Elevate English Speaking with AI

Make learning English simple and efficient.

Timeline -
July 2019 - Oct 2021

Role -
UX/UI Designer

With -
1 Project Manager
1 Full-stack Developer
1 ML Engineer

PROJECT GOAL

Create a seamless English speaking learning experience for students.

A boy looking at the computer

Cool English is an online English learning platform designed specifically for learners aged 9-15, with 1.8 million registered users, 29,000 daily active users, and 360,000 monthly active users (by April, 2024).

CORE EXPERIENCES

Learn with ease, speak with confidence.

Personalized pronunciation feedback
Cool English analyzes your speaking effortlessly and delivers tailored insights to help you perfect your speaking skills.
Countless speaking practice resources
Cool English provides a vast collection of speaking materials, from textbooks to online learning videos, all neatly categorized by learning level for easy access and personalized practice.
Practice with recording playback
Review your recordings and practice any time anywhere to track your development and achieve perfect pronunciation.
PROJECT IMPACT
After launching...
28%
increase in new registered users
203%
increase in daily active users (DAU)

After listening the pronunciations and repeating the sentence once, I can usually improve my score to more than 70 points. It really helps me enhance my pronunciation!

- 5th grade student

Cool English introduces a refreshing approach, it's a fantastic opportunity for children to enhance their speaking skills, conquer fear, and speak confidently and regularly.

- Elementary English teacher
Interested to find out more ?
RESEARCH
How can we assist students in improving their English pronunciation?
Based on survey and guerrilla interviews.
Students
" I feel embarrassed in front of the class when I pronounce something wrong. "
→ desire to improve BUT afraid of making mistakes
Teachers
" Pronunciation is crucial, but there's just so much to cover in each class. "
→ desire students' success BUT face time & energy limitations
Parents
" We just can't afford extra English classes for our children."
→ desire children's success BUT encounter financial constraints
I utilized empathy maps to help team members better understand and visualize the thoughts, feelings, actions, and pain points of our potential stakeholders.
SOLUTION
Integrated AI technology with textbook materials.
Why we chose AI to address each stakeholder's challenge?
Students
Privacy in Practice
The AI-based system serves as a non-judgmental practice partner, fostering a more comfortable learning environment.
Teachers
Automated Feedback Mechanism
The AI system provides immediate assessment and guidance, saving teachers valuable time in manual evaluation.
Parents
Affordable Language Learning
The AI-powered platform offers an accessible and cost-effective way for children to practice pronunciation without the need for tutors or language classes.
Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) is a technology that converts spoken language into written text. By utilizing it with textbook materials, it can provide real-time feedback on pronunciation, helping students identify and correct errors.
User Journey map
DESIGN 01
Designed onboarding experience with human-centered AI principles.

I leveraged Google's People + AI Guidebook to design a tailored onboarding experience, ensuring that AI not only added product value but also adhered to user-friendly and ethical standards.

Set the right expectations
Instead of stating that our product “can improve” users’ English speaking skills, I choose words such as “assist” and “help” to be transparent with users about what the AI-powered product can and cannot achieve.
Explain the benefit, not the tech
I highlighted how Cool English can assist users in elevating speaking skills through pronunciation assessment, rather than delving into technical details about automatic speech recognition.
Help users build and calibrate trust
I ensured transparency regarding privacy and data collection by offering users options to store their recordings for potential uses.
Let users give feedback
By requesting permission to utilize their recordings for enhancing pronunciation analysis, I offered users real-time teaching, feedback, and error correction opportunities and let users understand the benefits of continuously teaching the system.
DESIGN 02
Designed user interactions with AI-powered product.

My approach to designing user interactions with the AI-powered English speaking learning platform began with an understanding of the technology's workings and its points of interaction with users.

I integrated AI processes into the user flow, highlighting key touchpoints like data input and output. This created a comprehensive flowchart that combines user actions with system operations, ensuring a seamless, intuitive experience with the AI-powered product.

DESIGN 03
Crafted and iterated prototype.
Make progress tangible.
FINAL DESIGN

The redesigned step progress bar shows exact sentences completed and remaining, offering clear feedback and motivating users to finish by visualizing their progress.

ORIGINAL DESIGN

The progress bar displayed the user’s completion rate in percentages, giving a general feedback. However, it was too abstract, and users didn’t always feel the significance of their progress and lack motivation.

Streamline the interface.
FINAL DESIGN

After confirming feasibility, the two sentences were merged into one, simplifying the interface and making information easier to find and understand.

ORIGINAL DESIGN

There were two separate sentences: the first as the practice title and the second generated by the voice-to-text system with AI feedback. This benefited the development but complicated the interface.

Optimize learning flow.
FINAL DESIGN

Based on teachers feedback, I restructured the design to focus on accurate pronunciation first, aligning features with a step-by-step learning path.

ORIGINAL DESIGN

It lacked a clear learning path, providing pronunciation and sentence practice without structured guidance for users to follow.

Highlight AI assistance.
FINAL DESIGN

I rephrased “assessment” to “feedback” and highlighted the AI recommendation section, positioning AI as an assistant rather than an evaluator.

ORIGINAL DESIGN

The design featured an “assessment” section where AI provided scores and results. While users valued the insights, the term “assessment” felt too judgmental.

DESIGN 04
Developed design guide and responsive web design.
Color palette
I implemented responsive web design to ensure a seamless user experience across desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices for young learners to use in different contexts.
Final Product.
FEATURE 01
Receive personalized AI-powered feedback.
This includes recommended scores for your English pronunciation accuracy and highlights specific words that need improvement.
FEATURE 02
Discover countless speaking practice resources.
Cool English offers thousands of speaking materials, from English textbooks to online learning videos, all organized by learning level for easy selection.
FEATURE 03
Review recordings and perfect your speaking.
Track your progress by practicing as often as needed and reviewing your recordings to perfect your speaking skills.
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© 2024 Allison Ling-Chen Chou