Smart People: A language learning platform
In week 3, at Ironhack Berlin our task was to put ourselves in the shoes of a language school Smart People Inc. and prepare a digital tool and learning platform for students (age 12–18) who want to learn Spanish or English but can not attend a summer language camp.
For most of the week, I worked on the project together with Juhyun (Jay), but in the end, we prepared two different prototypes and solutions.
Research phase
During the research phase, we examined various language learning apps (e.g. Duolingo; Busuu; Babbel; Hello Talk; Tiny cards; Memrise); language learning schools (e.g. TÚ TAMBIÉN; Lingoda) as well as existing summer language camps (e.g. Berlitz, Alpadia).
And we did guerrilla street interviews — literally chasing down teenagers and teenager groups around Postdamer Platz, Berlin to ask about motivations to learn a language, ways of learning and free-time activities.
Those insights then suggested that our product should offer and balance 3 aspects — Language; Outdoors and Socializing.
And that our potential users could be:
1) high-school students — like Andrew, 17; Lucy 16; and Vihaan, 17 — who want to improve their language skills to study abroad, but at the same time also want to have some taste of summer and friendships to take away.
2) and parents like Gemma — who want to prepare their children for the journeys ahead and Sarah and James — who want to give their children the world and options they maybe did not have…
Prototype
My prototype thus offers a Home menu with flat hierarchies and sections for improving language skills — as reading; listening; writing and vocabulary (see Image 2);
A section of challenges where you could find a list of exercises that could be done outdoors and later discussed with others.
And a social platform (section Talking) that is assisted with some basic communication scripts to ease the initial communication as well as online vocabularies and translation options — to help with the language learning.
And here this is how it looks in a short video…sorry for the strange visual effects…I am learning ;)
Thank you!
