Project

  • Duration: 4 weeks

  • My role - Product Designer

  • Tools

    • Figma, FigJam

Company

  • World’s most popular language learning app

  • Users: All ages and backgrounds

I <3 Duolingo

PROBLEM

Users were unsatisfied with the review options available, leading to under-utilization of the review page.

TASK

Design an added feature that provides a solution to business problems & serves the user’s needs, wants, & frustrations.

As a UX/UI design certification candidate, I was tasked with adding a feature to an existing product for my capstone project. As a passionate language learner, I immediately thought of Duolingo, everyone’s favorite language learning app, and set out to improve its user experience. My objective was to enhance the app's functionality while staying true to its mission of providing accessible education.

About the final design, senior UX/UI Designer Darold remarked, “I'm surprised Duolingo doesn't already have this feature;” Evelyn, a user, said, “I wish this were actually part of Duolingo. I would use it all the time.”

ACTION

  1. Devised & executed a research program.

  2. Defined business and user problems

  3. Followed a user-centered design process

SOLUTION

Personalize the review experience and provide more opportunities for customization.

RESULT

Users loved the experience of added personalization and control over their learning and showed their desire for the feature to be developed.

Three-legged research program.

  • Stakeholder Interviews

  • User Interviews

  • Competitive Research

Stakeholder Interviews

CHALLENGE

As I completed this project within a school setting, I was unable to meet with stakeholders. Consequently, there is a potential gap in crucial insights into the business goals, pain points, and specific requirements.

By conducting extensive secondary research, I gained valuable insights into potential business goals and pain points. While these insights are not directly validated by stakeholders, they are synthesized based on the best available information.

Business Problem

Duolingo experiences lack of SuperDuolingo subscription retention as well as lack of user engagement with the Review page.

User Interviews

GOAL

Understand the users’ pain points, needs, and motivations.

PAIN POINTS

  • Revenue fluctuations

  • SuperDuolingo subscription retention

  • Lack of engagement with Review page

NEEDS

  • Engage/entice users

  • Increase revenue

MOTIVATIONS

  • Make learning accessible to everyone

  • Growth

Hypothesis

Increasing opportunities for users to personalize their review will increase engagement with the Review page and help to stabilize subscription retention.

PAIN POINTS

  • Too gamified

  • Too repetitive

  • “Scattershot review”

NEEDS

  • Conversational and writing practice

  • More in-depth review

MOTIVATIONS

  • Competition

  • Short lessons

  • Celebration

INSIGHTS

  • Duolingo already had more robust review compared to other apps.

  • Pushed me to be more creative and think outside the box.

  • Feature should be accessible from home page.

  • Engaging visual design is important.

Competitive Research

GOAL

Validate the need for the feature in the market; understand design trends to avoid re-creating the wheel and throwing users for a loop.

These insights validated my hypothesis. With this understanding, I was able to move on to defining solutions that addressed the needs and frustrations I found.

Defined the business problem and generated a north star user.

  • Point of View Statements

  • How Might We Questions

  • Persona

  • Storyboard

Ideated and brought the solution to life

  • Brainstorm features + prioritization & card sort

  • Sitemap

  • User flow

  • Wireframing

  • Prototyped + Tested

  • Iteration

Atomic Design is a process that consists of five steps that work together to build more coherent, hierarchical, and thoughtful interface design systems.

Task 1: Customize a hint from a flashcard.

Task 2: Customize a hint from a vocabulary list.

Conclusion

The added feature improves the users’ experience and furthers Duolingo’s business goals by empowering users to:

  • Personalize their learning

  • Access a more traditional method of study

  • Increase interaction with the review page

I look forward to continuing to use my skills and passion to create innovative and exceptional products in the EdTech space.

Usability Test Results

  • 3/3 successfully completed tasks

  • 3/3 few to zero errors

  • 3/3 overall positive feedback

  • 3/3 participants would like to see this app developed

Iterations

Interested in working together?