week4 reflection | CPT208_B4_Porfolio by CPT208_2223_B4

Some real solutions in the market

• 《百词斩》

Advantages and disadvantages

• Advantages 

1. This is a popular software among people who are learning foreign languages. It helps users memorize words by showing different pictures related to words. 
2. Plans and tasks: The application provides daily tasks and learning plans to help users maintain the regularity and continuity of learning.
3. Social features: The app has social features that allow users to add friends, encourage each other, and compete, increasing learning enthusiasm.
4. Smart review: Based on the user's learning progress and forgetting curve, the app automatically schedules review tasks to improve learning outcomes.

• Disadvantages:

1. Convenience: Baicizhan can be used on smartphones and tablets, allowing users to learn vocabulary anytime, anywhere.
2. Memory through pictures is of little help to such phonographs as English and French. This method is more useful in learning Chinese and other pictographs.

Their target users:

1. Student: For students who are learning foreign languages, whether they are middle school students, college students or graduate students, Hundred Words Chop can help them effectively remember and review vocabulary in their spare time.
2. Foreign language lovers: For those who love learning foreign languages, "Hundred Words Chop" provides an interesting and convenient way of learning, helping them expand their vocabulary and better understand foreign language culture.
3. Travelers abroad: For those who are about to travel abroad, "Hundred Words" can help them learn some basic foreign language vocabulary to meet the needs of language communication during travel.

How can they be improved:

1. Provide community support: build an active user community, encourage users to share experiences, learn from each other and exchange, so as to improve learning enthusiasm and effectiveness.
2. Improve user interface and interaction design: optimize the user interface and interaction design of the application to make it more intuitive and easy to use, and improve the user experience.

How can the improvements be achieved?:  

Some additional interaction functions can be appended to the software design, such as interactive games or activities to motivate the users, and enhance their willingness to go on investigating the Chinese culture.

• 《Scallops 扇贝单词》

Advantages and disadvantages

• Advantages

1. This is a very popular word reciting software among students. It helps students memorize words by repeating the spelling and pronunciation of words. Some students think that it is a very efficient way to recite words and help them get good grades in English tests.

• Disadvantages

1. There are still some students who think that this repetitive and boring way of memorizing words is not helpful to the improvement of their English level.
2. On the contrary, this deliberate repetitive learning method makes them not interested in words.

Their target users

• Students who need to quickly improve their English vocabulary and English level.

How can they be improved

Perhaps they could try to increase the number of ways students can learn words, instead of just repeating them. For example, they can combine word memorization with games to provide users with more choices, so that they can match the habits of more people and absorb the user base.

How can the improvements be achieved?

Try to add one or two new ways of memorizing words and provide options for users to choose when they use the product for the first time, and users can switch at any time. After the collection and analysis of user data after the addition of new ways, they can upgrade and improve the way with better results.

• 《 The Chinese Sceneries 华夏风物 》

Advantages and disadvantages

• Advantages:

1. This is a Chinese culture popularization app that aims to spread beautiful geographical sceneries and related comprehensive knowledge (related to climate, geography, humanity, plants etc.) to the users.
2. The app 'The Chinese Sceneries' has received enormous approval and support from users who claim that it is a fantastic app that provides them with more insights about their motherland that they had never known.

• Disadvantages:

1. Not being professional enough. i.e., if I want to focus on the ancient culture of someplace only it might be unclear to me because it provides a mix of multidiscipline introductions which makes it hard for me to effectively extract those that are helpful.

Their target users:

Everyone who is interested in the diversity of the Chinese culture

How can they be improved:

Maybe they can focus more on the interactions with the users because the current applications are seemingly lacking in interactions. i.e. They focus too much on single-direction culture popularization

How can the improvements be achieved?: 

Some additional interaction functions can be appended to the software design, such as interactive games or activities to motivate the users, and enhance their willingness to go on investigating Chinese culture,

Key issues

1. Limited Interactivity: Relying on static text, images and videos for educational content. May result in users losing interest quickly, making it difficult to maintain long-term motivation
2. Insufficient Immersion: A lack of understanding of the relevant historical background may also reduce the immersive effect felt by the clients
3. Narrow Scope: A narrow specification on one typical script (Egyptian hieroglyphics/Mayan glyphs) limits the users’ ability to explore multiple pictographic scripts. May restrict the platform’s appeal to a wider range of audience

My own solution

1. Interactive engagement incorporations
2. Include multiple pictographic scripts

3. Provide rich contextual historic & cultural information

Conclusion of the week

Based on the work of week 3 and week 4, we designed a low-fidelity prototype and carried out further user studies according to the prototype content. When designing the survey questionnaire, we considered the following aspects:

1. The reason why to use a questionnaire

• Can collect data from a large number of people, at a relatively low cost
• Can get an overview of a population of users in a short amount of time
• Surveys do not require any special equipment
• Surveys are generally approved by institutional review boards because they are typically non-intrusive

2. The deployment process

• Plan the timeline
• Design the questionnaire offline
• Program/complete online survey
• Test the survey to make sure that it behaves as you would expect
• Test it with a group that will not be part of the survey to check that the questions are clear
• Recruit participants