Lingo Vocabulary App

This project was created for CareerFoundry’s UX Design Fundamentals course in April, 2020.

Project Overview

• Objective: Design a mobile app for learning vocabulary
• Finished Product: Low-fidelity prototype
• Timeline: 4 weeks
• Role: UX Researcher & Designer

Watch the presentation here, or keep scrolling for a detailed look at each step of the process.

The Process:

Competitive Analysis

In order to better understand the existing market for flashcard apps, as well as their strengths and weaknesses, I conducted a competitive analysis of three similar products.

All three apps allowed me to create my own flashcards and flip them back and forth to quiz myself. Some differences were in the quiz styles, scoring, statistics, card content types, and the ability to link to outside sources.

All three kept navigation on the bottom with settings and other menus in either the upper right or upper left corners. This structure was standard, but the rest of the layout varied between apps.

I was interested in the ability to link to external content (like other users’ content). Would its helpfulness outweigh the privacy implications?

User Research

Interviewing potential users of the app (adult students) gave me better insight into their needs, and how the app might be used.

After each interview I combed through the long-form responses, categorizing the content into actions, thoughts, and feelings.

User Persona

From my research, I was able to create a proto-persona to guide my choices when building the app.

Information Architecture

Next, I mapped out the user flows for each of the two major tasks my user would be focused on.

Wireframing & Prototyping

With pencil and paper, I sketched out screens for each step of the user flow into low fidelity wireframes. Then I linked them as a clickable prototype.

Usability Testing

I met virtually with 5 testers to find the bugs in my design.

Error severity ranged from personal preferences to catastrophies.

Improvements and fixes were implemented in the final low fidelity prototype you see here: https://marvelapp.com/56gb8ai

Results

Although the project ended in only a low-fidelity prototype, the possibility of features such as audio quizzes and being able to add photos and sound to flashcards was exciting. There were more features left to test: finding and editing existing cards and decks, speed of task completion, and whether or not the new onboarding was effective, but I learned a lot about user expectations during this process.

1. The back button is not optional.
2. Standard icons like a house for the home button work great, so keep it simple!