Date
April 2024
Role
UI/UX Designer
Overview
As part of the University of Rochester Design Hub, I collaborated with 5 other designers to create a language learning website that uses gamification in order to keep users engaged in the subject.
The Problem
Users of language learning platforms often have hard times staying motivated to keep up with regular lessons. Lesson content also doesn’t fulfill expectations, as users felt they didn’t learn practical lessons about grammar or vocabulary.
Goal
How might we keep users motivated to keep up with lessons daily?
Solution
A website designed in Figma that promotes user engagement with language learning lessons via gamification.
Research Process
We conducted 5 student interviews and collected 21 survey responses through questions about users' experiences with competitor platforms.
Survey insights:
Most respondents used Duolingo
Most users engage in lessons for 10 minutes everyday
Streaks, leader boards, and notifications help with motivation
Lack of engaging vocab and topics
Interview insights:
Duolingo doesn’t teach practical vocabulary
Users only keep up with lessons to maintain a streak
Gamification like competition, a way to track progress, or personal customization would help with motivation
Empathy Map
From user research, we made an empathy map. Our key takeways were:
There was a lack of realistic conversations
Desire for social interaction
Emphasis on learning content relevant to everyday conversation
Affinity Map
We built an affinity map from our feedback and mapped out responses.
Takeaways from motivation:
Having a streak as the only motivating factor isn't engaging
Motivation could be helped with competition, a way to track progress, or personal customization
Takeaways from Duolingo analysis:
Involving characters in lessons makes them more enjoyable
Duolingo doesn't provide diverse lesson types or teach practical vocabulary
Takeaways from social learning:
Desire to converse with native speakers and other learners
Takeaways from lesson content:
Users want a mix of lesson content and formats (ie. verbal, written, focus on grammar, focus on slang vocab)
Ideation
From there, we started ideating on potential features for our website. We wanted to address all patterns we saw in the affinity map.
Based on the features we ideated, we realized we wanted to go down one path in particular – gamification.
Why Gamification?
Gamification offers an easy and fun way to keep users engaged.
By focusing on this, users would stay motivated. But given our timeline, this limited our focus. We could not dedicate resources to making lesson content.
Prototyping
We decided to go for a fantasy theme for our website. This influenced the structure and content of our design.
Wireframe
I was given the task of working on our home page.
Considered Features:
Easy access to a lesson schedule
Quest board for small exercises
Direct access to a larger menu screen (map)
Profile card featuring user personalization
Friend menu pop-up
Low Fidelity
Here's a breakdown of all the features:
Schedule Menu
Displays weekly view
Shows language lesson times alongside user's existing schedule
Quest Board
Lesson exercises represented as quick fetch quests from NPCs
Mini-Map
Similar to a Mario level select screen
Each island = 1 level that teaches a specific topic
Beating a level involves language lessons and RPG-style fighting
Profile Card
Customizable avatar
Character statistics – used in lessons
Shop Mini-Menu
Redirects to larger shop page when clicked
Displays buyable items for customization
Mid Fidelity
Here's what changed:
Switched the calendar menu to a daily view
Provides less compact view of tasks
Statistics moved to own menu
Removed shop menu
Planned on having direct access to shop in nav bar
Final Product
We settled on a saturated brown color palette to fit our fantasy theme. This is also why we settled on using a knight in our mock-up of user avatar.
Image Assets
All images were drawn by me in Clip Studio Paint.
Reflection
If given more time, I would've wanted to implement lesson content that users desired, based on our survey and interview results.I also would want to expand more on the gamification. Further developing our storyline idea (as hinted in the onboarding process), creating lesson-battle examples, and refining the shop would be the next steps.
