April and May 2019
Veil / UnVeil
Digital Product Design course, mentored by DUX’s Kevin Crepin and Kristian Lember
Client: Lingvist
Veil / UnVeil
Digital Product Design course, mentored by DUX’s Kevin Crepin and Kristian Lember
Client: Lingvist
The brief
Lingvist's goal is to make language learning more efficient and fast, focusing on vocabulary and a personalization allowed by AI technology. The client asked us to help “[...] motivate people early on in their journey to better ensure that their well-meaning initial intent becomes a healthy and productive habit”.
As most of habit-based services, Lingvist has massive dropout rate after the first day(s) of use, and even more after the end of the trial week.
We've been challenged to create a digital product to better engage and hook Lingvist's users. The new product has anyway to fit Lingvist's own services, teaching method (based on vocabulary repetition and personalization), and identity (very academic/serious mood).
Lingvist's goal is to make language learning more efficient and fast, focusing on vocabulary and a personalization allowed by AI technology. The client asked us to help “[...] motivate people early on in their journey to better ensure that their well-meaning initial intent becomes a healthy and productive habit”.
As most of habit-based services, Lingvist has massive dropout rate after the first day(s) of use, and even more after the end of the trial week.
We've been challenged to create a digital product to better engage and hook Lingvist's users. The new product has anyway to fit Lingvist's own services, teaching method (based on vocabulary repetition and personalization), and identity (very academic/serious mood).
Research
My research started with a desktop research, with competitors, analogous field inspirations, and theory of language learning.
The market of language learning app - as much as similar markets -
is overcrowded, but interesting differences can be spotted here and there, mostly in the various ways gamification is exploited.
An analysis of the state-of-the-art gave me a solid starting point,
but I didn't find any particularly inspiring solution.
The inspiration came from the user research, from 7 people with different motivations for language (or piano) learning. I looked into their habits, tricks, preferences, and everything that defined their learning experience.
My research started with a desktop research, with competitors, analogous field inspirations, and theory of language learning.
The market of language learning app - as much as similar markets -
is overcrowded, but interesting differences can be spotted here and there, mostly in the various ways gamification is exploited.
An analysis of the state-of-the-art gave me a solid starting point,
but I didn't find any particularly inspiring solution.
The inspiration came from the user research, from 7 people with different motivations for language (or piano) learning. I looked into their habits, tricks, preferences, and everything that defined their learning experience.
My user
During the interviews, emerged a pattern of users opening language learning apps or similar tools "laying on the bed after dinner", "when the instagram feed is finished", and in similar situations.
This has been a great source of inspiration; I decided to build my product around a behavioural archetype defined as "The Lazy User".
During the interviews, emerged a pattern of users opening language learning apps or similar tools "laying on the bed after dinner", "when the instagram feed is finished", and in similar situations.
This has been a great source of inspiration; I decided to build my product around a behavioural archetype defined as "The Lazy User".
My user is Mirko, a well-intended learner of german. He is chilling on the bed, sunday morning, after a long week of work, thinking ...
Mirko might have zero motivation, and we lose him. Or he might have high motivation and discipline, and open Lingvist to complete his daily task.
But Mirko (and many others) is in the middle: "meh, I might do something, but I'm tired/annoyed/my foot is hitching ... "
But Mirko (and many others) is in the middle: "meh, I might do something, but I'm tired/annoyed/my foot is hitching ... "
An example of Lingvist Card, atom of the method based on vocabulary repetition, context, and personalized path through AI.
From this situation and behaviour comes my goal: trying to integrate moments of learning during everyday internet surfing, a habit/addiction often perceived as a waste of time.
My idea: Veil + Unveil
Veil is a browser plug-in to generate Lingvist cards* based on what the user is reading/looking at on internet.
Unveil is a Course on Lingvist, with personalized topics based on what the plug-in learns about the user.
My idea: Veil + Unveil
Veil is a browser plug-in to generate Lingvist cards* based on what the user is reading/looking at on internet.
Unveil is a Course on Lingvist, with personalized topics based on what the plug-in learns about the user.
Overview of Mirko's experience with Veil and Unveil.
Afterthoughts
As consequence of my idea, the customer has a new way of learning vocabulary, taken from his daily context. Also, Lingvist will feel more "forgiving" during the lazy days.
A challenge of this project has been to integrate my idea, a new product in a new format, it within the existing Lingvist experience, enriching both instead of creating competition between the two.
User's privacy is the main counter-argument to my idea. The next design effort would be in the understandability and options of the privacy settings, to put the user in full control.
As consequence of my idea, the customer has a new way of learning vocabulary, taken from his daily context. Also, Lingvist will feel more "forgiving" during the lazy days.
A challenge of this project has been to integrate my idea, a new product in a new format, it within the existing Lingvist experience, enriching both instead of creating competition between the two.
User's privacy is the main counter-argument to my idea. The next design effort would be in the understandability and options of the privacy settings, to put the user in full control.
Veil
Unveil
Here for another project,
But, consider the success of Grammarly, Tinder, any social media - if the gain is real, giving-in some privacy is normal.
Instead of the classic persona, I used a behavioural archetype:
“... they can be called behavioural archetypes when they focus on capturing the different behaviours (e.g. “the conscious chooser”) without expressing a defined personality or socio-demographic.”
Definition from: https://servicedesigntools.org/tools/personas.
For this project I found more powerful not to focus on a specific self-imposed demographic. Being the center of the product building a new habit, a behaviour-based tool seemed the best place to start from.
“... they can be called behavioural archetypes when they focus on capturing the different behaviours (e.g. “the conscious chooser”) without expressing a defined personality or socio-demographic.”
Definition from: https://servicedesigntools.org/tools/personas.
For this project I found more powerful not to focus on a specific self-imposed demographic. Being the center of the product building a new habit, a behaviour-based tool seemed the best place to start from.
Last update: October 2020 - all rights reserved
A thorough, iterated user journey has been very useful
How I designed a digital product to give lazy language learners a way to keep working on it exploiting a classic bad habit: internet scrolling.
Which activities brought me there ->
Which activities brought me there ->
