Verve

Verve

INTRODUCTION

Many people have at some point in their lives learned a foreign language, but later on suffered a decline in language skill and forgot how to communicate in that language. This leads to feelings of shame and unfulfillment. After research, interviews, and testing, I came up with a solution: Users have a space where they can practice their target language while exploring their interests. This came in the form of an app called Verve. Verve is a language practicing app that focuses on practicing the language by exploring the users’ interests instead of in an academic way. As a designer, I created this product independently. I did the research, interviews, sketches, information architecture, wireframes, testing, high fidelity designs and prototypes. 

UI/UX Designer

UX Researcher

Information Architecture

TOOLS

Figma

Miro

Mural

ROLE

DURATION

Two months

RESEARCH

Secondary Research:

During my secondary research, I learned that there seems to be this pattern of shame and decline in language loss. Language retention and improvement require constant use, especially in conversation. However, those who have suffered a loss in language skill are likely to avoid using the language at all out of shame and embarrassment, which only furthers the decline. However, I also learned that language never truly leaves you. Those who have previously learned a second language will remember what they learned much faster than if they were learning it from scratch.

Interviews:

After interviewing 5 people who had learned a language in the past, but suffered a decline in language skills, I compiled my findings into an affinity map. The notes here are composed of direct quotes and observations, which I divided into 12 different clusters.

Affinity map

Thematic Analysis:

  • Foreign language speakers seem to thrive off of positive feedback, encouragement, and being shown interest.

  • They do well when practicing with peers who share similar interests - people they can befriend.

  • Being around native speakers and constantly exposed to media they enjoy in the foreign language seems to have impacted their improvement.

  • They seem to be discouraged by criticism, bad attitudes, disinterest, and pressure. Many of their anxieties were tied to being scared of being judged, underperforming, or being afraid of offending by saying the wrong thing.

  • Speakers seemed to be held back by lack of confidence, insecurity, being too self-aware of mistakes, and fear.

  • Since actually speaking the language is important to learning the language, any factor that keeps speakers from actually speaking to native speakers will be a hindrance.

Problem Statement:

Many people have at some point in their lives learned a foreign language, but later on suffered a decline in language skill and forgot how to communicate in that language. This leads to feelings of shame and unfulfillment.

Personas:

Stu

The studious learner

Stu is motivated by pride and achievement. He wants to prove his abilities to himself and others. He needs encouragement, but also to feel challenged.

Sophie

The social learner

Sophie is motivated by connection and adventure. She wants to connect with others, and wants to be able to speak to locals when traveling. She needs to build relationships and have fun with her learning.

Ingrid

The insecure learner

Ingrid is motivated by self-improvement and opportunities. She wants to prove to herself that she can successfully learn a language and confidently speak with others. She needs encouragement and support, but also to have fun.

Insights:

  1. Language learners thrive with community. 

  2. Language learners are more willing (and comfortable) when speaking with peers - especially when those peers share similar interests.

  3. Exposure to native speakers makes a big difference in improvement.

How Might We’s:

  1. How might we incorporate interests into their learning?

  2. How might we create a feeling of community?

  3. How might we give learners the opportunity to practice with others (especially native speakers)? 

IDEATION

Solution Statement:

Users have a space where they can practice their target language while exploring their interests. 

Instead of dividing my focus on different aspects, I decided to narrow down to the importance of users discussing their interests. If users are exploring their interests in an online space among other people who share similar interests, the community and opportunity to practice will follow. Based on the research, consistent use of the language is the most important aspect of improvement and retention, and giving people the opportunity to explore subjects they are already passionate about is more likely to keep them coming back to practice their target language. 

User Stories:

After coming up with a solution, the next step was to decide what to prioritize on my MVP (Minimum Viable Product). I did this by creating user stories based on my personas, and choosing a user story from each persona to apply toward my MVP:

User Stories

Minimal Viable Product:

A space where users can explore a variety of topics, communicate with many people, and where they can choose prompts (pre-written questions or statements).

The MVP gives the studious learner the opportunity to gain more knowledge and improve their vocabulary, while giving the social learner the opportunity to communicate with others while alleviating some pressure for the insecure learner. 

Information Architecture:

Based on what I had chosen as my MVP, I had to decide what kind of product I would choose to solve the problem for the user. Would it be an app or a website? A chatroom, a game, or a blog? What would be included in the product? After much deliberation and brainstorming, I found the way I wanted to deliver my solution! I decided to create an app that would function blog-style where people could interact with others to explore their interests. Users interact with others in themed groups that are particular to an interest that all members share and wish to discuss in the target language. In this group,  users can create posts or choose prompts for other users to interact with by leaving comments and creating threads.

