Gansu
Photo and audio matching game
Background
A pictorial language like Chinese is difficult to learn because it requires an enormous amount of memorization, lots of practice, and repeated learnings over time. As Mandarin learning is a passion of mine, I created a photographic and audio recording app for mobile and tablet devices that could be personal, fun, and effective for a lifetime but doesn't require studying.
Role: as UX designer take this idea through the process of design resulting in a validated prototype.
Steps
01
Discovery
Interviews and fact finding
02
Concept
Visualize the game and it's use.
03
UI Design
Plan the look and feel.
04
Prototype
Wireframe testing, iterations.
05
Testing
Users test prototype-> feedback.
01 Discovery
I researched who students of Mandarin Chinese tend to be, how they chose learning apps, and how long they used them. And most importantly why they discontinued.
I reviewed scholarly articles, conducted a screener survey and selected respondents for interviews. I remotely interviewed a retail worker, 3 expats, and a teacher.
My screener survey asked language learners about their choices in learning materials.
Survey results
Quantitative reports showed high interest in flashcards, audio visual aids and matching type exercises in Chinese learning apps.
The survey convince me that purely audial-visual learning game products are rare. My app could possibly fill an unmet need in the spectrum of Chinese lesson apps.
Constructing personas guided my concept forward by using the research data to place users in context.
Jackie
Don
This storyboard is a first rendering of how the photos and audio bites which form the content of the game gets imported into the app.
My stickman is combining his own curiosity, personal photographs, and online resources to bind pictures to its spoken Chinese word. These memory anchors become useful tools for learning.
How my research lead me through ideation to the Gansu concept:
Habit + Memories + Gamification + Spaced Repetition
= Effective Learning with Infinite Scalability
Wasting Time Constructively
The founder of DuoLingo, a popular language learning app with 70 million users, said this about his customers:
"They aren’t actually that interested in learning... they just need something other than Candy Crush to spend some downtime."
App users receptive to learning are motivated by games.
Motivation + Downtime + Repetition
A Gansu user could take whatever photos they like and assign an audible Chinese pronunciation of the object or situation the photo represents. Some time later when the mood strikes, they play the game.
The context of taking a photo, the object in the photo, and the translation the user attaches to it bind together in a shared memory space.
Spaced Repetition
While they match photos, they hear the words and photos multiple times before matches are found and levels to the game are completed. Gansu automatically creates spaced repetition - which has been proven to be one of the most effective techniques in learning languages.
Gansu could be not only addictive, but also infinitely scalable. You just need to keep on taking photos!
03 UI Design
After I clarified my ideas on a basic functionality for my prototype it was time to set some rules on what Gansu would look like.
The four photos below show how the home screen of my prototype changed based on sketches, the style guide, and the mood board. Decisions on the issues of readability (text size and thickness), and the use of current design standards such as the text color, using drop shadows, and the immediately regrettable choice of using word slabs as buttons, helped refine the look and feel to the final version.
Gansu playing surface would be a naturalistic photo background
Learnings
Usability testing for a game has to be reduced to a reasonable testing time frame according to the limitations of the prototyping tool. After using InVision, I'm currently looking for a way to develop the app on my own.
If you are inspired by your project and the research has convinced you that it will work, presenting the project persuasively to stakeholders will be a lot clearer and easier.