UX Research: Language App MVP
Fall in love with the problem and not with the solution.
This is the project week. I know what you’re thinking. “Everyday is project week Ângela. Duh”. No guys. This week is…
We need to work on a specific project “on our own” using the UX tools we’ve already learned about. We should be able to schedule our week and decide which tools make more sense to use.
Project: Smart People Inc. want to bring their language summer camp into an app. Some of their students can’t attend their summer camps and they want us to find them the perfect solution for this problem. Shall we?
👩💻 UX Research
🔍 UX Strategy Blueprint (Assumptions)
We think that:
- Kids like to play games;
- They need to be engaged with fun things like memes, gifs, and videos;
- That they need to be engaged also with offline materials (handcrafts);
- It’s difficult to keep them focused;
- It’s hard to keep long-term users;
- We should also engage with parents.
🔍 Surveys
This was a huge blocker. Our users are kids between 12–18 y/o. Imagine finding this kind of public able to answer surveys. We’re screwed…
So we decide with quantitive data to go 2 ways:
- Kids: to understand which may be their motivations and barriers for learning a new language;
- Parents: to understand how they perceive this new skill in their kids’ future and which may be their goals.
🧐 Insights
- Most of them don’t have a specific screen time;
- Most tried Duolingo when trying to learn.
We didn’t get as many insights from our users as we would like to so we chose to try a different approach and interview education specialists.
🔍 Interviews
For qualitative info we go for:
- Henrique Albuquerque: GoCamp Councelour (2018);
- Juan D. Guzman: International Account Manager @ Babbel;
- David Phelps: Founder and Director @ Forum Education;
- Munique Martins: Education Enthusiast.
🧐 Insights
- All of them referred to community and competition as very important aspects for engaging with kids;
- Older users are able to help the ones that need help;
- We should adapt their exercises to their personality/motivation and not to their age;
- It should be easier for them to learn by repetition and by doing offline activities ;
- We should engage with all their 5 senses;
- May exist 3 kinds of profiles: methodical (rules), contextual/conceptual (storytelling), role (memorizing);
- We should engage them with native speakers and the culture related to the new language they’re trying to learn;
- They should be engaged to make mistakes and learn from them.
Learning a new language breaks barriers. It allows us to celebrate each other’s differences. It’s an open window to the world.
— Henrique Albuquerque, GoCamp Conselour
🥊 Competition
As you may know, there’s a LOT of apps related. So we tried to position ourselves matching our users’ needs and a market gap.
After some research, we developed our competitive analysis.
We found that most of the apps on the market are pretty traditional. We found that we had a space being Community Oriented (mostly mentioned by our awesome experts) and Innovative.
🔍 Affinity Diagram
We felt a bit overwhelmed and behind schedule but we actually had everything under control.
After gathering insights, we brainstorm first to then organize our ideas and try to identify design opportunities.
🧐 Insights
After talking to our experts on the matter we realized that we were truly focused on the methodology itself than the necessity of bringing a Summer Camp into the online. And that influenced also our…
🔍 HMW (How Might We…?)
I don’t think that this tool helped us a lot in this case. We understand now that even though we have a diverse amount of them we should be wise and chose the ones best for the project.
Anyway, we ended up with:
How Might We create an efficient language learning platform balancing personalized and community approach?
👩🦰 Empathy Map
We felt like we needed to connect a bit more with the persona we already had in our minds to better describe it. This canvas helped us understand concerns and possible barriers.
👩🦰 User Persona
Meet Martina! 🧜♀️ (She would be a mermaid if she could).
She represents our biggest user: Generation Z. Did you know that…
- 43% prefer a digital approach when learning?;
- 75% are willing to relocate if they find a better job opportunity?;
- Research for a financial plan starts at the young age of 13 y/o?
After a lot of research (surveys, interviews and desk research) I can tell you a bit more about Martina González:
- She’s 16 y/o and comes from Costa Rica;
- Environmental activist! May follow that path for her future career;
- Works really hard to get what she wants;
- Loves outdoor sports (#beachlife);
- Tried to learn skills before using apps (since she’s always online) but got bored;
- Loves to travel and pushes her family to do so.
🔍 Service Blueprint
This canvas was a lifesaver! We felt like we had a lot of information and it was not an MVP anymore. So we needed to focus on what features would be more important for Martina right away.
Check it out 👉 https://canvanizer.com/canvas/refGoy23ETA49
🔍 User Flow
So… Martina really wants to improve her English but she would prefer to learn in an app. She heard about Smart Camp because her friends told her it was awesome. So she decided to go for an interview a know a bit more about this camp.
One of our mentors got to know more about her interests, goals, motivations and English level. Martina and her parents decided to give this app a try so she can be outside while learning with her phone but still going to the beach to surf some waves.
They already paid so all that she needs to do is download the app and login since she already has a username and password.
✍️ Lo-fi
I understood that I’m a very visual person. I was confused before trying to understand how we would build an app simplifying all this process.
Even though I don’t draw (yet) as well as I would like to, the UI was really important for me in this process. We understood that “home” was not as clear as it should be and we had to change. Our testers were 👌
But the feedback was good! Next step?
✍️ Mid-fi
Are you ready?
I present it to you… Smart Camp! Check out our prototype here 👇
📱Concept
Smart Camp is an app that wants to bring to its users the summer camp experience (offline to online). It’s personalized having in account our users:
- Goals;
- Motivations;
- Interests;
- English level.
Martina will have a weekly schedule and is able to benefit from:
- Activities (outdoors with other students via conference chats);
- Lessons (personalized having in account her goals);
- Personal Project (having in account what they would like to work on in the future. Martina’s is related to the environment);
- Material (content and extra exercises developed by our experts).
Martina will always have our counselors’ support.
Check out our sweet presentation to our investors 👇
We learned with this project that:
- Starting with competition analysis can be a big plus;
- You should be wise and chose the right tools for your project;
- I shouldn’t doubt the process. Even when in doubt all made sense in the end and we were actually on schedule.
All feedback is welcome! What do you think? ❤
Credits
- My amazing colleague Brenda Sandoval Cuervo (Thank you for your patience and all that you taught me ❤)
- https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/9PPL5YOX
- https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/meet-generation-z/18/
- https://www.visualcapitalist.com/why-gen-z-approaching-money-differently/
- https://wergenz.com/gen-z-fast-facts/
- All pictures from Pexels and Unsplash
- All icons from Flaticon
Here’s a cool gif for you that read this article ❤
