Edwin, an AI English tutor originally focused on TOEFL and TOEIC's reading and listening, aimed to make English pronunciation practice engaging and shareable. I designed the logotype and, building from that foundation, led the visual product design, establishing the app's overall ambiance. In collaboration with other designers, I further crafted the user interface and developed prototypes.
Year
2019
Timeline
6 months
My Role
• Product Designer • Brand Designer
My Deliverables
• Mockups • UI design • Prototypes • Logo design
Outcome
The core experience of the product I shipped centered on testing your pronunciation with humorous tongue twisters. As you achieve high scores, a beautiful card is revealed. To unlock all the cards, you must test your skills with every tongue twister.
We launched the app in September 2019 and achieved a day rank of #12 on ProductHunt.
Approach
The Edwin team made a good start by building machinery to test and score English pronunciation. They achieved promising results when testing it in the lab. However, they needed to ensure that their users would find it helpful, so they developed a simple iOS app and began testing it with people speaking various native languages and dialects of English.
All Turtles partnered with Edwin to evolve the initial prototype into a launched product. When the Japanese team from All Turtles visited San Francisco, they played with the prototype app and passed their phones around. By observing their interactions, we realized that this app was not only educational but also entertaining, like a game.
Alongside the Principle Designer, I delved into numerous mobile game apps for research. We found that a card metaphor might be suitable for our app's interface. Believing that offering a range of words for users to collect and ensuring that changes occur with every play would be crucial in stimulating learning, we incorporated these elements. Designers based in both Paris and Tokyo joined our efforts, and together, we explored designs for over 500 UI screens.
Challenges & Learnings
In this project, my challenge was to design a cohesive UI that seamlessly integrated various elements such as phonetic symbols, voice recording buttons, toggles for male and female voices, and cards. The direction towards ensuring a game-like enjoyment meant that I couldn't overly rely on standard UI patterns and had to craft a unique worldview.
Additionally, as a brand designer, I was responsible for the logo design and creating various visual designs that appear throughout the app. I take pride in being able to feature an end credit roll on the final cards within the app. Having the opportunity to be involved in an experience that marries practicality with playfulness has been a rewarding endeavor, especially as someone who prioritizes visual aesthetics in product design.
