Duolingo
Sign Language
– A meaningful expansion to the well known language app
The task
The goal of this school assignment was expanding an already existing business. The expansion will contribute with more value to the company and follow their already existing goals and values
The solution
Duolingo is now publishing sign language courses, to lower the threshold for learning a sign language. This also leads to breaking down another language barrier that they have not previously addressed.
Insight
Duolingo is actively breaking down language barriers, by making a recourse that is accessible to all
Research question:
How can Duolingo help break down barriers created by language in society?
“We’re here to develop the best education in the world and make it universally available. Our global team works together to make language learning fun, free, and effective for anyone who wants to learn, wherever they are”
Our mission
There are four main language barriers:
Proficiency
Whether both parties understand the language
Cultural
Whether both parties understand the body language and the implications of the words
Technical
If both parties understand the technical knowledge connected to the word, e.g doctors and patiens speak differently about the same thing
Physical
If the communication reaches the other party. Can be caused by external factors or disabilities
3 weeks
UX research
Solo
A 3 minute read
Duolingo + Sign Language = True
It is estimated that 72 million people use sign language worldwide
Sadly way too many of them feel isolated and excluded
Did you know that more than half of the adults in the UK do not feel confident talking to deaf people?
And the demand is there!
The oldest request dating back to 2013,
two years after Duolingos launch
Prototype
Challenges
An interview with a sign language interpreter student and more secondary research gave me insights to pinpoint the challenges Duolingo would face when developing the sign language courses.
There are three main problems to solve
Fingerspelling
There should be focus on fingerspelling early on, since this opens up a possibility to communicate even though the users vocabulary is weak. This is also needed to spell the users name, and to introduce themselves
Body language
The visualization of signs needs to include more than just hands. The images should show eye, cheek, head, mouth and shoulder movement minimum
Culture
It’s important to give the learner insight about other parts of the language that is not vocabulary and grammar. Duolingo already has a system to teach other things than words. We can use this in our development. We can also give insight about deaf culture in the same way
Visual identity
How to teach visual signs while retaining Duolingo's visual identity?
To retain Duolingo's visual identity, I chose to use illustrations rather than video, but animated, to show movement. To achieve this, new hands had to be designed.
Ingrid, the sign language student, was not fond of still images, as it loses a lot of its depth.
Hands in Duolingo today
New hands for the sign language course
Sentence structure
How to translate visual sentence structure and grammar into English?
In order to understand how to transcribe sign language, a competition analysis was carried out in order to follow the norm. We want to teach the user to translate sentences into English grammar, but also to be able to transcribe sentences. In that way understanding the grammar of the sign language.
Assessment
How to assess the user's capabilities?
I see three solutions:
1. Camera + AI
– The user record themself and a machine learning framework trained to recognise body gestures assesses. This resource is already well worked out, Fingerspelling.xyz being a great example.
2. Camera + self assessment
– The user record themself, and gets to see their recording next to the correct animation, they can then judge themself if they did well or if they want to try again.
3. Pure self assessment
– The user is asked to sign a word, they then get to see the right animation afterwards. They will then judge for themself.
We use option 1
AI will tell if the user is correct or not. The user can still choose to see their own recording back next to the animation to improve their learning
User tests
I conducted 4 semi-structured interviews and user tests with Duolingo users.
We know that Duolingo works, and we are not here to change Duolingos way of teaching. What we do need to know is how they experience the changes made, and how this course influences their relationship with hearing impaired people, and/or sign language.
Main insights:
Lower threshold
Duolingo sign language is good to learn a few words, which they enjoy. Therefor this solution is helping Duolingo taking a step at battling the exclusion many people feel. While also closing the cultural gap, so that hearing people can accomdate better for deaf people
The camera function is loved
Recording encourages to set the lesson in motion. The phrase "Do not worry, no human eyes will see this footage" is soothing. Being able to do the task without camera is crucial.
Confident and reassuring
In general, they have confidence that they are more confident in the meeting with the hearing impaired, even if they had only done a few levels beforehand. Otherwise, they find it reassuring to know that the resource is easily available, in case they one day need to learn a sign language
Thanks for taking a look at this project!
You can take a look at Duolingos promotion page for their new courses
Pedagogy
I have always been very interested in how and why people learn. I even studied one year of pedagogy before my design education. Duolingo is a brand where i could explore a case with learning as a concrete theme
Then it probably is no surprise that I focus on UX in my tasks
Personal interest
One of my favorite perks of working in this field is the amount of filing cabinets i have filled in my brain with very specific knowledge about the company, subject or problem I am working with. It is so much fun to dig deep about a topic that you didn't know anything about the day before.
I have a great love for language, and there was a great change that I would find a user need concerning language in this app. Choosing Duolingo might have been an excuse to do dig into something I already was interested in ;)