Spaced Review Improvements for Embark – a Language Learning App

What is Embark?

Embark is a language learning mobile and web product made for missionaries of the religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who teach about their religion in many countries and languages. The goal of Embark is help missionaries learn the language they are assigned to teach in.

The Users

Primary Users: Men and women (usually ages 18-22) missionaries of the religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Secondary Users: Elderly couple (usually 55+ year old) missionaries of the religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

What Tools I Used

Miro: Mind maps and explorations

Figma: Screen designs and user flows

Project Overview

The users are asked to complete review activities including matching, typing, and listening exercises. We call them Spaced Review referring to the theory if review is spaced out increments it will help information stay in your long term journey.

Objectives

Make Spaced Review inclusive of all types of learners and their abilities.
Help the users make Spaced Review customized to them and more efficient to save time for more studying instead of spending their time figuring out what to work on next.
Work well for all 65 languages that we provide.

The Team

Interface Design: I created the screen designs from stretch with the look and feel of the existing portals. I wanted to make them feel cohesive but different enough it is clear where the user is.

User Flow Design: I created 100% of the screen designs and interactions in this project

Collaboration: I worked with the instructional designer on overlapping aspects including user research.

I also worked with the web developers create the portal to ensure the design reflected our Figma prototype.

Key Findings

Languages that use characters that are not found on a typical keyboard can make it difficult to type even when using an adaptive keyboard.
Being able to practice speaking out loud for pronunciation and confidence was not present in Spaced Review.
Making it easy for items to be marked as struggle or an item they have mastered will save time in the long run.