Research Goals
- Understand students’ biggest fears and hurdles with public speaking.
- Identify what motivates learners to practice regularly.
- Gather feedback on prototype wireframes and core flows.
Lead Youth
OVERVIEW
Zinged is an innovative speaking exercise application from a burgeoning startup, currently in development, specifically designed to empower students across grades 3-12 to master confident public speaking. Leveraging advanced AI analysis, Zinged provides personalized, actionable feedback on user speech and integrates it into tailored practice sessions and guided lessons. From comprehensive courses on effective speaking to project-specific support for assignments like book reports and debates , Zinged offers a complete ecosystem to build fluency and confidence for any communication challenge, supported by detailed progress tracking and speech analysis.
Focus Areas
- Designing an intuitive and visually engaging user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) specifically tailored to motivate and support young learners.
- Developing and integrating an advanced AI speech analysis system to deliver highly personalized, actionable feedback and drive continuous skill improvement.
- Crafting a comprehensive learning curriculum complemented by robust project-specific support
Roles and responsibilities
I led user research to understand the needs of students, parents, and educators in public speaking. Based on this, I defined user flows and information architecture for core features like courses, practice sessions, and project help. I also designed the AI-powered feedback experience, including speech analysis visuals and personalized practice suggestions. Additionally, I created a vibrant and accessible UI tailored to students across different grade levels.
Design
Zinged is designed to create an engaging, supportive learning environment for public speaking. It features a colorful, friendly aesthetic to make young learners feel comfortable, while maintaining clear, intuitive navigation. Students can easily access lessons, practice activities, and tools for assignments like book reports or debates. A key highlight is the AI-driven feedback system, which uses visual speech analysis to recommend personalized lessons—helping learners improve with confidence and enjoyment.
Skills & Tools
- 🎨 Figma
- 💻 Sitemaps
- 📝 Prototyping
- 🔍 User Research
- ✏️ Wireframing
- 🛠️ Information Architecture
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Students frequently encounter significant anxiety and a lack of confidence when faced with public speaking opportunities, academic presentations, or formal communication in various settings. They currently struggle to find accessible, personalized, and effective tools that provide objective, AI-driven feedback and structured practice, leading to persistent communication challenges that hinder their academic performance and overall personal development.
USER RESEARCH & SURVEY
Methodology
- 👥 12 in-depth interviews with grades 5–10 students
- 📊 Online survey (n = 45) covering students, parents, and teachers
- 📋 5 usability sessions on early Figma prototypes
Participants
- Students (ages 9–16) from 3 local schools
- Parents of middle-schoolers who help with homework
- Public speaking coaches and classroom teachers
Key Findings
- High anxiety before presentations, especially around timing and clarity.
- Kids love gamified progress (badges, levels) but need clear, bite-sized feedback.
- Parents want progress tracking to share with teachers.
- Teachers asked for quick setup—no more than 3 clicks to start a practice session.
Quantitative Analysis
Survey highlights (n = 45):
- 82% of students rated pre-presentation anxiety ≥ 4/5.
- Average practice sessions per assignment: 2.3 (SD = 1.1).
- 88% said real-time feedback would boost practice frequency.
- 68% of parents requested shareable progress reports.
- 54% of teachers wanted a bulk-download feature for recordings.
Qualitative Analysis
- Anxiety & Control: Pacing visualizations (waveform timeline) reduced stress by helping students pinpoint rushing or dragging segments.
- Simplicity & Speed: Users expected a one-tap record flow; tests revealed confusion when more than two taps were required.
- Gamification Appeal: Badges and progress bars encouraged daily engagement but needed clear milestone definitions.
- Dashboard Clarity: Coaches desired a class-level overview comparing average anxiety scores and practice counts side-by-side.
PERSONAS
Next Steps
Based on these insights, I refined the onboarding to 2 steps, added gamified badges for milestones, and built a teacher dashboard prototype to streamline progress review.
