TalkMatch

A safe and accessible social App for language disorder communities.

Background

5% to 10% of Americans may have communication disorders, 3 million+ Americans stutter. Nearly 7% of Americans have some form of language impairment. To help people with speech disorder have a better life, we intended to design an accessible APP to help them make friends, find communities and feel supportive and safe.This is the challenge of the 48-hour UX Hackathon.

As a team of three, we collaborated in all the design works using Figma. Further, I also took the Lead UX Researcher role in this project due to prior UXR experiences and psych background.

Research Objectives

In my role as the UX Researcher on the team, the crucial challenge is to determine the optimal direction within our limitations.

1. Which target group among the disorder spectrum should be our main focus considering capacity and efficiency?

2. What are the top 3 concerns and needs of the target group?

3. Considering constraints, what are the top 3 key features in the app's design?

Desk Research

While our goal to design for individuals with language disorders is clear, the diversity in syndromes, severity levels, and specific language-related challenges in terms of input, processing, and output is extensive. Our limited capacity prevents us from catering to all variations of this group's needs and the functions an app can offer (some syndromes may require wearable or physical assisting devices).

In order to gain deeper insights and foster empathy for this user group, we conducted desk research involving literature reviews and YouTube recordings featuring people with language disorders. This allowed us to extract behavioral patterns, habits, and pain points that informed our design approach.

Interview

In order to make the most of our limited time, we engaged a friend with expertise in special education for children with language disorders. Due to time constraints, we conducted a single online interview. Our interview was structured around two key objectives:

Defining Needs

Our primary goal was to pinpoint the most crucial needs that our app should address, focusing on those with both high necessity and feasibility for implementation.

Defining Persona

Additionally, we aimed to create well-defined personas for our target users, enabling us to better tailor our design to their specific characteristics and requirements.

User Persona

To precisely identify our target users, I created a persona that delineates her behaviors, pain points, frustrations, as well as aligning them with our product goals.

Problem Statement

We further outline four challenges that Emily encounters, which our product has the potential to address.

Hard to find friends

Emily is an individual with a language disorder who wants to find friends or a community with similar disorders and same interests

Hard to find friends

Emily is an individual with a language disorder who wants to find friends or a community with similar disorders and same interests

Lack of Community Support

Emily is individual with a language disorder who needs emotional support from people who understand her.

Inaccessible App Functions

Emily is an individual with a language disorder who wants an application that can meet their accessibility needs.

Goal Statement

Correspondingly, we set four goals to address Emily's problems.

Sceening Process

We are going to implement a screening process to ensure all users have been diagnosed with language disorders, so that they can connect with others who have similar disorders and receive support easily.

Matching Mechanism

We are going to develop a matching mechanism that will pair users with similar interests to improve their social connections.

More Accessible

We are going to improve accessibility through the use of voice recognition technology, text-to-speech or speech-to-text functionality, Grammarly automatic corrections, AI-assisted sentence formations, pre-created sentences, custom phrases and messages, emojis and visual aids, and multilingual support.

Group and Chat Function

We are going to provide group chat and customized profile cards to help users share more about themselves and connect with others more easily.

Market Analysis

In order to enhance our user flow and design usability, we conducted a market analysis of existing products with similar functions to identify potential areas for learning and enhancement.

User Flow

Before delving into the actual design phase, I engaged in discussions with two other team members to collaboratively outline and refine the user flow.

Final Design

In the design phase, I collaorated with two other members to create mockups and prototypes. To address the painpoints we found, we followed the flow charts and developed 3 main functions with high accessibility.

Feel free to click here to access the final high-fidelity prototype.