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I was asked to rebuild the italki Community website, with the stated purpose of increasing website engagement, driving sales of our primary product, and bringing our product closer to our company-wide mission statement.
“A Community-Driven Language Learning Marketplace."
“A Community-Driven Language Learning Marketplace."
Research
Research
For the research phase we entered a stage of divergent ideation, talking to users, conducting surveys, and trying to understand what the motivations of our students and teachers were.
Personas
Personas
We first created several user personas for Students and Teachers, to get an emotional feel for who they are.
【Students】
Traveller (Steph, 25, American, has several Spanish speaking co-workers, and wants to raise her level so that she can fulfill her dream of backpacking across Peru)
Dater (Alfonso, 21, Spanish, wants to learn Korean so that he can meet the woman of his dreams)
Empathizer (LinHui, 30, Chinese, wants to learn English because he loves American cinema and wants to know how Americans think about the world)
【Teachers】
Helper (Yan, 45, German, already knows three languages and wants to give back to the language learning community and have fun in the process)
Entrepreneur (Adam, 28, British, teaches frequently on italki and also has his own website where he produces courses for english learners. His dream is to sell his own learning content and build his own brand)
Problems + Alternatives
Problems + Alternatives
We then asked the question, for each persona, what are they trying to accomplish and how are they getting it done now?
【Students】
Though there are large differences between the groups, they are primarily looking for a convenient, low commitment way to learn a language that is still high quality and gives them access to expert materials. They are using many resources + applications at the same time to fulfill this goal (duolingo, memrise, etc.)
【Teachers】
They are looking for a way to help students, promote themselves to students + build a differentiated brand. They are currently doing this through elaborate course descriptions on our platform, and/or creating their own externally branded content.
Value Proposition
Value Proposition
What advantage does italki have that allows us to solve our problem for these users?
The reason users choose italki community is because of the presence of teachers + expert language learners on italki.
The reason teachers choose italki is to connect with students and help them learn.
Therefore our value proposition is easy and convenient access to teacher expertise.
Planning
Planning
During the planning phase we collected all the problems that our research had illuminated and tried to prioritize them according to impact on our primary goals (increasing engagement, Increasing sales, pursuing company mission)
Problem Definition
Problem Definition
Trends
- Low conversion rate of community users
- High churn (of viewers + creators)
Problems
- Low crossover between community and core product (Business + User)
- Technological limitations of community platform, mobile issues, bugs (User + Tech)
- Content is a supplementary tool, not able to teach users a language (User)
- Lack of clarity on where to post for language exchange partners (User)
- Only some community features are used, others ignored (User)
- Content is not engaging, only text (User + Tech)
- Too much spam content (Business)
- Users harassing one another (User + Business)
Strategy
Strategy
We decided to focus on 3 primary strategies in order to maximize impact on our core product. Each product epic would be a tactic to implement one of these 3 strategies.
- Enable Teacher Generated Learning Content. Providing platform mechanics for users to interact with teachers centered around digital mini-lessons.
- Increase Content Discoverability + Clarity. We will create a Consolidated, Discoverable Content Feed that enables users to find what they are looking for.
- Primary Focus on Mobile Experience. Building a community that feels natural when writing or digesting content, both on iOS and Android
New Content Type: Exercise
New Content Type: Exercise
A primary, teacher-focused content type to make the community an easier place for teachers to connect with students around lesson content.
Organized Content Feed
Organized Content Feed
A consolidated, organized feed that gives users the power to find what they are looking for in community, and the clarity to remove what is not relevant.
Mobile-First Content
Mobile-First Content
The first major benchmark was an update of our existing platform for mobile compatibility and platform consistency. This stage has been completed and can be seen here.
Google Sites
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