Language Lab
Team
Alcantara-Ramos
Liu
Herrera
Phan
Problem and Design Overview
Learning a new language poses considerable challenges, particularly as individuals age. The process is often fraught with struggles as people grapple with finding effective methods to enhance their language proficiency. Compounding these difficulties is the limited availability of resources for those eager to embark on this linguistic journey. While language apps offer some assistance, their capabilities are inherently constrained, leaving learners to navigate the complexities of language acquisition largely on their own. In conclusion, despite the hurdles and limitations, the journey of learning a new language remains an enriching and worthwhile endeavor for those committed to expanding their linguistic horizons. Our application provides a quick and easy process for the user to get feedback on their conversational skills. We do this by allowing the user to record their conversations and then providing feedback on their conversation. Then with the newly suggested phrases or words, they can enter our practice mode and practice those newly learned things allowing the user to better their language proficiency through conversation, feedback, and practice.
Everybody wants to feel included, and a huge part of that is learning the native language!
Design Research Process and Key Insights
Our goal for the design research process was to understand other people’s motives to learn a language and what’s hindering or stopping them from learning. Additionally, we wanted to know what’s wrong with the current resources to understand exactly what people are looking for. The methods we used during the research process were a mix of informal interviews and contextual inquiries. The reason for choosing these methods was because the contextual inquiries gave us insight into how people interacted with limited language skills and how they felt speaking in a language they weren’t confident in. Interviews allowed us to ask questions we had about language learning in general and allowed us to ask follow-up questions, which gave helpful insight into the direction to point our design. The participants that were selected in our design research were within a wide range of age groups with a specification for people who spoke different languages. The diverse participant pool allowed us to see how different ages affect their attitudes toward language learning, understand if they’ve gone through the process of language learning, and dive deeper into how they’ve felt in the learning process.
Language Apps and Dialects/Accents
One of our participants mentioned that dialects are typically an issue when it comes to language-learning apps. Specifically, Cantonese as there is a range of dialects that come with the language and prove difficult to differentiate between one dialect and another. That’s why language apps teach standard Mandarin as it’s the most widely spoken form of Mandarin. The participant asked the interviewer about the possibility of overcoming an obstacle like dialects, to which the interviewer didn’t have an answer at that moment, but it’s something to consider in the design of our app as we begin the design process for it. A few of our participants mentioned that they typically run into the issue of sounding very “American” whenever they speak a different language. That’s why a couple of our participants mention that as a reason why they aren’t confident in speaking in different languages due to that reason.
Time and Convenience
Some of our participants mentioned that they couldn’t commit the time to use language apps as they felt that they were too busy to commit a portion of their time to learning something that they weren’t required to learn. As an example, Duolingo would make users commit to a lesson, or else their progress would be lost. This would be something to take into consideration when developing our design. One of our participants mentioned that having a conversation with a fluent person to learn would be embarrassing. This might stop someone from using our idea since it focuses on giving feedback in the conversation between two people. We could look into the idea of providing a mode that allows a person to practice conversations by themselves.
Duolingo, a popular language app.
App Design and Privacy
All of our participants have shown some sort of interest in using an app like ours as they feel that the app we are trying to develop is unique and could be different from what’s on the market. This lets us know that there is a potential demographic we can aim for in our app when we get into the design process. Our participants also expressed that they feel like privacy wouldn’t be an issue as long as it’s explicitly addressed to the users, similar to a “Terms of Service” contract. It would be good to still do a bit more research on this idea as there are people who might find the privacy of our design to be dubious if not enough work is put in.
Iterative Design Process and Key Insights
In our iterative design process, we decided to follow the following tasks:
- Task 1: To practice communicating ideas or questions.
- Task 2: To practice pronunciation of mispronounced words.
Our initial designs included the bare minimum of what we had as we wanted to see what participants expected when they tried to access a feature that wasn’t developed. Before that, however, we did a heuristic evaluation and realized that there were a couple of small issues with our prototype that we missed during the construction of it. This includes things like missing back buttons, no error prevention, unclarity of symbols used, and many more. We then did three usability tests to test the “feel” of the design. At each test, we slowly built up our app from the advice and critique we received from our participants, which developed the current version of our design. Finally, we moved from the paper prototype to the digitized version of it as we finalized what our design looks like and created the color palette for the design.
