FrenchSpeak Language Learning App

French Speak is an app designed for French language learners in Middle School to High School to improve French language oral skills and comprehension. This app is based on the premise that foreign language education is heavily geared towards memorization and translation methodology, and little towards oral and auditory fluency. Therefore, French language students achieve high levels of vocabulary and grammar competence but are deficient in conversational fluency. French Speak aims to bridge that gap in oral language fluency by using voice recognition technology to record and evaluate user spoken responses to native French speaker prompts, thereby promoting oral fluency.

The heuristics used to evaluate the French Speak app come from Jakob Nielsen’s ten general principles for human computer interaction and include: Visibility of system status, Match between system and the real world, User control and freedom, Consistency and standards, Error prevention, Recognition rather than recall, Flexibility and efficiency of use, Aesthetic and minimalist design, Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors, and Help and documentation.

The home screen design is minimalist in its approach so the user is not bombarded with images. A bottom navigation bar with universal Back, Home, and Forward icons appears on each screen to ease navigation.

The colors scheme is kept to a minimum of three colors, blue, white, and orange. This adds consistency to the game and to maintain a minimalist design approach.

The status system is visible on each screen so users can know their progression as well as status in each progression. Status progression ties in with recognition rather than recall.

User engagement is increased by customizing their avatar.

French Speak is designed to match real life situations in location and speech. Users choose a location and each location will contain different people and situations with which to interact. The user will click on a conversation icon to interact with that character as they would in real life.

Each character will ask the user questions. User response to each question will be determined prior to the app via lessons, so the learner will know how to respond. If the user makes a mistake in their speech, the system will provide immediate feedback as to their mistake and/or alternative responses. Since there are no winners or losers, users do not have to feel they failed in their quest to speak French.