LingoHero
Overview
LingoHero seeks to bring a fun, story-based game to the language learning market. As the first-round of designers, the design team was tasked with setting-up many of the foundational features of the app. We also worked very closely with the rest of the creative team (2D Artists and Content & Narrative) to maintain a consistent vision for LingoHero.
Note: This project is still under construction!
Goal
Create features outside the main game that best address users’ individual learning goals, as well as motivate them to continue using the app consistently.
My Role
UI/UX Designer - I worked primarily on the user survey (creating questions and collecting responses), as well as the guild feature.
Team
1 Lead Designer, 4 Designers
Timeline
June - Sept 2024
Research
Going into research, it was important for us to keep in mind that our insights would not only be used to help inform our design decisions, but would also be helpful to the entire creative team.
Research Goals | Research Methods |
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Competitive Analysis
Duolingo is the most used language learning app, especially among casual learners. Babbel is a popular option for more serious language learners.
Key takeaway: Users prioritize personalization and real-world application.
Literature Review
Our team had no previous experience with game design, so we wanted to focus our research on exactly that. More specifically, we researched the common ways that mobile game designers increase user retention, and the preferences of users who play mobile games.
Providing Purpose | Personalization |
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User Survey
Through our survey, we hoped to gain more perspective on who generally use language learning apps, as well as their motives and preferences.
Our Respondents | The Results |
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User Interviews
We wanted to gain a deeper understanding of our user survey results by conducting user interviews.
Key takeaway: Further emphasized the demand of real-world practicality, and creating a more stress-free learning experience.
User Personas
We created two user personas for a more generalized view of the user research we had collected thus far.
Alex is a high school student that is looking to learn Spanish outside of classes at school. Sarah is looking to learn German in a fun and time efficient way, with the goal of visiting Germany again with better language skills.
Research Insights
At the end of our research, we were able to determine what our areas of focus would be going into the rest of the project.
Increasing Retention | Improving Learning Experience |
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Ideation/Lo-fi Sketches
During ideation, we made sure to brainstorm features that would best address the concerns we discovered in our research.
With how many features we wanted to include in our app, we also decided to create a user flow for organization.
Mid-Fi
Moving into mid-fi screens, we made adjustments to our lo-fi sketches to stay consistent with the work Content & Narrative had completed. We also began using assets from our 2D artists, which helped us maintain a coherent style.
Hi-Fi & Final Prototypes
Design System
Our design system is heavily influenced by the assets created by our 2D artists. We stayed true to their purple and yellow color palette, and chose fonts that gave off a "fun and cute" vibe to match the style of the drawings.
Final Prototypes
Onboarding
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Homepage & Inbox
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Guild
Join a guild or create your own View guild stats Receive guild related notifications Make changes to your existing guild | View and participate in existing discussion posts Start your own discussion with other guild members Earn coins for participation | Join guild quests with other members Work together to earn rewards and coins |
Profile Page
Review learning/game progress View achievements Change notification settings and preferred question type | Look back on photos, Lingomons, and characters collected from each region in the game | Find friends or see existing ones View your friends' profiles |
Character Customization
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Hi-Fi Usability Testing
Keep the design system consistent
Make the UI feel more "game-like"
Add more division between elements to reduce cognitive overload
Make buttons more mobile-friendly
Add "time spent" goal for each day to improve app retention and increase daily usage
Reflection
Challenges
Working on a mobile game for the first-time
Clearly communicating ideas to non-designers, and defending our design choices
Maintaining a consistent vision for the game within the creative team, and making sure our work aligned with their work
Next Steps
Implementing comments from the usability test, and conducting another round.
Meet periodically with future developers and designers to clear confusion and continue progress.