Vocabulary App
Wording is your new app for learning vocabulary made easy.
Learning vocabulary can be challenging so I have included some features in the wording app to help through repetition of hearing specific words, spelling and review, and playing games against friends that are also learn new vocabulary.
I created this project for the intro to user experience design course at CareerFoundry.
Goal
To design an app that empowers people to learn new vocabulary.
Problem
How might we design a mobile app that empowers people to learn new vocabulary.
My Role
Being part of a one month CareerFoundry intro to user experience design course, I was the product owner of the whole strategy, responsible for competitor research, user experience research, user needs and persona, task analyses, wireframing and prototyping, and usability testing.
Used Tools
- Pen & Paper - Zoom
- Lucidchart - Slack
- Marvel App - Indesign
- Photoshop - Excel
- Illustrator - Power Point
- Word - Google Forms
- Survey Monkey
Competitor Research
Competitive Analysis
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During this study phase for Wording a competitive analysis was completed to get to know the competitors. Breaking down the strengths and weakness for each app. Vocabulary, Magoosh Vocabulary Builder, and WordUp were the three competitors I looked into.
CONCLUSION
After conducting my research of each of the three apps above, I found the WordUp app to be the best for learning new vocabulary. The layout and overall engagement the app puts on the user is setup great for someone wanting to learn new vocabulary. The Magoosh Vocabulary Builder app was good if you were a student preparing on building vocabulary for one of the standardized test. I found the Vocabulary app to be the less useful especially since you really couldn’t do much until joining the premium account.
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User Experience And Persona
It’s very important to understand who will be using the product. In order to solve a real user problem, you need to have a clear problem statement in mind; in order to write this problem statement, you first need to understand your users and their needs. This was accomplished by user research interviews with potential future users.
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WHO ARE THE USERS AND WHAT DO THEY NEED?
I created a user persona to understand what my users really need.
To get a grasp of them I needed to ask some questions.
What I asked them was (simplified):
Who are they?
What is their main goal?
What is their main barrier to achieving this goal?
The following user persona is the result of my interviews and surveys.
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POINT OF VIEW
One distinct user persona emerged from the research: Caroline, the ambitious outdoor activity enthusiast who spends every free minute in the nature. Caroline an integral part of the ideation.
Caroline's Venesky
“I find staying focused while studying can be difficult due to attention deficit hyperactive disorder and losing motivation.”
Caroline Venesky, 30, married, she/her, mother
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Task Analysis
BUILD THE STRUCTURE
Task analysis are a common and important tool in the information architecture and an integral part in user experience.The structure of Vela has co-existing hierarchies. I analyzed other websites’ structure and have derived and developed my structure from it.
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Wireframing To Prototyping
Giving Vela A Face
Based on what I learned, I started sketching some ideas for my task analysis. After some ideation and simple sketches, I created wireframes and developed a low to mid-fidelity prototype to test the usability.
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Report Findings and Making Recommendations
Usability Test Report
After testing the prototype, I had a good overview of what works well and on which parts I should put our focus on from the usability test report. I’ve gathered feedbacks from 3 participants. I wanted to ensure that I was receiving feedback from users who are learning new vocabulary, so I made sure my participants were either currently in school or just finished. The adjustments are outlined in the images below.
Before
After
Before signing-up with E-mail the user would click next to go through the on-boarding process. Someone found this confusing, so I added an option to either click Home / Tutorial. Now this allows the user to either go to the home screen or watch a tutorial of how to us the app after signing-up.
Before
After
Before when selecting a game you didn’t know what kind of game you were selecting. Someone asked for the games to be different. Now I have added categories which are memorize, say it, brain drain which gives the user an idea of how the game will challenge him/her.
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Reflection
Conclusion
Throughout this process I have learned how to make a complete analysis, creating a persona, creating task analysis, designing wireframes, and conducting usability tests.
I struggled with some of the wire framing and protyping verb age and laying out the prototype on marvel.
Improvements
My next steps in improving my prototype will be to add a create account button to the sign-up page. Add a welcome screen to wording on the first tutorial page. Conduct another set of usability tests and always keep sketching cause improvements are constantly evolving.
