The problem

Memini + the original app

Memini is a learning app like no other. The primary use of Memini is a language learning app but just by changing the excel database, you can use the app for learning whatever you like. The app asks users to:

  1. Select a book they would like to read
  2. Chapter by chapter users are asked to identify the foreign words they know and don’t know
  3. Users would be asked to pick between 3 fun and repetitive game’s to help them to learn the words they do not know.
  4. Once they finished the level of the game, they were asked to translate a chapter of a book that use’s the words they have just learnt.

Memini is aiming to make it possible to learn a language from scratch in a month whilst building a platform that can be used to teach thousands of skills.

Primary audience: 8+ users who want to learn a language

When I first started working on Memini, there were no clear aims of the project apart from making the app more aesthetically pleasing. However, within a few minutes of being introduced to the app, I noticed some major usability issues. However, I did not want to base any changes on my opinion or presumptions, so I carried out various usability tests on 13  partipants between the ages of 8 -60 years old.  In carrying out this task a number of high-level issue were found:

Problem 1: Users had major issues navigating around the app.

Problem 2: Users were confused by the app as a whole. Due to the poor UI users found it hard to work out what the app did, what they were meant to do and how to proceed forward.

Problem 3: Many key features were hidden.

Problem 4: Without prompting users, they were unaware the app contained games to help them learn, which is one of the most important aspects of the app.

Problem 5: Users as a whole, did not know how to use the basic functionality of the app including how to learn a language.

Problem 6: On average participants failed 90% of the tasks they were asked to complete.

However, this simply was not enough information. I needed to gain an understanding of the market and in particular, Memini’s competitor’s, to determine their strengths and weaknesses and to take full advantage of this information.

The challenge

Capture the Magic

Once I gained a clear understanding of the market as well, and the UX issues users were facing, the goals of the project became clear. The above process was extremely informative and helped to shape the entire project.

Our high-level goals were to:

  1. Improve the navigation, as 50% of users took between 20 sec to 45 sec to find how to go from A to B.
  2. Improve and rethink the user flow, make it extremely obvious to ensure users do not need to think.
  3. Improve the UI and include onboarding so users know what is required of them.
  4. Highlight key features that were previously hidden.

On the entire Memini project, I worked with a small team which was made up of a project manager, games designer, games developer and an app developer. I was solely responsible for the research and design of the app.

The app Concept is amazing, but the execution is poor

The design

Hi-Fid Mockups

After the first round of research, it became very clear what improvements needed to be made to the app. Throughout the entire design process I used the users testing videos to guide all decisions, I analysed the way uses interacted with the app, their emotional reactions to certain tasks as well as the comments they had made and when they made them. Comments such as:

The app and the games do not feel connected

I only really enjoyed the games, that is about it

The app is dull, it needs brightening up

Made it clear for Memini to gain the traction it deserved the app needed to be gamified, to ensure users did not lose momentum when learning a new language which sometimes can become tedious. I noticed this is what the market leaders were also doing this which made even that much of a necessity.

Funny enough after a lot of iterations and brainstorming, I found that 98% of the existing user flow was efficient, the major problem was the UI.

To ensure Memini was meeting the high-level pain points user personas were created.

Memini _ Splash
Memini _ Home
Memini _ Swipe
Memini _ Game
Memini _ Onboarding
Memini _ Review
Memini _ Word list complete
Memini _ Games list
Memini _ Revision summary
Memini _ Language opt
Memini _ Chapter options
Memini _ Review list
Memini _ Book
App mockups