I first made a sitemap to have an idea of the pages that would be involved in the product:

Sitemap

The idea for the pages was that the user would find groups dedicated to whatever interests the user wanted to discuss based on categories, and add those groups to the “My Groups” section, where they would be able to quickly access the groups after joining them. The original idea also included suggested groups and a profile.

After completing the sitemap, I chose two of the most important and most used navigations and made a user flow depicting how a user would complete each navigation:

User flows

The navigation I chose (Red Routes) were: 

  • Finding a language group

  • Selecting a prompt

When finding a language group, users would first choose their interest, and then pick a suggested group based on those interests. Then, they would join that group and practice with that group. This is shown in the first navigation. The second navigation shows another important aspect of the product: the prompts. Users would be expected to input prompts into the group if they decided to not input something from scratch. Once in the group of their choosing, users would either respond to the prompt of another person or choose a new prompt to share with the group. 

DESIGN

When designing the experience of the app, I always kept two important things in mind:

  1. What are the goals of the business?

    • The biggest goal of the business is recurrent use. That users not only visit the app a few times, but use it consistently and long-term. 

  2. What are the goals of the user? 

    • The goals of the user are to alleviate those feelings of shame and guilt around their target language, as well as improve their skills. This can be achieved through consistent use and frequent practice. 

Sketches:

After deciding on what would be included in the app, it was time to design it! I started by doing some rough sketches to get all my ideas on paper before refining the sketches a bit. Below are the final sketches:

Sketches

After doing a few rough sketches, I decided to simplify the contents of the app even more by removing the user profile. After further consideration, the profile did not seem necessary to solve the users’ problem, so I decided it should not be included in the MVP.

Testing:

After completing the sketches, I turned the sketches into a POP prototype and had five of my friends come to my house to use my prototype. I spoke to each one individually and in a separate room, so as to not influence their experience. I handed them my phone with the POP prototype and gave them a few tasks to do. I was mostly testing the intuitiveness of the app, and how easy it would be to complete the tasks. I was looking for any confusion, and making note of how each participant went about completing the tasks. 

After conducting the usability tests, it became clear that the homepage caused some confusion for the users. Users did not know how to find new groups through the interests section, which is one of the red routes. Because of this, I decided to change the homepage. Instead of a “my groups” and a “my interests” section, I changed it to “my interests” and “new interests”. 

I also realized, while testing, that the search bar and the suggested groups were unnecessary in the MVP for the app. These features, upon further consideration, seemed too complex for how little they might contribute to solving the problem for the user. Simply put, the problem could be solved for the user without those features. 


Wireframes:

I used my final sketches, as well as the insights gathered from usability testing, to create wireframes of the designs. I decided to simplify the homepage so the navigation would be more streamlined and intuitive, and to emphasize the interests as being the most important element. Other than the homepage, the designs stayed consistent with the sketches, apart from removing small details to make the design more clean and simple. 

Wireframes

I started by thinking about the users and the solution that I chose to solve their problem. This app is one where the users can practice their target language by exploring their interests. And since this is an app for exploring your interests in the language you are learning, being inclusive of all identities, cultures, and interests is a priority. While at the same time empowering learners to take control of their learning, and supporting their efforts. Interests and hobbies are all about passion - and I want my app to demonstrate the same passion as the users have for their interests. 

Based on these attributes, I wanted to center the app around how we are not just a language learning app - we are not about the grammar and conjugations, we’re about real world applications. We are about learning in context, by learning to talk about the things you love. We use passion and interests as a learning tool.

Defining the brand:

Mission Statement:

Exploring your interests is key in learning and improving a language. Everyone should have the space to explore what they love with likeminded people, while simultaneously improving their language skills. 

And it wasn’t until I answered all of these questions and made all these choices that I chose a name: Verve. Why Verve? Because I wanted a name that reflected the passion of, not just the company, but the users. This is an app for exploring your loves and passions as a way to learn language - and I wanted to emphasize what sets us apart from other language learning apps - our use of passion and interest as a tool for improvement. 

I used the attributes and personality of the app to narrow down the visuals that would best convey the brand. I did this by first creating a mood board with imagery and UI inspiration that I found fit the brand personality and attributes.

Style Guide:

Brand personality and brand attributes

I picked images that showed people enjoying their hobbies and interests, while also having that feeling of being happy, warm, and exploratory. I wanted the images to cause feelings of excitement, anticipation, passion, and empowerment. 

Before picking UI inspiration, I picked a few colors that could work well in representing the brand. I felt like colors within a red palette would convey the message of passion. However, true red felt too intense, so I went for more pink and orange colors. Once I picked the colors, I looked up some UI inspiration. I picked the ones in the mood board above because they came across as modern and professional, but nor stiff or restricting. I also found that the round corners and use of white space came across as inviting and friendly. 

