During this COVID-19 pandemic period, people all over the world are missing traveling. Whether through language exchange apps or educational software, there has been a significant surge in online language learning since the pandemic. Buddy is to help those enthusiastic users to be connected to the world by providing features not only to find language buddies but also to keep the joy of learning.
My initial idea was to merge "Find buddies" and "Community" features as main features. While doing researches and interviews, I came up with many other features to be added. "Onboarding" and "Account" were the "must" to run the app, so I ended up adding "Learn" feature as secondary, and gave up "Community".
Because the action is two-sided (users can send or receive a buddy request), finding a natural pathway to encourage users to join sessions was a challenge. No other competitors were digging deeper than just finding a buddy. I wanted to encourage users to keep motivated and continue learning.
I conducted competitive analysis with language exchange and learning apps. I included language learning apps to learn how some major companies utilize good UIs to attract users, and how they keep users motivated.
To achieve better emphasis for end-users, I set up good quality 1 on 1 interviews, along with quantitative user surveys.
After the thorough researches and interviews, I had solid ideas with my original design directions.
I created 2 personals. Both are with a passion to learn a language. I setup their ages younger than usual (21 and 28), assuming that majority of users are in their 20s or 30s.
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I had 4 main menus (Buddies, Learn, Certificates, Me). Based on the core features in Strategy blueprint I added pages necessary to those. The pages under the main menus can be switched using tabs.
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It's time to make everything visual what I gained. These are the samples of my sketches.
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I created a user flow for the "Buddies" and “Onboarding” features. These two are the major functionalities for user testing. This helped me to clarify which pages I needed to design for the app to function in the way that users expected.
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Targeting user testing, I created all necessary pages for 4 functionalities: Onboarding, Buddies, Learn, and Notes. Because mobile windows are small, I tried to display only minimum elements throughout the app. I used simple words instead of using sentences. And I paid attention to UI details, as just a few pixel differences could be noticeable on the app. Check the prototypes on Figma!
I created the affinity map after user testing was complete. I categorized items into Priority 1, 2, and 3.
I put the majority of items in the P1 category, as many of those were easy to fix. I fixed some of the detected problems immediately without waiting for completing all testing.
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From 2020, the world hasn't been allowing us to travel around the world. This is a big opportunity for the online learning industry. While researching I found that no competitors are providing features to satisfy serious language learners, although many potential users are aspiring to communicate with people around the world. So I wanted to make Buddy go beyond a matching app. To achieve this goal, feature prioritization was the most important. If I had a chance to continue this project, I'd like to add SNS-like feature that allows user to share their language learning experiences.
