Project overview
Uptone is a music-based language learning platform designed to enhance the language learning experience for aspiring language learners, making the process fun and engaging while listening to your favorite songs.
As project manager, I was responsible for supervising the team and oversaw that deadlines were met properly. I also played a part in facilitating user testing, designing the interface and brand, and conducting research.
Learning a new language
can be frustrating
Learners that stop learning a new language are not uncommon nowadays. The progress of learning may be difficult, facing challenges such as time constraints, lack of quality resources, and demotivation.
Traditional learning methods are boring and repetitive, and learners are not able to practice or perfect their pronunciation to sound like a local speaker.
The solution
Making learning a language fun through music
Gathering user research
We collected 52 survey responses and conducted 8 one-on-one interviews. After organizing all of our feedback and affinitizing our data points, we identified 4 different opportunity areas to explore.
1
Lack of prioritization
Learners end up prioritizing other tasks and push learning to the side without attempting to pick it back up.
2
Resources aren't extensive
People feel like they can't apply what they've learned to real-life situations because they aren't taught local slang and dialects.
3
Learning felt unexciting
Lessons felt tedious and repetitive, causing users to lose motivation easily.
4
Users felt not in control of their learning
Most felt restricted to learn within a certain amount of time and are unable to set their own learning pace.
The idea in mind
From all the research we had gathered, we asked ourselves the question: how might we create an enjoyable and interactive learning experience that is adaptable to their schedule and offers practical resources?
We proposed a solution that incorporates music into the language learning process by integrating popular songs in foreign languages that users can learn from in an engaging way.
Our direct competitors struggled with user retention
To look into this idea further, we decided to research existing language learning music platforms and compare their strengths and weaknesses. We analyzed three different apps that implemented music into learning a language.
We found that none of them provided feedback on pronunciation and lacked interactivity to keep users consistently engaged in the product.
Visualizing our concept
During this phase of the project, we worked on expanding our concept into fully interactive prototypes. We put our focus into a mobile platform, which our users would be mainly interacting with and would provide them with songs to learn a language to.
We also wanted to design a web onboarding experience for people to learn more about the app. Furthermore, we had the idea of creating a karaoke machine that can be paired to the app where users are able to practice their pronunciation skills and sing.
App Prototype
Website Prototype
Karaoke Machine 3D Model
Testing our design
We tested 6 different users and conducted 2 rounds of testing, giving them a set of tasks to navigate through our app prototype.
In doing so, we were able to utilize the success metrics for each task and identified the areas for improvement.
Style guide
We defined a clear style guide in order to create a cohesive and consistent experience that aligns with our identity and platform's message.
Final design
Project takeaways
Context is crucial
It is imperative in helping the user reduce cognitive load and make faster decisions.
Even the tiniest details need a lot of thought
Paying attention to consistency keeps the design cohesive and overall predictable.
Communication is key
Making sure that the team is aligned fosters a collaborative environment, leading to more innovative and effective designs.