langoo
How it started
For the final project in Ironhack’s bootcamp, the students were grouped together and got to choose a client and a project to work with. I, along with Francis Vargas and Stephanie Soriano, chose langoo.
langoo is an e-learning platform created in Spain that specializes in the DELE & Cambridge exam preparation. Having studied my fair share of languages in life, it caught my attention.
The task at hand? Within less than two weeks we were should transform langoo’s website to clarify to their users what they offered and make sure that the sign up process is as smooth and convenient as possible.
Having a lot to do and very limited time, we defined our scope of work:
- 1. discovery process: interview people to help us understand what we can focus on to improve.
- 2. analyze data available to understand more about the issues langoo is currently having, as well as langoo’s competition.
- 3. sketch a designed solution and test them with possible users.
- 4. based on the tests, iterate whenever necessary and
- 5. design a high-fidelity solution.
Redesigning an existing website was challenging and a LOT of fun.
Shall we walk through the process?
The Discovery (not channel)
For the discovery stage of the project, we conducted user interviews and testing of the current website in order to get a better understanding of the issues.
Seven subjects were tested, aged 25 to 34 years. They had different backgrounds, came from different countries but had one thing in common: all of them had either taken a language certificate test or were studying to do so.
Other than interviewing people and testing the website we also analyzed the competition and we ourselves tore the website apart analyzing it.
We actually gathered a lot of material from all the research, as it can be shown in this image of what became our source of truth throughout the project: our “langoo Brainstorm FigJam file”. It is so small because there is a lot of information inside and the file turned out pretty big – not that we were complaining.
Is there a problem?
But what does all that mean? The analysis of all this information led us to constructing the following problem statement:
Langoo, an e-learning platform, is concerned about not converting free trial users into paying customers. The users don’t understand what Langoo offers due to incorrect and incomplete information. Thus, Langoo need to clarify what their product offers and improve their website and learning platform.
A Wild Persona Appears
Everyone, meet Emma.! Emma came into existence to help us empathize and understand the issues at hand and solve them the best way possible.
Emma was created as a mix of all the subjects interviewed and came about early in the process. This helped visualize the possible solutions and struggles when designing the platform, since we could “see through another set of eyes”.
Aaaand scene?
To help us solve this issues, we created a scenario for Emma, based on the issues and on what was discovered from the users and interviewees:
Emma has been studying to take the Cambridge exam for a few weeks now. She wants to be certified in English to broaden her professional opportunities. She was originally hopeful and motivated, but the material has gotten redundant and she feels stuck. Emma needs real feedback and new material to continue progressing. She’s just discovered a website that offers customized exercises and a teacher assigned to her.
The solution we came up to start solving Emma and langoo’s problem can be checked here!
We all need to do some changing from time to time, right?
These were our main iterations
Homepage
One thing that confused the users a lot was the copy presented by the website: many users did not understand what langoo was about and thought that they could get certified directly in the website.
In a first sketch, we tested with a different copy and a more simplified design, and in the end we wound up with a copy that, when tested, got 100% of the users identifying langoo’s product.
Sign Up Process
Many testers complained that there was a looot of information to go through when signing up (or singing up?).
After listening to these users, we simplified the process keeping only the essential information for signing up – this also made people more likely to go through the whole process, as some testers mentioned.
Form
The form also underwent a revamp. In the previous process, it was long and was supposed to be answered before the user finished signing up – one more step that prevented them going through with the whole process.
After some changes and some brainstorming, we included it after the sign up, when the user is already in langoo’s platform. More like an initiation to the user’s studying journey,
Language
Despite being an e-learning language solution, langoo had a lot of inconsistencies throughout its website and student platform. For example, users experienced content in Spanish, even though the website/platform was set to English. Or there were very clear typos throughout the pages.
This caused a range of emotions on users going from frustration to full anger towards the solution, causing a major lack of trust for langoo (some even thought it was a scam)
This caused a range of emotions on users going from frustration to full anger towards the solution, causing a major lack of trust for langoo (some even thought it was a scam).
o help that, a huge part of the effort was applied to make sure all the copy and content was consistent, to make the user comfortable using langoo.
Key takeaways and recommendations
Always proof read!
Proofread everything, many times. This avoids typos and grammar mistakes. Especially in this case, being a language proficiency business, it should be the top priority.
Test, test and test. And then test more.
We could only reach our goal of people understanding the product through testing. We changed the copy many times and every time we went back again to find people to test and see what they got from what was written. In the end we got our happy ending, when all of them could figure that out immediately.
Make sure the MVP really is V
It is known that start-ups cannot (and should not, for matter) launch a whole product full of sometimes useless features. But when launching your MVP, make sure it is viable for the users to experience it, otherwise it might be difficult to come back and earn their trust later on.
Have fun!
I have got to say that I had a lot of fun working as a group. Even though it is hard, and there a lot to be done in a small span of time, when you have a good team it makes it all worth it. You get to discuss ideas and reach places you would not go by yourself. You get to explore each other's strengths and weaknesses and have someone to go ask for help when needed. And, also, you get to laugh a lot during the process - it makes life much easier 🙂
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Cups of Coffee