Converse World Travel
The creation of Converse World Travel: An English Learners app for 11-14 year olds represents a significant leap in educational technology, blending creativity with user-centered design to deliver a truly engaging learning experience. As a v1-v2 evolution, we reinvigorated the app by reimagining its creative elements and enhancing the entire user journey through gamification. Our approach not only makes language learning enjoyable but also supports holistic development by incorporating interactive challenges, personalized feedback, and immersive activities. This dynamic framework ensures that students are not only learning English but also building confidence and critical thinking skills in a fun and motivating environment.
Reinvision of a Dated Design
Three challenges I worked to solve:
The visual look and feel of V1 felt dated, and did not match the target demographic we were aiming for (ie: 11-14 year olds in India).
The overall app was not easy to use, both in the user experience and through the visuals. I needed to create a simplified, yet fun experience for our age group.
Designing for a global market. Our launch was geared towards 11-14 year olds in India, but the long term goal of the project was to expand to other markets in Asia.
I created two concepts for a revision of the app to pitch to key stakeholders. These concepts ranged in color palette and illustration style, but I worked closely with UXR and UX to ensure the designs appealed to a global audience. I purposely chose characters instead of people to allow a diverse range of students to relate to the product and have a fun time engaging.
Established Design System
After establishing a consistent look and feel, I created an entire design system for the product, including a style guide as well as components. Some ranged from as simple to a button, to others being as complex as a dartboard. Despite moving rapidly on this project, It was extremely important for me to have everything clearly documented and componetized for other designers jumping on board, and for future iterations of the project.
Our Characters
This standardization effort also led to the development of our character system. Our charachters are meant to guide users throughout their journey in a fun and positive way. In order to give helpful feedback for our learners, we added a multitude of expressions to characters, so when a user received positive or negative feedback, they were able to retain that in a fun, engaging way.
Role
Lead UI Designer
About the Product
Converse World Travel contains multiple countries a student can "travel" to with each country comprised of multiple globally recognized cities (ie: USA contains New York City, Los Angeles, etc). Within each city there are three distinct modules of items positioned to assess various English language communication skills. Each city is designed to take approx. 20 min and thus each completed country could take about 1hr.
These activities would measure 1 or more of the following critical communication skills: Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Writing.
When revisiting the UX/UI, we carefully curated how to gamify the app to engage our target user group, as well as how to integrate new ways of learning throughout the product.
Moodboard and concept presentation of selected concept to stakeholders.
• Conceptualized and created the entire UI design system
• Directly oversaw and art directed two additional UI designers on the project.
• Worked closely with my UX partner, as well as Product Owner, Learning Scientist, Instructional Designer and Developer to ensure product success.
Impact
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My implemented design strategy significantly boosted user engagement and satisfaction, leading to a more effective and enjoyable learning experience for students.
By addressing tester feedback, the app has evolved to meet and exceed user expectations, improving its market competitiveness and overall effectiveness.
The dual focus on gamification and cultural education enhances both the engagement and educational value of the app, making learning English a more dynamic and enriching experience for students.
12 year old learner from User Testing
“Can I rate it out of 10—I'll give it a 15 out of 10? It's it's really fun [and] motivating, and it also develops English while also learning other things to explore the culture of all around the world”
Product Owner
“This latest version is a significant improvement over previous ones, incorporating feedback from our enthusiastic testers. Their positive experiences have shown us that our app not only meets but exceeds expectations, positioning it to compete effectively in the market.”
11 year old learner from User Testing