Translation App - Lingo

UX & UI Design for a language translation app for Apple Watch

Goals and Objectives

To help travelers navigate their way in a new country. Helping them communicate with the locals and in making friends.

Project Overview

Why translate? - To communicate. Translation is important because everyone may not speak a common tongue – Being able to speak multiple languages is a skill, not many people have. For effective communication, people prefer their native language – they express themself better in their native language. Translation also spreads ideas and information.

Scope of the project

UX & UI design for apple watch with both, voice activation and scribble feature.
Generated result will be displayed on the screen.
Generated result can also be played.
Connect with people, make new friends, build your own community.

User task analysis

To translate from one language to another.
To be able to connect with locals and make new friends.

Persona

Name - Shyam Hira
Age - 68 years
Nationality - Indian
Languages - Hindi and English
Shyam loves to travel to different countries. Unlike a regular traveler, he loves exploring remote areas and learning about their history and culture. He likes meeting people of different culture and making new friends. Even though he is bilingual, most of the time, he finds it very challenging to have an effective communication to find his way around a new city (food, cheap transportation, etc.). Many time he got lost on his tour as well.

Usage scenario

User is on a tour and wants to find which bus goes to a specific town. It is a remote town so there is no online system to access this information.

He/she opens the app on his/her Apple Watch.
'From' and 'to' languages are pre-selected based on their manual or GPS settings.
User speaks to the Watch - "Which bus goes to xyz city".
Translation appears on the screen.
User can play the translation result to a native.
When the native person is ready to reply, user can turn on the speak mode again.
App automatically switches the language after hearing the input.

Competitive analysis

Google Translate

iOS, Android and web app. Works great but there is no Apple watch app

IHG Translate

iOS , Android and Web app. Offers good features but is paid / only for members

iTranslate

An Apple watch app but translates only from English to other languages

Sketching the basic idea and possible navigation

Creating Wireframes and blocking the design elements

User testing feedback

Add option for accessing past searches.
Show to and from language in output screen as well.
Based on context or location the app should show preloaded translations and auto select options.
Change list view to table view.
Make ‘friends’ feature primary or eliminate altogether.
Toggle between speak and scribble screen.
Language change should be on the same page or be abbreviated.
List view font size is small.
Language selection can be optimized – language in which it needs to be translated will most probably be a one-time activity.
Put ‘to’ and ‘from’ on one screen.
There should be an easy option to switch between 'from' and 'to' language.

User Empathy

User search for a language
Q: What if it does not exist in the Database?
Comment: Adding all languages will take a long time
Ideas/solution: Take help from other native language users
Ask question via Speak or Scribble feature
Q: Did not get the question correct
Comment: Give more control to the user
Ideas/solution: Use edit button on results screen to fix errors
Reviewing the translation
Q: What if there are no results to show?
Comment: Check if it recognized the language?
Ideas/solution 1: Generate an error report
Ideas/solution 1: Check for accent
Ideas/solution 1: Check for background noise
Ideas/solution 1: Take help from other native language users

Lessons Learnt

Size of the buttons/Links have to large enough for easy tap and readability.
It was challenging to organize content on a small screen.
Keeping number of steps to minimal