Overview
Context: Speak Local is a language mobile app focused on speaking and pronunciation. The main feature of the app is pairing people interested in each other’s mother tongue to have frequent meetings with a conversation topic that both users agreed beforehand.
Challenge: Chatting with immigrants in Berlin, we realized that they were learning German for months/years, but still were not able to communicate properly with native speakers, hence they couldn't integrate completely and their opportunities to find a better job were shorter.
Goals: Improve users language skills so more than 60 % of them are able to use it in daily life within 6 months.
KPIs: ux success, ux progress, users task success, users satisfaction, usability rate.
Tools
Time/Location
2 weeks (2020) /
Berlin (Germany)
Berlin's immigrants have a problem learning German
Pain points & Behaviours: The interviewees, with Latin languages or Arabic as their mother tongue, considered that it takes a lot of effort to learn German when they can use English around the city. However, all of them were trying to learn the local language using apps or even taking lessons because they had better job opportunities if they could speak German.
Needs & Motivations: Some users would love to meet with native speakers to improve their skills and feel confident to speak German in daily life, and they want to talk about topics they have in common.
View interviews
Our competitors’ analysis evolved into a brainstorming session
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Market analysis
While we were checking best practices that language apps use to get some inspiration and avoid main pain points. Our brainstorming started when we realized that none of the apps had a way to meet with local native speakers and have a real practise, exactly what our users needed.
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Solution Hypothesis
We believe that, by creating a feature pairing people that are interested in each other’s mother tongue, our users will learn and feel more confident speaking the local language, so that they can use it in daily life, work, improve their living conditions with better job opportunities and feeling more integrated.
View analysis
Iolanda uses the app for 2 main purposes
1. Set a meeting with a native speaker
2. Review topics and add words
Quick sketching and prototyping our solution
Check out our wireframes and prototype here!
View LowFi Wireframes
Low-fidelity wireframes
View MidFi Wireframes
Mid-fidelity wireframes
View HiFi Wireframes
High-fidelity wireframes
Does our main solution work, even if it is in a low fidelity stage?
NEW TOPICS
The flow needs to be redesigned with a simpler way to add words to the topic. Postponed.
HOMESCREEN
Giving priority to the user’s profile to set up a meeting and postponing other features.
NOTIFICATIONS
To set up meetings and confirm proposed ones is our main feature, we should make that flow completely painless by fixing the notifications.
UI ISSUES
Wrong links, fix the nav bar and other small issues in a mid-fidelity. Fixed.
View testing
After 6 weeks, Iolanda's life in Berlin already improved!
SpeakLocal helped her feel more confident to use German in her daily life
Full story