Many college students don’t have classes in school that would satisfy their need to learn a foreign language, and it can be painful and overwhelming to continue the tedium of learning extra content outside of school hours. Students need an app that makes learning a foreign language fun and motivating.
The Core User Needs
I interviewed five students of different ages and majors and summarized five things they need from a foreign language learning app:
- Culture integration – Students need the app to add some local cultural content that they are interested in into the learning content as learning motivation to make learning not boring.
- Personalized learning path – Each user is at a different stage of language mastery and has different requirements for language learning. They need the app to provide choices to ensure that the content is in line with their current learning stage.
- Study companion – For some purposes, such as practicing spoken pronunciation, asking questions they don’t understand, etc., some students hope to study with a teacher or a partner who is interested in the same language.
- Integration with real life situation – Users’ learning purposes are usually very different. After learning the language, they all have different places they hope to use it. Everyone’s language needs are different, so the app needs to provide different teaching content based on the situations that each user wants to use in life.
- Effective learning resources – Users’ learning purposes are usually very different. After learning the language, they all have different places they hope to use it. Everyone’s language needs are different, so the app needs to provide different teaching content based on the situations that each user wants to use in life.
Rough Sketches
I came out with three different ideas first. In order to think about the needs from the user’s perspective, I also sketched out a storyboard for each idea.
Classic self-study app with schedule and alarm:
Online tutoring:
Gamification of content with breakout and your own farm/house:
When making the final choice, I still think that these three methods are a bit too simple or not interesting enough for users, which can easily lead to difficulty in sticking to them. In the end, I decided to combine some cores and present them in a form that is more acceptable to the public.
Wireframes
I incorporate karaoke-style learning into the content of the app. The users can click on the yellow words in the lyrics to jump to the flip card to learn, and get a high score in the song practice to unlock the next song, which encourages the user to practice hard to unlock more songs, and the system also gives the users a feedback when scoring to tell them the pronunciation that they can improve.
The fidelity of this version is too low, and the color and font selection are not harmonious, resulting in poor visual effects. In addition to this aspect, the connection between some functions also needs to be improved, and should be more reasonable and smooth. I have adjusted these in the final version.
Prototype
Conclusion
The design of karaoke-style foreign language study app merges entertainment with education to create an engaging and immersive learning experience. By combining interactive singing with real-time pronunciation feedback, the app helps users improve their language skills in a fun and natural way. This project demonstrates how thoughtful interaction design can enhance language acquisition by leveraging music and active participation. Personalized learning paths cater to different proficiency levels.
