portfolio 3 - language for exchange

CONVERSATIONS

Nathan KushnerUX Research and Design

Team Members:Nate KushnerClaudia Hora

(Class Project)

[email protected]

Nate KushnerUX Research and Design

In this two-week agile sprint, I led a research effort that analyzed the industry around competing language learning resources and identified an underserved need for a dedicated and safe platform for practicing non-native languages. I subsequently contributed concept sketches, user interface ideas, user flows, and managed an interactive protoype for an iOS-based community where such language learners can match and find each other.

The class project brief called for us to choose a hypothetical partner not currently served by a native app, and to that end, we researched and designed to the business needs of Language For Exchange, a company specializing in arranging travel experiences for language users, but who nevertheless has a rudimentary chat platform on its site.

Project Overview

Research Objectives


We undertook a research process to determine the following:

• How people learned languages beyond their first or native languages.

• Reasons people pursue new language learning.• What people do to reinforce that learning.• Shortfalls of popular language learning methods.• What happens after prolonged disuse of a

language.• How the experience of dating apps like Tinder and

Happn could be made analogous to this type of language learning.

Nate KushnerUX Research and Design Research Methods:Nathan KushnerUX Researchand Design

Surveys of the whys, wheres, and hows of users’ language learning .

Key Takeaways: Identified 6 telephone interviewees, along with the most common languages, device preferences, and learning tools, guiding our competitive and comparative analysis. Identified top reasons that people pursued language learning. Each of these had large pluralities in our survey responses:

Comparative Analysis of language learning resources most commonly identified by our survey respondents.

Key Takeaways: These platforms each have unique features, and are thus suited to different learning styles, and each has satisfied users. We studied the light, cartoony aesthetic of Duolingo, and the photo-based vocabulary building and smart pronunciation-checking of Rosetta Stone.

Regardless of which method one uses to acquire bilinguality, these platforms lack a straightforward way for their users to connect with each other for practice conversations.

Nate KushnerUX Research and Design Research Methods:Nathan KushnerUX Researchand Design

Competitive Analysis of language communities.

Key Takeaways: Users of these antiquated bulletin board systems for language practice can sometimes take days of waiting to make a connection, which then must typically be taken to another platform like Skype or Hangouts for the conversation to take place.

This analysis identified an opportunity to capture market share in the mobile app space, and to create more immediate connections in a contained flow that didn’t require exiting our app to go to another.

Comparative Analysis of dating apps, to understand how they too brought users together for conversations based on commonality.

Key Takeaways: The original hypotheses for this project involved location-based matching for in-person practice conversation, but our study as undercover Tinder and Happn users revealed potential safety issues with this approach, especially for women, due to unsolicited harassment behavior, spambots, and other types of insincere “users.”

We learned much, however, from Tinder’s UI, with complicated interactions powered by impulsive movements of one thumb.

Competitive Analysis of Tandem, our closest competitor in app-based conversation matching.

Key Takeaways: The bad behavior observed in Tinder and Happn was also found during our observation of Tandem, both anecdotally from women users we interviewed within the app, and firsthand in direct solicited invitations to video chat received by Claudia.

Nathan KushnerUX Research and Design Interview Guide

Interviewees were typically learning a language for one or more of the following main reasons.

1. When was the last time you remember speaking a language other than (native language)?

2. What relationship did you have with the person you spoke with?

3. What was the subject matter of the conversation?4. How would you evaluate your proficiency at (language)

during this discussion?5. Please describe how you learned this language.6. Why did you first learn this language?7. Do you have any upcoming occasions where you expect

to speak a foreign language? (please describe)8. Have you ever lost proficiency in a language due to

disuse?9. Do you wish to regain proficiency?10. Do you have any plans for how you will brush up on

(language)?11. Have you ever looked for native speakers of (language)

to practice your conversation skills on?12. Were any of these conversation partners strangers?13. How did you find native speakers to connect with?14. Did you get the practice that you needed from these

conversations?15. Do you ever correspond with people in other countries?16. How did you make those connections?17. Would you be interested in a service that allowed you to

find foreign language conversation partners in your geographical area?

18. Do you have any particular subject areas of interest where you would like to be more fluent in (language)?

• Friendship and Romance• Career Opportunities• Educational Requirements• General Self-Improvement• Tourism

Common stories involved wanting to learn the native language of a significant other, or to be a better candidate for certain job listings, each situation requiring a different set of vocabulary.

Most had spent at least some time learning with either Duolingo or Rosetta Stone.

Nearly every interviewee told a version of a story in which they had lost language proficiency due to disuse, and believed that they would have retained more vocabulary or grammar with regular practice. Many specifically cited a weekly frequency as one they believed would pay dividends.

I interviewed 5 English bilinguals from our surveys, as well as Tandem users, subjecting them to a line of open-ended questioning intended to elicit anecdotes and insights about language learning. Further interviews were conducted in Portugese.

Key Takeaways


Result: Language For Exchange, an app for iOS

• Encourage purposeful conversations between language learners based on subject matter.

• Allow users to create a profile that expresses their subject matter interests.

• Allow users to propose the parameters of the conversations they want to have, and browse and accept the conversation proposals of others in real time without leaving the app.

• Reduce the factors that cause bad behavior by emphasizing avatars and user names over photos, personal information and geolocation features.

• Gamify frequent use and good behavior to incentivize good citizens.

We created an app concept and prototype with the following directives derived from our research:

Onboarding carousel to introduce users to the flow and iconography


Profile CreationOur MVP prototype featured a quick profile creation designed to make avatar choice inviting, with a bold, fun, thumbable set of UI conventions that uses opacity toggles and expanding accordions. Subject matter expertise cited by a user becomes incorporated into their profile image.


Conversation Proposals

A user can propose a conversation, setting paramaters for language, time, chat protocol(s), and subject matter, typing a brief description of his or her practice goals in order to increase the quality of the matches achieved, and presents a barrier of effort to those who would plan to misbehave. The UI works with the conventions that are familiar from profile creation.


Browsing Conversations and Chat

Users browse proposed conversations by other users, algorithmically sorted in order of priority:

1. Premium users listed first, as offered in the existing web service.

2. Subject matter commonality between the proposer and the browser.

3. Community ratings scores.

The Interface allows conversation partners to give each other stars for a positive experience, enabling future gamification of good citizenship, frequent use, and trusted subject matter expertise. They can also warn and block users who act badly, and e-mail transcripts to themselves.

CONVERSATIONS


User Testing

Users were tasked with profile creation and conversation proposal within an interactive prototype.

Testing revealed enthusiasm for the product; users audibly enjoyed the accordion-based UI, selection through toggling opacity, and the placement of subject matter icons around the profile portrait. We noted some difficulty understanding the home screen as a list of live conversatons, with some testers needing assistance with task initiation.

Changes Informed by Testing

“Community” tab renamed more precisely as “Conversations”

Community Conversations

CONVERSATIONS

Green dot and change of verbiage mproved comprehension of “Conversations” screen.

The grayscale/color toggle in avatar selection was changed to an opacity toggle for consistency with the rest of the UI.

portfolio 3 - language for exchange

Documents