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Speechless

Tools: Balsamiq, Figma
Deliverable: A high-fidelity clickable prototype in Figma

Team Members
  • Talia Bowles - Product Designer
Skills Used
  • User Interviews
  • Affinity Mapping
  • Paper Sketching
  • Rapid Prototyping
  • Product Design
  • Interaction Design
Stakeholders
  • Users
*Jump to demo

01. Problem

Users struggle to find a translation resource that is reliable for daily activities and accurate in more than one language.

02. Research

I started with interviews, so that I could empathize with users in the specific situations this app was going to address.

Interviews

/Research

I conducted interviews to find answers to the following questions:

  1. How does the language gap make you feel?
  2. What languages have you been exposed to in your lifetime?
  3. How do you problem solve being in a situation where you are not familiar with the language being spoken?
  4. At what point in translating something do you feel confident in the accuracy of the translation?
  5. What types of translation resources do you find most helpful?

Competitive analysis

/Research

I researched digital translation resources that were brought up in the interviews:

FIndings

/Research

How users feel when they need a translation.

03. Define

Insights

/Define

  1. Users are overwhelmed and anxious in situations where they need a translation
  2. Users want audio and images first; text is secondary
  3. Users know their translation is correct when they achieve their desired result
  4. Users are not always able to identify the language they need translated
  5. Users need translation apps to take context into account to improve accuracy

Key Quotes

/Define

"Studying abroad, I relied on those basic phrases so much with dear life."

"Audio is always the best thing because not everyone is able to read and write…and images, but I feel like even images are super culturally dependent."

"Ordering at a bar or restaurant and then getting what you thought you ordered is the strongest indicator."

04. Ideate

Once I examined the insights, I came up with solutions to address each of those pain points/challenges.

Mobile App Features

/Ideate

  1. Users can "favorite" languages they use the most to streamline process and decrease stress
  2. Each translation will have audio, text, and an image.
  3. Since users do not know if a translation is accurate until they achieve their desired result, they will be prompted for feedback each time they complete a full translation userflow. This will give the app the feedback it needs to ensure the accuracy of its translations.
  4. When users do not know which language they need to translate, they can use their location services to get the most commonly spoken languages around their location.
  5. Translation options will be presented as a list of words/phrases, rather than having the user type in their desired word/phrase. This allows for pre-contextualization of translations that will improve accuracy.

05. Design

Paper Sketches

/Design

User Flows
Sketches

Balsamiq low-fidelity prototype

/Design

Login flow GIF

06. Prototype

User Flow Demonstrations

/Prototype

For full demo, see appendix.

Click to view more ↴

07. Next Steps

  1. Interview non-native English speakers to gain more comprehensive insights.

08. Appendix

Full Ptototype demo

/Appendix

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