Final prototype of our design.
Recording Page and Recording Confirmation
During our usability testing done on the paper prototype, users expressed concern that there wasn't a way to avoid an accidental recording, which they don't want. To fix this, we added a confirmation pop-up to let the user know that they are planning to record. In addition, there are settings that the user can adjust for the specific type of conversation they are about to have.
The confirmation pop-up that was created in light of critique.
Converting Pop-Up into Full pages
Before
After
During usability testing, user's first few clicks would create various pop-ups, for example we had a recent conversations pop-up on the front of our home screen above the recording button where we would show user's their last three conversations, this was removed due to feeling redundant as the bottom navigation bar already allowed user's to view all previous conversation logs. Other pop-up changed were the pronunciation pop-up which was were users would be shown a singular word they mispronounced in the conversation and be given the choice to practice pronouncing it, this was changed into being a individual screen found in the insights section of a recording. Lastly, pop-up relating to conveying ideas was changed into a screen in the insights page where users are able to type into the prompt what they had originally intended to say in their native language in order to view possible translations. This originally was a pop-up but was changed into a screen due to the amount of interaction, as it was too much for a pop-up to accomplish.
Accessibility for New Learners
A suggestion brought up during the transition from our paper prototype to our digital mockup was adding the ability to have users set the default language to be their native language when the user is creating their account for the first time and having a section in the settings where users can go and change the default language used by the application. The suggestion was brought up by the CSE 440 team as an evaluation was done and showed that originally no other language was set other than English, as during the process we forgot the case when someone is entirely new to the language. and has yet to learn to read in English.
A language option was added at the sign-up page for users to select the language they feel most comfortable with.
Resulting Design
For the final design, we designed an app that does the following:
- Can record a conversation at an moment.
- Mistakes made in conversations can be easily reviewed.
- Practicing mistakes can be down at any time.
- Improve pronunciation of commonly misspoken words.
Below are two tasks we focused on in our design:
The overall digital mock-up design.
Task 1: To practice communicating ideas or questions.
An example: Michael is shopping for groceries and stops a worker to ask about an item he is searching for. Although he is not fluent in conversational English, he can communicate his intentions after multiple tries and a lot of hand waving. By having access to his conversation logs, he can go back and figure out the correct word or phrasing to use for next time. The digital mockup illustrates the process of fulfilling this task in the following manner:
Task 1 flow process.
To complete both tasks first you need to go through the process of the application. This means at the home interface of the application the user must click the record button at which point a popup will appear allowing the user to confirm that they want to record. Then when recording the user will be able to identify that they are recording. Then when the user completes his recording it is saved in which they can look at the conversation if they click the "conversation logs” button on the home screen. When the button is clicked they will be taken to the conversation log screen where they can view their saved conversation and click on the conversation they want to view a more detailed view of the conversation. Then the user can click on the insights button where they will be taken to a screen where all the issues are displayed. The user then can click on the issue to display the feedback on the current issue. When the user clicks on one of the issues, if the issue is one about the user having trouble communicating their idea or questions then feedback for that issue is shown. Using the feedback shown the user can complete task 1 and use the feedback to practice how to better communicate their ideas or questions.
Task 2: To practice pronunciation of mispronounced words.
An example: Patricia is stopped by a stranger asking for directions. Although she is able to communicate the correct directions, it takes a while because the stranger does not fully understand some of the words she says. By having access to her conversation logs, Patricia can identify the specific words she may be mispronouncing and learn to pronounce them correctly by the aid of the app. The digital mockup illustrates the process of fulfilling this task in the following manner:
Task 2 flow process.
Going off the beginning of the process for task one, if the issue is one about the user having trouble with pronunciation then feedback for that issue is shown instead. On this feedback screen not only are they able to see and use the feedback they can also click the practice button in which they can re-record them saying the mispronounced word and get feedback again. Using this feedback the user can also complete task 2 and use the feedback to practice how to pronounce the mispronounced word.