An ally for vocabulary when you need it
Flashcard App
CAREERFOUNDRY UX CASE STUDY
INTRODUCTION
My first project as part of Careerfoundry’s UX Design Course, I designed Vocab Ally, a collaborative learning vocabulary app that makes it easier to manage and track vocabulary learning.
SUMMARY
Vocab Alley is a vocabulary learning app that allows for collaborative and flexible learning sessions. That app sought to help parents be involved in their kids' learning journey by engaging in study sessions and providing tools to see when they are struggling with certain areas.
ROLE
Lead UX Designer conducting research, user personas, user flows, wireframing, prototyping, and user testing.
TIMELINE
May 2021 3 week sprint
TOOLS
Pen & Paper, Figma, Zoom
How might we design a mobile app that empowers people to learn new vocabulary ?
PROBLEM
Parents struggling with time want an efficient way to be a part of their child's learning, and help motivate them when they are struggling.
SOLUTION
Create a vocabulary learning app that allows for collaborative and flexible learning sessions.
APPROACH
HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN THINKING
DISCOVERY
In order to understand the market, I conducted a competitive swot analysis of similar vocabulary apps to understand strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
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Word Up
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Magoosh
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Vocabulary
USER INTERVIEWS
I conducted user interviews with 4 participants who have used vocabulary app to learn to gain insights about their experience.
2 students 18-30 year old
2 parents 35-40 year old (1 single parent)
My goal was to understand their needs, wants and frustrations to inform features & design decisions.
GOALS
INSIGHTS
1
When participants felt like something was too challenging or not challenging enough they tend to stop using the app.
2
Participants felt that they learn vocabulary terms better when they can make it more personal.
3
The amount of exposure they had to a word/term made a difference in their learning.
CONCEPTUALIZE
Using the insights that I gained during discovery, I refined the probIem statement. Then I crafted a proto-persona, user stories and job stories to help guide features and design decisions.
PROTO PERSONA
TASK ANALYSIS &
USER FLOWS
After creating the proto persona, I conducted a task analysis and user flows on 2 main tasks that would allow Sarah to complete her goals.
Changes were made after updates to wire-frames
MAIN TASKS
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ONBOARDING
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COMPLETE VOCAB ACTIVITY
ONBOARDING & LOGIN
COMPLETE FLASHCARD ACTIVITY
WIREFRAMES
After creating user flows, I sketched a bunch of wireframes for each screen needed to complete each task. I decided I wanted to incorporate some set up into onboarding so Sarah had a start to having necessary content.
SIGN UP & ONBOARDING
PROTOTYPE
Once I completed initial sketches, I started to create a mid-fidelity prototype to conduct user testing to find out what needed improvements.
KEY LEARNINGS
Several problems were discovered during user testing, which resulted in changes in layout, flow, and verbiage in order to eliminate any confusion and make the app more intuitive for the user. Each problem was rated using Jakob Nielsen’s Error Severity Rating Scale.
SIGN UP
ONBOARDING
FLASHCARD ACTIVITY
TRACKING PROGRESS
IN YOUR STUDY GROUP
Activities are a way to make learning vocabulary more engaging and fun, but it also provides visibility into how others in your study group are doing.
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See if people in your group are meeting their goals or falling behind
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Send encouragement when it is needed to support others in your group
WHAT NEXT?
LESSONS LEARNED
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Design requires continuous improvement to meet the needs of users
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Testing and user feedback is crucial to making well informed design decisions.
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Failure is the best teacher. Do not get discouraged by it, learn from it.
FUTURE ROADMAP
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Another round of usability testing to gather more feedback on what needs improvement.
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Make updates based on feedback gathered during testing.