Guiding Experience with Learning Path

babbel.com ✦ 2019

How it

started

BACKGROUND
From several rounds of exploratory user research, we identified a few user problems, that were repeatedly coming up during the interviews:

The activities do not fit my style. I want more than just traditional classroom-style learning
I get bored and de-motivated quickly after going through the lessons
I feel I am not progressing on my learning journey

To solve these we've decided to do an overhaul of the whole product and try to come up with a design vision that would solve these problems.

Project timeline

Prototype and user feedback

The weekly plan helps set expectations for how much learning should happen in a week, and what will be learned
Weekly learning may seem more realistic, room for flexibility in life schedules
Not feeling challenged enough can be a reason to stop using a language learning tool
When considering if they would enjoy the app, learners cited the variety of learning opportunities as a reason to enjoy (taking breaks with video, ability to learn a conversation, do a quick review, quiz yourself to see how far you’ve come)

Taking forward the Learning Plan Idea

Learners' needs identified from prototype testing:

Learn varied content: As a learner, I want to be motivated with varied material that matches my knowledge and interest in my learning routine.
Intelligent guidance: As a learner, I desire personalized guidance toward the most relevant learning activities based on where I am in my learning journey.

Hypothesis for the New Dashboard

Subscribers are more likely to form a weekly learning habit (return every week and learn) with a dashboard that centers their learning progress through a list of varied learning activities.

Decision metrics: 7-day return to learning
Other metrics: Lesson start, Review start, # of learning activities per day
Health metric: Sales

AB test & Qualitative research results

29% increase in subscribers who completed a lesson and a review on an active day.

No effect on 7-day return to learning

Qualitative feedback

Users like the path as it gives them a better overview of what’s ahead but also what they have completed.
Having Review in the path helps get users to review more. Users tend to do what's recommended to them
The Path encourages a more exploratory behavior, and a variety of content makes the experience more fun
Most of the participants felt guided by the Path.

Based on the results, the Learning path was rolled out, and all the new elements were added to our design library and Babbel design system.

Next steps for the path

Recommended lessons, video lessons, breaking down the path into more granular "skills", and, finally, adding some gamification techniques for the skill completion.