Aㅏ

An app that helps people to learn how to speak in Korean.

September 17, 2017 •

Project 🕹

3 min read

When someone learns a language, first thing they will try to do is to mimic verbally.

I realized that there are many people who are able to pronounce or enunciate a word, though does not know how to write the word nor know how the word looks like. Hence I decided to work on a concept project to build an application which helps people to search their vocabulary with just the knowledge of how the word sounds.

Visit the prototype here!

Objective

In order for person to learn the language in more depth, there are few possible solutions which can help the learner to boost the learning process. One of the ways is to look up a word in a dictionary.

While there are countless types of dictionaries available in the world, many of the dictionaries are still too time consuming to search the necessary word, which provokes frustrations to the user. Even the dictionaries available on the internet requires the user to physically type in the actual word which the user might not know.

Hence it seemed critical for an application to make this process of searching efficiently and effectively.

I wrote down few necessary checklists that must be in the app:

  1. The interface must be simple. (Easy to navigate - possibly single page application)
  2. It must not confuse the user by having too much functionality. (Must be simple)
  3. Does the job effectively.

I figured having too much functionality to the user may frustrate the user even more. Hence I decided to minimize the functionality - and only do what it's good at. Perhaps later, I may be able to add more additional functions.

Aㅏ Sketch

Aㅏ logo

Aㅏ Walkthrough

In making the concept application, I decided to make a working prototype (with limited functionality) to investigate the user experience of the app. I used HTML, CSS, Javascript and bit of jQuery.

Below is a prototype just to offer an example of how can the mobile app may work:

Direction:

  1. Click the input area on the screen displayed on the left

  2. Type in the Korean pronunciation and press 'enter'

NOTICE:

  1. This page is prototype of application 'Aㅏ'.

  2. This page purely developed for demonstration purposes, and UI UX experience. Therefore only the selected pronunciation and vocabulary will work.

Chosen pronunciations:

ゴム / GOM - 곰

べー / BAE - 배

ナム / NAMU - 나무

アンニョン / ANNYEONG - 안녕

グンムル / GUNMUL - 건물

ウンシク / UMSIK - 음식

バーダー / BADA - 바다

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