03/25–26 Speed Dating and Choosing One Concept

In preparation for yesterday’s speed dating exercise, each of us created one storyboard for each concept area we presented at the end of the last phase: passive exposure to the new language, immersive virtual environment, and learning in context.

Our storyboards

Our intent for this speed dating exercise was simply to help us choose a concept to focus on for prototyping. We each presented our storyboards to three participants who gave us some quick feedback to guide our prototyping.

Photos from the exercise

Storyboards with feedback

Today we met to go over our learnings from speed dating and choose one concept direction from there. We posted our Post-It-laden storyboards to a whiteboard and noted some gleanings: general important points from feedback, positive aspects to keep in our concepts, and questions we need to address moving forward.

Big questions/dichotomies:

• Language learning or language and cultural learning to converse?
• Virtual/simulated environment or real life experience?
• Do only the learners use MR technology or do both learners and teachers/native speakers use the technology?
• Is the tool an educational tool or a communication tool?
• Classroom setting or personal system or social system?

General important points from feedback:

• Concept 1 could be a useful feature but not a standalone concept
• Translators aren’t seen as trustworthy
• Would want to learn grammar, not just vocab
• What is the motivation behind these concepts? Gamification? Social aspect? Something else?
• Who creates the content?
• Who do users interact with and how do we recruit them?

Things to keep:

• Motivation could come from relationships
• Should relate to the “real” life situation–how can you see into someone else’s life experience?
• Learner having the “choice” of being completely or partially immersed
• Emotional practice within relationships

Other ideas and questions:

• When does cultural learning become too generalizing or stereotyping?
• How does Duolingo motivate users? Can our system leverage similar mindsets?
• System could be used in a classroom setting and beyond, getting carried forward in a social context

We went back to our design implications and target context, too: it turns out that some of the big questions we need to answer are embedded in those synthesized findings.

From our Stage 3: Generative Research presentation

Looking at our insights from speed dating in conjunction with our design implications and target context, it became clear that our first concept (passive exposure) could be a useful feature but should not be a standalone concept. It begins to embody language and culture and build confidence with contextual practice, but it doesn’t address the other four implications.

We wanted to refocus on the social aspect of building relationships, as found in implication #2. Not only is that an essential way of learning and practicing language and culture, it can also serve as a motivator. From there, we discussed the issue of who users might interact with and how we might recruit those people. Some ideas we had:

• student exchange
• hostel owners, tour companies (people who might be able to bring customers in through this platform)
• schools, language centers, universities
• host families (could you meet your host family before you study abroad?)
• elderly people (give them a platform to share their stories)
• new coworkers, clients (if moving for business)
• language teachers/language teachers in training
• people with shared interests

We also took another look at our target context, narrowing it to people who are planning to spend at least three months abroad. This means that in addition to interest in the language, they’ll need to rely on it. They might look for community and friendships outside an expat community, and they’re definitely not on vacation. What if you could make connections in your new city before leaving your home? What if you could learn about a new friend’s day-to-day ahead of time, so you could know what to expect? How could a potential new friendship with a language barrier be framed to facilitate learning about both language and culture?

By the end of the meeting, we decided to pursue our second concept with a focus on social learning: an immersive social learning environment. This week, we hope to bodystorm within this concept area and start prototyping the experience to share with potential users.