Samvad
A vocabulary building and conversation practice app
UX Research and Analysis.
The Competitive Landscape
I compared three apps in the vocabulary building market: Duolingo- which did not have a Sanskrit learning option but had an extremely fun and intuitive user experience, Quizlet- which is a card based vocabulary building model where most of the content was generated by the users themselves, and lastly Sanskrit Flashcards- where words on flashcards were clustered into categories and people simply memorized the definition by repetition.
Facebook Groups Survey
I created a research survey that was posted on various Sanskrit learning groups on Facebook. I received 26 responses with majority of participants being beginners. I found that those who speak at least one native Indian language are more likely to learn Sanskrit and will be able to more easily pick it up. Participants also mentioned what features they would love to have in a Sanskrit vocabulary and conversation practice app.
Ethnographic Research and Proto-Personas
Next, I created research questions and an interview script for 3 ethnographic interviews. Two of the interview participants were recruited from Samskrita Bharati, and one was recruited from a Sanskrit learners’ Facebook group. Based on the user research findings, I created three proto-personas.
Proto-Persona and User Stories
Each Proto-persona was elaborated with demographic information, needs, goals and behavior. User stories associated with each persona helped to craft a hypothesis about what features in a concept will satisfy the needs of this persona.
2. Point of View and Concept
Problem Statement
Looking at the user goals and stories I created a Problem Statement for the project.
Hypothesis and Concept
Further, I created a Hypothesis about what kind of solutions will help our users achieve their goals.
3. User Flow and Prototyping
User Flow-Learn new words
I created two user flows. The first one shows how a new user will start a vocabulary building lesson on the app for the first time.
User Flow-Practice Conversation
The second user flow is about how an existing user will navigate from the main menu to a conversation practice group.
Prototype
Based on these user flows I created a low fidelity clickable prototype using POP by Marvel.
Revised Prototype
I went back to three Sanskrit users for feedback regarding the usability of my app and incorporated the findings into the prototype.
