Duolingo | Becky Hwang

Bridging Language and Culture

Case study on enhancing Duolingo to transform into a holistic service that bridge language and culture through immersive media experiences

Team

Becky Hwang

Harshi Rambhia

Joel Giambra

Jueun Jeon

Yiran Chi

Timeline

Mar - Apr, 2023
(5 weeks)

My role

UI & UX design | High-fi prototype | Experience strategy

Project goal

How might we afford language learners easy access to target language’s multimedia content in order to retain more of the language?

Find your interests

Create the learning content  based on your interests at beginning

We founded there are a lot of people learning language from what they are interested in
Knowing user’s interest and create customized content can help them keep passion during the language learning

Media Content
within course

Questions now include multimedia content  which gives users a more personalized experience

Learn from
native speaker

Users can learn from native speakers to understand better

If a user finds a word or phrase useful they can save it to their dictionary
Contents will be either uploaded by creators or duolingo can buy existing ones as well

Dictionary helps
learning even better

Users can now save words from lessons or multimedia content to  a personal dictionary to come back  and study
They can also search for new words they might come across elsewhere and add them here
This is also a way for the software to learn more about the user and can help personlizing the content they see

Practice with

Ai chatbot

A beginner language learner can first practice talking basic conversational vocabulary with our AI partner
As users advance they will be connected with someone to help each other practice

About Duolingo

Duolingo is a popular language learning platform that offers free language courses in over 40 languages.

Experience audit

Value (user, society, and industry)
- get familiar with the basics
- free app
- attempt to make it entertaining by using gamification and characters
- offers 43 languages

Target Experience
- dedicate 5-20 mins each day consistently
- step-by-step structured experience to learn in kind of a formal way

Inspiration
- at your fingertips
- choose your level
- flexible time, space, topic, revisit

Diverse way of learning language

Language learning doesn't only occur through structured textbook techniques but also through conversing with natives, watching videos, and repetitive exposure to vocabulary. We aim to explore new ways of learning that can enhance the Duolingo experience.

Research started with these questions

Goal: Reasons, motivation and methods for learning a new language

What’s your feelings about learning a new language?
What were the reasons you started to learn a new language?
What methods do you think worked the best for you? Why?
Is there anything that didn’t work?
What keeps you motivated in a long term?
Do you have any memories you’d like to share about this?

Language learning gets boring without context

We conducted interviews with 12 individuals who are currently learning or have learned various languages through Duolingo or other language learning tools and discontinued using those for specific reasons.

The main takeaways from these interviews were as follows:

Everyone has their unique motivation and reasons for starting to learn new languages.
Duolingo doesn't effectively address the varying starting levels of learners.
Cultural context enhances the learning experience for vocabulary and phrases.
Learning is more effective when there is a strong necessity.
Immediate or positive feedback serves as a motivation to learn more.
A disconnection is observed between the four pillars of language learning: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Our Focus Area

Contents that were not tailored to their interests or levels caused them to lose motivation easily.
The practicing methods provided by Duolingo, such as following along with pronunciation or reading sentences, were insufficient for developing the language skills they desired.
They wanted to learn vernacular words and phrases used by native speakers, but Duolingo primarily provided textbook-like contexts.

Key insights

People tend to learn and remember a new language more effectively when they have more exposure to it in a real world setting and opportunities to practise it by speaking.

There is scope for including social media, interaction with native speakers, local news and AI as part of learning content.

Learning and practicing a language is a loop cycle.

The concept for this new language learning experience will involve:

customized selection during onboarding to tailor users' interests to the learning content. This approach aims to motivate users to become more engaged as they get to learn and practice within content that aligns with their interests. They will begin with an AI chatbot and gradually become independent of the app as they practice more.

Media will also play a role in helping users by providing real-life examples and aiding their understanding of the cultural elements behind the words.

Project goal

How might we afford language learners easy access to target language’s multimedia content in order to retain more of the language?

Completing the learning cycle

Our new Duolingo goes through a cycle of stages: onboarding, learning, and practicing.

During the onboarding stage, Duolingo will ask questions about interests, and based on these interests and AI, it will create personalized content to assist in the learning and practicing stages.

Users will learn from the content within the app, which is community-based.

While learning, users can save words in their personal dictionary, which will be used during the practicing stage.

In the practicing stage, users can start by practicing with a chatbot and later progress to conversations with actual people.

Summary

What is the value of our experience strategy?

Viewing language as a part of culture and giving language learning a context, making it easier to remember new words
Create fun and engaging language learning experience starts from individuals’ interest
Give Duolingo users the ability to practice what they’ve learned
Create learning and practice loop cycle with social media contents that gives cultural touch on words and phrase