ASL Alpha

ASL Alpha is an educational responsive web app that helps users learn American Sign Language on their own schedule and at their own pace. American Sign Language (ASL) is a dying form of communication due to a lack of educational funding. There are an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 people in the United States and Canada who use ASL. In addition, there are more who want to learn but do not have the time or resources. The goal of this project is to design a responsive web app that will help people learn and find resources about ASL and Deaf culture.

For this project, I was the UX Designer leading the app and responsive website design from conception to delivery. I was responsible for: conducting interviews, paper/digital wireframes, low and high fidelity prototypes, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, and iterating on designs.

My Role

Completed

2021

Defining the Process

I broke the project down into four key phases, each comprised of important steps. This approach helped plan out the project roadmap and determine key milestones and deliverable dates. With the tight timeline to MVP, working with an agile, sprint-based process allowed me to iterate on and validate potential solutions early and often.

Empathize & Analysis

I used data from the National Association for the Deaf to conduct interviews. Most interview participants reported wanting to learn ASL, but not having the time or resources needed. The feedback received showed that users would be open and willing to learn ASL if they had access to an easy-to-use tool to guide them. I created two persona's to reflect my findings.

An audit of a few competitors' products provided direction on gaps that could be filled with ASL Alpha. From the data gathered, I determined that overall our competitor's strengths are accessibility, user flow, and content. All three competitors had a full ASL dictionary, lessons, and practice exercises. Handspeak went even further and had lessons on Deaf culture and the Deaf community. Also through the audit, I found our competitor's overall weaknesses were in providing brand identity, visual design, and navigation.

Competitive Audit

Creation

I did a "Crazy Eights" ideation exercise to come up with ideas on how to address the gaps identified in the competitive audit. My focus was specifically on tracking lesson progress and having the "Sign of the Day" feature front and center.

Design Process

After ideating and drafting paper wireframes, I created the initial designs for ASL Alpha (then named Sign Success). These designs focus on encouraging the user to continue their education and progress.

Picture Carousel

Visual graph of

Lesson Progress

A usability study was conducted using the following parameters:

Study type: Unmoderated usability study
Location: Remote
Participants: 15
Length: 30-60 minutes

These were the main findings uncovered by the usability study:

Button Location

Participants struggled with reaching the buttons to navigate through the lesson while using their phone with one hand

Dictionary Flow

Participants were frustrated with having to scroll through every word in the dictionary to get to the one they wanted

Current Lesson/ All Lessons

Participants were confused by the "current lesson” and “all lesson" buttons

Based on the insights from the usability studies, I applied design changes to the locations of the navigation buttons to make it easier for mobile users to press.

Before usability study

After usability study

Additional design changes included adding a letter directory page in the dictionary to make searching for a word easier to scroll through.

Before usability study

After usability study

2.0 Update

Navigation throughout the app was updated to an icon bar at the bottom of the screen to create easier navigation for the users while giving the app a more modern UI design.

Before usability study

After usability study

Production

The designs for screen size variation included mobile, tablet, and desktop. I optimized the designs to fit the specific user needs of each device and screen size.

Results

I established a flexible design system that includes visual styles, components, and a comprehensive set of guidelines and best practices for usage. The design system not only improved efficiency during the design process but also ensured the platform could continue to evolve and maintain visual consistency.

Final Outcome

Users shared that the app made American Sign Language seem like something they could actually learn. One quote from user feedback was that “The ASL Alpha app makes learning American Sign Language a quick and easy task I can add to my daily routine to reach my goals”.

Takeaways

Despite the problem being complex and overwhelming at times, diligently focusing on and following each step of the design process helped me incrementally come up with solutions that were both feasible and useful.