Learning Languages with Confidence for People with Dyslexia
This is a personal project that I worked on from start to finish where I designed a language learning mobile application that aids learners with dyslexia so that they can learn new languages in confidence.
Context
Learning languages is crucial in our globalized world, as it connects us to new cultures, broadens opportunities, and enhances communication across diverse communities.
However, learning new languages can be particularly challenging for those with dyslexia due to difficulties with reading, spelling, and processing written information. This can make acquiring and mastering the complexities of a new language more demanding.
Problem
Dyslexia is the most common learning disability with 1 in 10 people in the world estimated to have dyslexia. Yet although it is so common, language learning has not improved to cater to those who struggle with this learning disability.
Goals
My ultimate goal was to create something the empowers people with dyslexia in their language learning journey. To do so, I focused on maximizing accessibility and including key features such as specialized font to reduce the cognitive load.
Research
User Research and Interviews
I interviewed five potential users to identify pain points that they experience during their language learning journey
What I Learned:
Memorizing, spelling, and reading tend to be their biggest struggle while listening and speaking are usually their strong suits
A lot of mistakes they make are 'careless' ones.
Oftentimes they tend to struggle more when they start to compare themselves with their non-dyslectic peers which leads to increase frustration and feelings of inadequacy.
Competitive Analysis
I conducted a competitive analysis of existing products such as Duolingo and Rosetta Stone. Additionally, I asked my user interviewees about their experience on these language learning apps.
Something interesting that I found is that they tend to make a lot of 'careless' mistakes. For example, they might input 'The teaching is German in good' instead of 'The teaching in German is good.' So although they had the right idea in their head, they were unable to properly input this correct answer into the app and lost points for something that they actually did understand.
Research Takeaways
People with dyslexia often feel chronically inadequate due to making mistakes that neurotypical people would consider 'careless' or 'stupid.' Oftentimes, neurotypical people drastically underestimate just how much this can impact someone's day-to-day life and confidence. There are already enough hurdles that those who are neurodivergent brains face; I decided to approach the app with that in mind and remove the punishment of making a mistake.
Ideations
Key Features
Reduce the pressure from making spelling and grammar mistakes.
From my research, I found that learners generally understand the main idea of certain concepts. But struggle to choose the right answer due to their tendency to make mistakes related to spelling and/or grammar.
My solution was to reduce the punishment of making these mistakes. Instead of losing points for making mistakes related to spelling or grammar, users are given an additional chance to pick the correct answer.
Visually remove the cognitive load
Since this app was made with the intention of being a safe space for those with dyslexia, I structured the app visually to work in their favor. I used the font 'OpenDyslexic' as the font of choice, a typeface/font specifically designed to mitigate some of the common reading errors caused by dyslexia. This in turn helped with the visual direction of the app as well. I also referenced best practice style guide for dyslexia (Bdadyslexia).
Accessibility
Because each person has a different method and preference in learning, I decided to approach this app with customization in mind. I made sure that the app has the ability to be adjusted based on accessibility preferences. By doing so, I was able to make the app not only accessible for those with dyslexia but for those with other disabilities as well such as color blindness.
Iterations
During my initial designs, I struggled to layout all the information in an effective manner while also following the style guideline. After a bit of user testing, I was able to identify that although I had all the key features that I wanted to include, the design itself was not clear enough for some users to understand where to go. In my later iterations, I decided to completely simplify the overall design of the app along with the colors. Here is a snippet of the previous design below.
Result
Here's the final design that I came up with after a lot of feedback and iterations from user testing. It's a lot simpler and more effective in aiding users in their language learning goals.
Reflections
Overall this was a great learning experience in managing a project by myself from start to finish. I learned (and failed) a lot throughout this project. After doing multiple iterations and a lot of trail and error, I was able to create an end product that I'm proud of and learned a lot along the way!
Next Steps
Had I had more time, I would've done more user testing to make sure that I'm effectively solving the pain points that I've aimed to address in this process. Because this is such a niche project, it was difficult to find enough user testers and interviewees who were both interested in learning new languages and also had dyslexia.
Ultimately I want this product to do what it was tasked to do: aid language learners with dyslexia in their language learning journey so that they can learn in confidence. And I want to see if I can find more things to address by having a larger user testing group.