When I first made the style guide, I chose pink, orange, and yellow as the colors I was going to use for the app:

But after I started designing the app, I found that there were too many colors to deal with, so I simplified the palette by keeping only the pink color. Later on, I found that the color was too light, so I ended up changing it to a darker pink and picking all other colors around it:

High Fidelity Mockups:

Once I made choices about the brand personality and look, I put it all together when creating the high fidelity mockups:

Homepage, interest categories, and interest groups

After I started creating the high fidelity mockups, I found myself making even more changes to the design. First, I decided that icons were unnecessary for the interest categories. They would take up too much space and affect the legibility of the text. I also asked myself “how would the icon work in the cases of longer category names?” and realized that it simply wouldn’t work. I also removed the option for images for the groups. Once I thought about it, I realized we would either have to pick images for every single group or give users the option to upload group pictures, which seemed unnecessary for the MVP, as it didn’t do anything to truly solve the problem for the user. 

For the home screen, I decided to have the whole screen be the brand color as to put the brand personality in the forefront. I went for a high contrast look with plenty of white space to simplify the navigation and to emphasize the hierarchy of the buttons. 

High fidelity screens

When making choices for the high fidelity mockups, I took some inspiration from the UI I picked for the moodboard. I chose rounded corners to make the app appear more friendly and approachable, while making sure to leave plenty of space between elements to aid with legibility. 

I decided to use the brand color as the main “pop of color” on the app, while otherwise leaning toward more neutral colors to establish hierarchy as well as give the app a more modern and simple look, while still having that message of passion that comes from the brand color.

TESTING

1st Round of Testing:

After completing the high fidelity mockups, I added some simple animations and made a prototype. The app Verve was tested on five different participants, while alone in a room to minimize distractions. During testing, my goal was to uncover any usability issues, and make sure the designs were understandable. To achieve this, I gave the participants three tasks to complete, while asking them to please verbalize what they are going to do prior to completing the action. The participants were also encouraged to share their reasoning or thoughts if they wished. The participants all experienced the problem this app is meant to solve: they all suffered a decline in a secondary language skill and expressed an interest in improving/refreshing their language skills. They were also all comfortable using phone apps and were fluent in English.

Based on the usability testing, I found three issues with the design. All five participants were able to complete the tasks, but there were some issues that arose and I made note of. I compiled them in a table where I established the problem, summarized the insights I gained, and wrote down possible solutions. I added how long it could take to fix the issues to aid in determining which solutions to pick based on the time I had available to make the changes. 

Testing Results Table

For my solutions, I picked:

  1. Make the whole bar tappable instead of just the arrow. 

    • Based on what I observed during the usability tests, users expected the dropdown to open when tapping the whole bar instead of just the arrow. Making the whole bar tappable also aligns more with user expectations based on their experience with other apps, making the design more intuitive and familiar. 

  2. Have the users returned to the group page right after adding a prompt to the page.

    • This solution saves a step for the user. Based on my observations, users wanted confirmation that the prompt was added. By taking them back to the group page, they can receive that confirmation without needing to figure out how to return.

  3. Change the wording on the “New interests” buttons to “Explore Interests” 

    • “Explore Interests” is more aligned with the vocabulary users have seen in other websites and apps for similar navigations. This will reduce confusion and guess work on what to expect after pressing the button. 

2nd Round of Testing:

For the second round of testing, I mostly wanted to make sure that the solutions I picked truly fixed the problems with the design. Therefore, I kept the parameters of the test exactly the same, except I tested it with 5 new people. 

After testing the prototype a second time, with the solutions having been applied to the design, the problems seem to have been satisfactorily solved. All five participants were able to complete the tasks without any of the confusion and hesitation I witnessed during the first round of testing. 

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS

At the beginning of this journey, I set myself the task of solving a problem: Many people have at some point in their lives learned a foreign language, but later on suffered a decline in language skill and forgot how to communicate in that language, thus having feelings of shame and embarrassment. I’m confident that the MVP of the product is one that solves the problem for the user, but at the same time I’m also excited at the idea of what this product could become! What could be added to keep the user coming back and using the product long term? In what ways could this product evolve, and what would it look like after real world use and feedback? This is a product that is going to be on my mind for a long time. 

By taking on this process on my own, the most valuable lesson I learned was the importance of always coming back to design thinking! Throughout this process, there were times that I found myself stumped, but by following the design thinking model I always found my answers. Answers that always kept the user and business needs at the forefront, which allowed me to create the user-centered experience that is Verve.