Yappa! is an end-to-end mobile app designed to reimagine language learning as a fun, social, and gamified experience. The app takes users through the entire journey — from onboarding to daily engagement — with an experience that feels like chatting in a group text.
Role:
UI/UX Designer
Industry:
Education
Duration:
10 weeks
Challenges
Gamification Balance: Ensuring the app delivered an engaging, game-like experience while still providing meaningful language learning outcomes.
Community Interaction: Designing social features that encouraged collaboration and conversation without overwhelming or distracting users.
Brand Translation: Bringing the playful Y2K-inspired brand identity to life through a clear, intuitive interface that supported usability and engagement.
My Approach
Discovery Phase
User Research: Conducted interviews and surveys with language learners to understand their motivations, challenges, and preferences for practicing with others.
Competitive Analysis: Analyzed popular language learning and social apps (e.g., Duolingo, HelloTalk, Discord) to identify gaps and opportunities for a more community-driven experience.
Persona Development: Created personas and journey maps to guide design decisions and align the app with user goals and behaviors.
Design and Development
UI/UX Design: Designed a playful, chat-like interface inspired by group messaging apps, making language practice feel natural and fun.
Gamification Elements: Integrated features like streaks, badges, and interactive tasks to encourage consistency without compromising educational value.
Brand Identity: Developed a bold, Y2K-inspired design system that balanced personality with usability, ensuring accessibility across devices.
Testing and Iteration
Usability Testing: Conducted multiple rounds of testing with peers and potential users to evaluate navigation, social features, and overall engagement.
Feedback Integration: Iterated on prototypes by refining interaction flows, simplifying community features, and adjusting gamification elements based on feedback.
Prototype Delivery: Finalized a high-fidelity prototype that showcased Yappa’s unique blend of community, gamification, and intuitive design for language learning.
Results
The Yappa prototype was met with positive feedback from peers and potential users, who found the group chat–style format refreshing and engaging compared to traditional language apps. Testers highlighted the intuitive navigation, playful branding, and gamified features as motivating factors that made practice feel less like a task and more like a conversation. The project successfully demonstrated how community-driven design and thoughtful gamification can create a more enjoyable and consistent language learning experience.
Future Plans
Feature Expansion: Introduce live voice chat rooms, language exchange events, and personalized learning challenges to deepen community engagement.
Learning Resources: Build a resource hub with grammar tips, cultural insights, and practice tools to support diverse learning needs.
Gamification Refinement: Enhance streaks, badges, and interactive tasks to increase motivation and long-term user retention.
Self-Development: Begin building a mobile-friendly MVP myself to bring Yappa closer to real-world testing and adoption.
Conclusion
Through research, design exploration, and iterative testing, Yappa proved the potential of combining social interaction with gamified learning to create a more engaging language practice experience. This project reflects my passion for designing playful yet purposeful digital products that make learning feel natural and enjoyable. As I continue developing Yappa into a working MVP, my goal is to bring this vision to life and empower users to connect, practice, and grow together in a vibrant, community-driven space.
