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Case Study: Local
Lingo

Local Lingo is a website for new immigrants to connect with locals and practice speaking their new language. There's also a growing community and helpful resources available for newcomers.

Project Type

Bootcamp project, UX Academy

Role

UX/UI Designer

Timeline

June - October 2024

Tools

Figma, Zoom

Background

Immigrants often struggle with the language barrier and other challenges when they move to a new country.

​

I developed a research goal to tackle this problem.

I want to know what language issues specifically are the most challenging for newcomers to Israel so that I can provide resources and tools to help them during their transition period of learning Hebrew.

Research Objectives

  • Determine the pain points of the language barrier in Israel

  • Understand how users want to go about learning Hebrew

  • Understand what tools and resources meet the needs of users during the transition period

  • Learn what things discourage or disengage users from dealing with the language barrier and going forward with learning Hebrew

Research Findings

Desk Research

I focused my research on language learning and learned the main methods and techniques of top language learning programs.​

Competitive Analysis

I compared immigration services (Nefesh b'Nefesh and The Jewish Agency for Israel) and language learning programs (Duolingo, Rosetta Stone, and italki) to see what is currently working well and what areas of opportunity there are for missing components.

User Interviews

Four participants were interviewed:

  • Pain points: language barrier and building community

  • They struggled to break out of English-speaking bubbles and interact with Israelis

  • Participants lacked confidence speaking Hebrew and feared making mistakes

Synthesis: Affinity Map

(Click to view)

Personas

"I don’t feel confident to speak Hebrew. I am worried I will make mistakes."

Esther, the working mom

  • Goals: practice speaking Hebrew, build community, and break out of English-speaking bubble

  • Challenges: afraid to speak Hebrew because she might make mistakes and embarrass herself, doesn’t know how to break out of bubble, and has financial constraints

  • Motivations: fluency will help her connect with Israelis, expand her job opportunities, and help her integrate into Israeli society

  • Expectations: will get speech practice, will be connected with others, and product is free/low cost

"I build confidence speaking with other Israelis by getting better at speaking and improving my language skills."

David, the busy single

  • Goals: enhance vocabulary and get real-world speech practice

  • Challenges: feels uncomfortable or awkward when he struggles with his Hebrew and has a busy lifestyle that limits time for building community

  • Motivations: grow his Hebrew vocabulary so his conversations flow better and build community to feel less lonely

  • Expectations: will improve his fluency and grow his community while fitting into his busy lifestyle

Problem Definition

By having a platform where immigrants can connect and practice their new language, people can feel more connected and have a sense of community, because it's difficult to break out of your bubble without knowing how to properly communicate.

(Click to view)

Site Map

(Click to view)

User Flows and Task Flows

Wireframes

Low-Fidelity Wireframes

Mid-Fidelity Wireframes

Branding

Local Lingo Logo

Prototype

(Clickable Prototype)

Usability Testing

6 participants were asked to schedule a session and make a community post.

Success Metrics:

  • task success rate: if a user successfully completed the task or not

  • customer effort score: “On a scale of 1 to 5, how easy was it to complete the ta” (1 = difficult, 5 = super easy)

Results

Scheduling a Session:​​

100%

Task Success Rate

3.8

Customer Effort Score

Making a Community Post:​​

100%

Task Success Rate

4.8

Customer Effort Score

Key Participant Feedback

“It’s not clear that “Sessions” is what’s going to make me speak to a local.”

“I would actually expect to have an option to go back to the homepage, not just to the sessions. If I’m done, I’m done. I want to go back to the beginning.”​

“I didn’t even notice it [the homepage] until now. Something about the white font on the picture didn’t stand out to me.”

Iterations

  • I prioritized changing the label for “Sessions” to make the website’s main feature easier to identify and utilize.

  • I made the homepage easier to navigate back to after a user schedules a session. This prevents frustration and helps keep users on the site.

  • I made the homepage more noticeable and readable. This helps users notice the CTA.

Next Steps

  • Based on my usability testing results, the wireframes for “Making a Community Post” are ready to go into development. This would be handed off to engineers.

  • More time and resources could be spent on researching topics that could not be addressed.

  • A follow-up could be done to see how users are using the website.​

If I had more time and resources:

  • I would go to institutions that work with immigrants and try to partner with them.

  • I would reach out to language learning programs for partnership.

  • I would work on integrating other languages/countries so that the website can be expanded beyond Israel.

Conclusion

  • This entire process taught me lot about user research, UX design, and UI design.

  • This experience will help me to do better work in my future projects and helped me gain practice in user research, performing interviews, conducting tests, and making wireframes.

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