Why Gamification Failed on me? A User Insights on Learning Languages Through Apps
Learning Mandarin has always been a goal for me since 2 years ago. I jotted it down to my New Year Resolution but never really made it till the end of the year. As a Chinese diaspora, I have always been insecure with my Mandarin skill because it was very basic. Years of learning Mandarin at home with my grandma and studying the lesson at school didn’t seem to be fruitful. It is kind of sad because my English skill is way better than my Mandarin.
Talking about learning a language in an online platform, I joined Duolingo back in 2013 to learn Spanish. Why Spanish? I used to binge-watched American criminal shows and in some episodes, there were some lines spoken in Spanish. It sounded really cool and hooked me up to get to know more. I remembered that year, Duolingo only had several languages such as German, French, Spanish, etc. Now, it is growing and you can choose any languages you’d like to learn.
Last year, I started to pick up Spanish again in Duolingo. The motivation of relearning? Simple. I wanted to be able to speak a basic conversation like asking for directions and haggling, because my family would embark on a 12 days pilgrimage across Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal.
After a month of learning, I reflected on my experience of learning language through an online platform. I realized the ultimate reason why I quit learning Spanish.
I made such an unrealistic goal. I set the bar too high.
Back in 2013–2014, I set my daily goal of learning to be a minimum of 30 minutes a day. Some days I could manage to reach the goal. However, there were days when I felt bored or tired, and I didn’t manage to reach my goal. Because the daily goal was too high, I felt burnout and completely stop the journey. That’s why I made up my mind on setting a goal. I set my daily goal for 10 minutes a day. Guess what? It’s my 431 days of learning Spanish.
“It is okay to re-adjust your goal because it is better to start small than starting big and end up quitting.”
Now, let’s talk about learning Mandarin. A friend of mine suggested an app called Super Chinese for me. I considered her an expert in Mandarin and that’s why I trust her suggestion. I downloaded the app.
Super Chinese is an online learning platform to learn Mandarin. They use Artificial Intelligence to help people learning Mandarin in an easy and fun way. Similar to Duolingo, Super Chinese also uses gamification method to engage the users in learning.
What is gamification?
Gamification is a method of incorporating lesson to a game-like software or app. Usually, there are leaderboards for the users to foster learning motivations, earning certain badges after you reach some milestones, or providing a token of appreciation when you have achieved certain goals.
Unlocking badges and earning points are pleasant experience which can foster the learning process. In psychology, we called this a positive reinforcement. Gamification made the learning experience fun, competitive, and downright addicting because it feels like a game.
In Super Chinese, they give you coins as a token of appreciation. You earn coins when you perfect session with no mistakes, perfect pronunciations, and making streaks of correct answers. The coins can be used to unlock a full feature for a certain time. The more coins you score, the longer you can enjoy the full features.
The Innovative Learning Methods
I am impressed with the Super Chinese methods of learning. They use pictures to help users memorize vocabulary. It feels like learning with a flashcard but using an app.
For listening and speaking, the app allows us to listen and repeat the words or sentences. There is one feature that I would like to highlight here. The app rates your pronunciation and give users feedback. The correct one will turn green, the wrong one will be red, and the unclear one will remain black. Earning feedback is crucial in the learning process because it helps users to gain insights on which parts need some improvements.
I found this feature is really thoughtful and well crafted. It bridges the gap of learning language without opportunities to learn speaking with native speakers. Speaking Mandarin is quite tricky because there are four tones that you need to comprehend and watch out for when you are saying the words. Wrong tones = wrong words.
I appreciate this feature listen and repeat features because, for someone who is a scaredy-cat when it comes to speaking, it’s promising. It helps me to assess which pronunciation that I need to correct and practice.
Start your journey based on your skill
The Super Chinese app lets users to take a “placement test” to know your skills and let you pursue the lessons according to your skills. Since I had experience in learning Mandarin, I scored pretty good and jumped right into the second level. But, they still let the user go back to the first level if they want to learn from scratch.
The “Make It or Break It” Factor
I found an issue that I’d like to highlight here. The daily goal. The Super Chinese app doesn’t let you tailor your own goal. They already set the daily goal to 30 minutes per day. Learning from my experience in Spanish and Duolingo, I already know that I would not be 100% committed to the lesson because of the daily goal is way too unrealistic.
Learning language through an app requires commitments. It takes a lot of perseverance to keep ongoing.
In my opinion, allowing users to set their own study goals and learning at their own pace is important to maintain the engagement and loyalty.
Thus, the daily learning experience will always be pleasant, rewarding, and doesn’t feel like a burden to learn on daily basis. Adjusting the goal also helps users to take to slow down should they are feeling burnout. There are ups and downs when it comes to learning, and it is important to do that at our own pace and do not set the bar too high.
Here are the insights that I gained throughout my journey of acquiring my third and fourth languages through online learning platforms.
It takes perseverance and persistence to keep you going. Starting small is better than starting big and end up quitting.
That’s why allowing users to set their own goal and go on their own pace are vital to keep them coming back.
I am a newbie in User Research field. I just began the journey couple months ago. As a fresh graduate in psychology with a growing interest in Human Computer Interaction, I started to take some time to reflect on my experiences in using apps that I am using daily as an exercise to get to know more about UX world.
All the insights above are my two cents. Hopefully, it might bring something useful for you.
Cheers!