
• An app that offers listening and pronunciation exercises, so that you can learn at your own pace.

While all three have their benefits, eight out of ten people interviewed, prefered the last idea primarily because it is convenient.

Dingo Lingo was created. An application that familiarises users with the Australian accent and slang through listening exercises, speaking exercises and slang cards.

Dingo Lingo is divided up into four main sections; lessons, slang cards, listening, and speaking.

Lessons:

A user will pick a category, for example humor or a mixture of all categories. There will be a combination of exercises that include; slang cards, listening and speaking. It should take around five to ten minutes to finish a lesson and there will be different difficulties.

Slang Cards:

A user will pick a category, for example animals or a mixture of all categories. Cards will pop up with a slang word or saying and the user would have to guess what it means by typing an answer. The cards will continue to pop up until category is finished.

Listening:

A user will pick a category, for example sport or a mixture of all categories. The application screen will be split into two parts — the top half is a video of just the mouth saying a word or sentence. The bottom half is where the user types what they think they said. There will be different difficulties from the city Australian to the difficult country Australian.

Speaking:

A user will pick a category, for example weather or a mixture of all categories. A word or sentence will be displayed on the screen and the user will need to repeat the word or sentence into the microphone. The application will judge whether the spoken word or sentence resembles an Australian saying it. Again there will be different difficulties from city Australian to the country Australian accents.

This idea was then tested with seven people — all of them loved it and would definitely use it before going to Australia. With this said my next steps are to come up with a user flow, wireframes, prototype, test, iterate, test, iterate and test.

So the next time someone is having trouble understanding me, I will say “No worries mate, download Dingo Lingo and she’ll be right!”

Thanks for reading!

Josh Pride