EMPATHY MAPPING
I created a structured and user-friendly sitemap for a public speaking training app that guides users through different interactive learning paths. Starting from the landing and authentication screens (Login, Sign Up, Birthdate), users can choose a learning path such as “Test My Speech,” “Learn Public Speaking,” “Help with Project,” or “Mix It Up.” Each path is supported by detailed flows — for example, in the “Test My Speech” track, users can upload recordings, record live via mic or camera, or get help with scripting and feedback. I mapped out interactions like stage setup, audience selection, and speech duration input, ensuring logical transitions between each task. The flow also incorporates AI-powered feedback tools, with features like speech analysis, editing, and saving progress. This sitemap lays a clear foundation for a modular and personalized user experience, optimizing both guidance and flexibility in the learning journey.
JOURNEY MAPPING
This user journey map visually articulates the student's end-to-end experience with the Zinged app, from initial realization of a public speaking need to sustained confidence and ongoing growth. Divided into five distinct stages—Realization & Exploration, Path Selection & Initial Setup, Learning & Preparation, Practice & Feedback Cycle, and Refinement & Ongoing Growth—the map meticulously details the user's actions, evolving emotions, and critical touchpoints within the app. It clearly highlights key pain points, such as anxiety and lack of objective feedback, and corresponding opportunities where Zinged's features, like AI-powered analysis and structured learning paths, directly provide solutions. This comprehensive overview was instrumental in designing an empathetic, intuitive, and effective learning journey that guides students from hesitation to confident communication.
STORY BOARD
Story Title: Conquering the Podium with Zinged
Characters: A student (portrayed with varying gender characteristics across panels to represent a universal user experience)
Overall Story: This storyboard illustrates a student's transformative journey from anxiety and uncertainty about public speaking to confident delivery and mastery, all facilitated by the "Zinged" mobile application.
Screen 1: The Blank Page Dilemma
- Visual: A student sits at a desk, looking stressed and overwhelmed. They are hunched over a laptop with a completely blank presentation screen. A thought bubble above their head clearly expresses their distress.
- Text (in thought bubble): "HELP! WHERE DO I BEGIN?"
- Story Point: Introduces the core problem: the fear and difficulty of starting a public speaking task, a common challenge for students.
Screen 2: A Glimmer of Hope - Discovering Zinged
- Visual: The student is now holding a mobile phone. The screen displays the "Zinged" app's vibrant onboarding or splash screen, featuring a minimalist app interface.
- Text (on phone screen): "YOUR PUBLIC SPEAKING JOURNEY Starts Here!"
- Story Point: Introduces "Zinged" as the accessible and promising solution, offering a clear path forward from the initial anxiety.
Screen 3: Taking the First Step - Practice Mode Initiation
- Visual: The student is still holding the mobile phone, looking at its screen. A microphone icon is visible in the top right, indicating that a recording feature is active or about to be used. The student's expression shows a mix of nervousness and initial determination as they prepare to speak.
- Story Point: The user takes the crucial first step into interacting with the app's core function – beginning to practice their speech.
Screen 4: Hesitation and Early Attempts
- Visual: The student is still looking at their phone, their expression showing concern or perhaps mild frustration. Behind them, a subtle visual element (like a simplified bar graph or abstract visual) indicates an early, perhaps less than ideal, performance or struggle, representing common initial difficulties.
- Story Point: Acknowledges the initial challenges and struggles that can occur when starting to practice public speaking, normalizing the learning curve.
Screen 5: Receiving Positive Feedback
- Visual: The mobile phone screen clearly displays a positive feedback summary from "Zinged." There's a prominent green box indicating "Excellent Progress!" followed by green checkmarks next to "Pacing" and "Clarity."
- Text (on phone screen): "Excellent Progress!", "Pacing [checkmark]", "Clarity [checkmark]"
- Story Point: Highlights the app's immediate, positive, and constructive feedback mechanism, which motivates the user and validates their efforts.
Screen 6: Applying Feedback - Continued Improvement
- Visual: The student is still holding the mobile phone, but their body language is noticeably more confident. They are pointing or gesturing confidently, indicating they are actively using the app's insights to refine their delivery during continued practice.
- Story Point: Illustrates the iterative process of practice and improvement, showing the user actively implementing the app's guidance to build their skills.
