Creating a Taino language learning app
ED TECH ✦ LANGUAGE ✦ iOs
Summary -
The once-extinct Taino language was spoken by the Taino people, an indigenous population based on the islands of the Caribbean and southern U.S. In this first phase, we worked with Casa Areyto to create the wire frames and design system with the goal to teach and preserve the language, reconnecting the Taino descendants to their language and culture.
Tools
Figma, Figjam
Team
5 UX Designers
Timeline
Oct - Dec 2023
(9 weeks)
Designing for Taino descendants
Problem
Teaching people of Taino descent a once extinct language
Casa Areyto currently only has a website to teach people about Taino culture, but wanted to take the extra step and teach people the language. We want to ensure we build trust with our users to feel comfortable about learning a once extinct language, and create this product with a decolonized lens in 9 weeks.
Solution
A user-friendly app that seamlessly guides users through an introduction to the Taino language and culture
We created the first phase of an app, Learn Taino, to introduce people to Taino and guide them to being introduced to Taino and its background, learn their first sentence, and sign up to our app.
✧ Introduction
Intro experience to teach users of Taino culture before diving into the language
✧ Lesson
Interactive lesson to teach users basic Taino, how to say hello and to introduce themselves
✧ Onboarding
Onboarding phase to learn more about the user and their goals
🔍 Discover
Research
Re-visiting previous research
Since this is Phase 1 of this project, the team in Phase 0 was able to provide some research that helped understand community wants. Here were some quotes from those who have interest in learning Taino:
“To get closer to my family heritage and culture… To feel complete.”
“I would like to be able to have a casual conversation in Taino as well as fully describe my world.”
“There’s a part of my culture that I needed to know more of.”
Competitive Analysis
Gaining Inspiration from Competition
We conducted a competitive analysis on existing language learning apps : Duolingo, Rosetta Stone, Drops, and Babbel. We especially paid attention to Duolingo because of its proven success and gamification of learning language.
Main Insights
💡 Discussing next steps: Creating one complete lesson
Our UX Research team and stakeholders advocated for a community feature. This was a great idea, but was a bit out of scope for the main purpose of the app. Our UX Design team wanted to make sure for the scope of this project we got at least one complete lesson finished. We advocated for this choice and reached a mutual agreement.
In our standup meetings, we would discuss next best steps, along with what we liked about this weeks progress, what we didn’t like, and what could be improved. This was very helpful in keeping everyone up to date on our progress and any blockers we had.
Discussing team strengths and weaknesses
📝 Define
Feature Prioritization
Creating the foundation of the app
Having outlined the scope and conducted research, our team came up with the following three sections for how users would navigate the app: Intro, Lesson, and Onboarding.
We questioned how we would order these three sections to optimize the flow. We decided to go with the same order as Duolingo to reduce friction in the experience. We prioritized the phrase “Hello, my name is…” for our first phrase.
To kick things off, our team brainstormed and initiated a simplified version of the flows as a starting point.
🎨 Design
Low Fidelity Wireframes
Generating as many ideas as possible
Using inspiration from our competitive analysis, specifically for the learning activity, our team went with generating as many ideas as we could for our first lesson. We would then narrow our options as we moved to low fidelity. Here are some sketches we created while brainstorming a lesson to learn the “Hello, my name is…” phrase. We utilized what we learned, focusing on pronunciation, repetition, and audio usage.
We also included a mascot for our app due to our client’s request. This mascot would be a hummingbird or a colobri. A colobri is a representative of knowledge in Taino culture. This mascot would work as a guide for users through the app.
Working with UX writing and research, we found it important to incorporate some background of Taino history before diving into the lesson. For the first draft, we found the UX writing was very informative but too text-heavy. After various feedback sessions, we later changed it into an interactive quiz format to make the learning more engaging and to quickly get the users to the language learning experience.
High Fidelity Wireframes
Taino culture to be incorporated in the app
As for the visual design, we gathered visuals of Taino culture to create a moodboard of all the possibilities we could have for a color palette. I advocated for a nature based color palette, and ultimately we went with this route. We also went for a simple sans serif for legibility. With this, we made sure to keep to accessibility standards.
Out of the three phases, I owned the onboarding experience. I came up with the idea of having a seamless flow from the Lesson to Onboarding flows by incorporating what the user has just learned into the onboarding. Using UX writing’s work, I proceeded with creating a questionnaire flow for users to complete.
Moodboard
Visual Design, UI, and Typography
We took our time gathering inspiration from our client's site as well as further research to visualize colors and imagery from Taíno culture, giving us a foundation for what palette we’d like to use for our app. We also ultimately decided on my choice of a logo.
🎁 Deliver
Usability Testing
Testing Our New Design
Since this is only Phase 1, our MVP has not been launched at this time. When we test with users, we want to look out for:
-Ease of users going through the entire experience
-If users retain what they learned
-User satisfaction levels
Next Steps
💭 Reflection
What I Learned
It was a great learning experience taking on the work from another phase. It was also eye opening working cross functionally with so many different teams. Overall, it was amazing to have worked with such passionate people who worked so hard to volunteer and works towards creating a respectful and educational app. I learned to:
Establish Figma practices to help keep our wireframes organized and document all the changes made.
Reach out for help whenever there are any blockers.
Constant communication is key - if there are any large changes to be made, everyone on each team should be aware and there should always be transparency on that.
Thank you to Tech Fleet for this incredible learning opportunity!