DuoNest🪹

Role

Individual Case Study

Timeline

Sep-Dec 2022

Skills

User Research
Wire-framing
User Testing
Visual Design
Interactive Prototyping
...

Tools

Figma
Procreate

Overview

DuoNest is a group feature that enables language learners to start real-time conversations with peers who have similar learning goals. The feature aims to motivate language learning by providing a social environment that fosters communication.

DuoNest is an interaction design case study conducted to build on Duolingo's fun and effective language learning experience.

A Personal Experience:

Duolingo has Problems🙋

Last Summer, I discovered an interest in Japanese日本語 and decided to use Duolingo as the tool to enhance my language skills. After many days, however,
I quit...

Looking back, I started thinking about WHY people are no longer motivated which soon I discovered to be due to stress to keep up, difficulty in gauging their progress, and challenges in applying knowledge to real-life situations. I designed a group chat feature - because the best way to learn a language is through communication!

Now Introduce:

"DuoNest"

Duolingo is recognized for its mascot, Duo. The feature I developed is named DuoNest, inspired by the analogy between collaborative learning spaces and the way young owls gather in nests to acquire essential survival skills.

Nest
noun
1. A structure or place made or chosen by a bird for laying eggs and sheltering its young.

01

Join Nest

02

Chat

03

Leave
(only when you feel ready)

Users can join a Nest based on their current unit progress and personal learning style.

Initiate a conversation with the help of prompt bubbles and translation feature.

Set a Group name/goal and leave the nest when you feel ready to embrace a higher level.

User Research

Hearing from the Learners👂

To dive deeper into the problem, I went on online forums like discord and reddit to recruit Duolingo users. I conducted 3 qualitative user interviews. Some interviewees are with hard-core Duolingo users, whereas others are with casual learners.

Key Insights

01

Users indeed use features to keep motivated, but that causes stress.

"Though Motivating, keeping streak and ranking on the leaderboard leads to mental stress.”

🤓

02

Users are demotivated by the lack of progress visualization.

"I feel tired when put in effort but don't actually see my improvement.”

😥

03

Users found it hard to use the language in real life context.

"I learn Korean out of my interest, but I hardly have the chance to use it in my daily life."

🧐

People Problem:

People often lose motivation to continue learning due to stress to keep up, difficulty in gauging their progress, and challenges in applying knowledge to real-life situations.

Brainstorm🧠!

I recruited my friends to brainstorm with me. After 100+ sticky notes, we identified 3 possible solution spaces:

Provide Context
‍How might we offer the opportunity to practice language similar to that in real life?
Clear Progress
‍How might we provide clear progress visualization that encourages users to learn?
Remove Stress
‍How might we reduce stressful experience? Does socialization with friends or in a group help?

Starting from these questions, we explored more solutions. I then drafted several low-fidelity sketches to demonstrate simple flows.

Brainstorm🧠!

After group critiquing with other designers, I decided to choose the Group Feature to proceed with. Though it might be a challenging feature to work on, I believe that one of the best ways to learn languages is by talking to people with the same goal. On the contrary, the other two solutions seem to be minor changes that have less impact on Duolingo.

The group feature interests people to a larger degree. It also provides an environment where users can apply learned vocabulary and grammar to a daily context.

Information Architecture

Deciding Entry Point

Before going into the design process,

After comparing potential entry points, I chose to integrate the new feature naturally as a section of the profile page. I didn’t put the group message feature on the front page because it might distract learning. In addition, users are more used to check messages from the profile page which created familiarity.

Customized Groups

After comparing potential entry points, I chose to After drafting my first iteration, I conducted several user testing to see whether the flow works and how the elements could be improved on. Based on the results, I did a few changes to the visual design of the interface.

For the first page, I found that content placed at the bottom is NOT significant to users, that they usually ignore it and click continue. Considering that the content provides a necessary explanation of DuoNest to users, I moved it to a more prominent position. Clearly, B is better than A in conveying the message.

Encourage Conversations

Group Chat is the most important action for the new feature. Different than the social media apps, it's crucial for DuoNest to implant Prompt questions that encourage and lead group conversation on daily topics.

I explored different ways of presenting the prompt. I decided to choose A because by clicking the plus button, prompt bubbles pop up to aid the conversation as ice-breakers. It’s a fun and interesting way of interaction that matches Duolingo's identity.

Then I did some User Testings to let people walk me through their process of starting a conversation. To my surprise, I found out that users mistake the bubble for the text they sent. After analyzing the problem, I identified the root to be the high saturation of prompt bubble. Thus, I adjusted the transparency of visuals and went with lighter bubbles and text.