Screen 7: Mastering the Presentation
- Visual: The student is now confidently standing at the front of a classroom, giving a presentation. They are holding a microphone and gesturing naturally, engaging with the audience (represented by seated classmates). A thought bubble above their head clearly conveys their newfound confidence.
- Text (in thought bubble): "I'M DOING GREAT!"
- Story Point: The climax of the journey, where the student successfully applies their learned skills in a real-world, high-stakes scenario.
Screen 8: Triumph and Accomplishment
- Visual: The student, with a beaming smile, is looking at a laptop screen. The screen prominently displays a congratulatory message from "Zinged" and a "Skills Growth" chart showing a significant upward trend. A subtle burst of light or stars surrounds the laptop, emphasizing success and achievement.
- Text (on laptop screen): "Zinged", "Congratulations! Presentation Mastered!", "Skills Growth [chart]"
- Story Point: The ultimate outcome – the student has mastered public speaking and feels a profound sense of accomplishment and growth, demonstrating the long-term impact of using Zinged.
SITE MAP
I created a structured and user-friendly sitemap for a public speaking training app that guides users through different interactive learning paths. Starting from the landing and authentication screens (Login, Sign Up, Birthdate), users can choose a learning path such as “Test My Speech,” “Learn Public Speaking,” “Help with Project,” or “Mix It Up.” Each path is supported by detailed flows — for example, in the “Test My Speech” track, users can upload recordings, record live via mic or camera, or get help with scripting and feedback. I mapped out interactions like stage setup, audience selection, and speech duration input, ensuring logical transitions between each task. The flow also incorporates AI-powered feedback tools, with features like speech analysis, editing, and saving progress. This sitemap lays a clear foundation for a modular and personalized user experience, optimizing both guidance and flexibility in the learning journey.
A/B TESTING STRATEGY
As part of the LeadYouth app development process, I implemented a comprehensive A/B testing framework to optimize user engagement and conversion rates across the speech training platform. After extensive user research and design iterations, I finalized an orange-dominant color scheme as the primary variant, leveraging orange's psychological associations with energy, enthusiasm, and motivation—key emotional drivers for educational apps targeting youth speech development. The A/B testing strategy compares this energetic orange interface against alternative color schemes including professional blue variants, creative purple options, and calming teal alternatives across critical user journey touchpoints. Key testing focuses include onboarding completion rates, path selection engagement, lesson completion metrics, and long-term user retention patterns. The testing framework tracks conversion rates from sign-up to first lesson completion, average session duration, 7-day and 30-day return user rates, and overall task completion success for speech exercises. My hypothesis centers on orange creating an encouraging, high-energy environment that increases user motivation and drives higher lesson completion rates compared to cooler color alternatives, while also testing different orange intensities and complementary color combinations to identify the optimal balance between engagement and usability. This data-driven approach ensures design decisions are validated through real user behavior rather than assumptions, ultimately creating a more effective learning experience for young users developing their public speaking skills.
VISUAL DESIGN SYSTEM
The visual design system for Zinged was meticulously crafted to establish a cohesive and engaging brand identity, crucial for an educational application targeting young learners. It defines a vibrant color palette that evokes energy and approachability, complemented by a clear typography scale that ensures optimal readability across various content types. Core interactive elements like button styles and a consistent iconography set are meticulously defined, alongside standard input field styling. This system extends to a comprehensive component library covering elements such as cards, form elements, and navigation patterns, ensuring design consistency and development efficiency. Furthermore, it incorporates spacing and layout guidelines, data visualization standards for AI-powered feedback, and principles for shadows and motion, all working in harmony to create an intuitive, trustworthy, and visually delightful user experience that supports students in their journey to confident public speaking
INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPE
Experience the complete LeadYouth app through this interactive Figma prototype that showcases the full user journey from onboarding to speech practice. The prototype demonstrates key features including the AI-powered speech analysis interface, personalized learning paths, and the intuitive navigation system designed specifically for young learners. Users can interact with the vibrant orange-themed interface to explore different practice modes, view real-time feedback visualizations, and experience how the app guides students through their public speaking development journey. This fully functional prototype validates the user experience design decisions and demonstrates the app's ability to create an engaging, supportive environment for building confidence in public speaking.