LingoMate
A mobile app that supports an efficient way of connecting language partners
Project Overview
Motivation & Problem - About a year ago, a student who wishes to practice oral Chinese contacted me. As a native Chinese speaker, I was happy to become her language partner. But after 13 emails of scheduling and rescheduling, we still didn’t meet each other due to our incompatible schedules. This frustrating experience made me think: for people who want to practice a second language, and people who volunteer to be language partners, how can they match with each other more efficiently?
My role:
Project management
Interaction Design
Visual design
User Research
Length
Sep - Dec 2019
Project Type
Capstone Project
Deliverables:
User Journey
Storyboard
Wireframe
High-fidelity prototypes
Project Management - I initiated the project from user research to design solutions with 2 rounds of iterations.
User Research - Why language learners and volunteers can't efficiently match each other offline?
The first thing is to understand what hinders language learners and volunteers from meeting each other and build language learning partnerships. Through a survey (148 responses) on campus and cultural probes research, three user pain points and two inspirations were synthesized.
TOP THREE PAIN POINTS
Tedious scheduling
This is the top reported annoyance since people can cancel a meetup at the very last minute due to exams, interviews, sickness, etc.​
Safety
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Social Awkwardness
Safety is another core concern of people, especially among females - Safety design should be a focus when designing user interactions.
People reflected social awkwardness is another fear that hinders them from building the connections, since not everyone is an extrovert.
CULTURAL PROBE INSPIRATIONS
Ice-breaker topics
When learning what could be the best language communication experience users expect, we discovered some universally beloved topics such as food, travel, cultures.
Reviewing conversation function
Being able to revisit vocabulary, slang, grammar,etc. in the conversation is another appreciated function that we never thought about before, but discovered in cultural probes.
User scenario –
Real-time matching to facilitate flexible schedules
Based on collected user needs, it came to me the idea of connecting language partners in a real-time manner, like what Uber and Lyft do to connect nearby drivers and passengers. So I sketched out the user scenario that the product should ideally assist:
Wireframe & Interaction flow
Following the idea, I prototyped key interaction paths for language volunteers and language learners based on the tasks before their meet-up, during their meet-up, and after their meet-up.
Design details & Evolution
Real-time flexibility, safety at the core of the system
Getting rid of tedious scheduling
The high-fidelity prototyping features:
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Real-time discovery of available language partners (search real-time volunteers nearby, send a request to volunteer if find a good match)
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Wait up to five minutes for volunteers to confirm a request sent by learners
Multiple safety enhancement
Through usability testings and rounds of iterations, I finalized safety designs in multiple ways:
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In the process of matching, tips/reminders of choosing a public talking place are highly visible.
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During the conversation, safety tools are also available.
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After each conversation, users are surveyed to rate how safe they feel about the place to collect more data.
Break social awkwardness with prepared topics
Based on profiles of volunteers and learners, and the language they'll practice, LingoMate recommends topics to easily start with even though it's their meetup.
With insights from cultural probes, LingoMate also gives easy access for learners to revisit the topics they covered in different talks to enhance their learning incentives.
Takeaways
🚀 Select suitable methods to boost your design
As my mastery capstone project, I was given the freedom of choosing which research or design methods I'd like to use. Among those methods, pick up the suitable one to effectively boost my design.
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For example, Surveys helped me identify the top-concerned problem among users with statistic support. Benchmarking with analogous competitors, Uber and Lyft, brought me the inspirations of the real-time discovery of availabilities. Storyboarding gave me a clearer picture of the important stages in the user scenario. Last but not least, User testing told me more insights from users regarding their feelings of safety design.
👩🔬 Joy from experiments with different visual alternatives
When it comes to high-fidelity design, I had a lot of fun experimenting with different visual solutions and see which one works better. For example, when thinking about how to call users' attention to choose a safe, public place to have the talk, I used the red color for warning at first. However, a few users reflected that red was too prompt and would cause worries for them. So I shifted to try out other visual solutions to call their attention, meanwhile reduce the pressure brought by the red color. I really enjoyed the experiments of design alternatives to eliminate the problems standing between users and happy experience.