Needfinding
To aid us with our research and to provide feedback for our eventual product, we conducted surveys 0f the general University of Rochester student body. In addition, we conducted a small number of more focused personal interviews.
Although the majority of our respondents were native English speakers, we still gained a sizeable amount of data and feedback about what people prioritize when using English/language in general. Word choice and speed were the components that people wanted the most feedback about. Additionally, from almost every non-native English speaker, they overwhelmingly prioritized tone and word choice as areas they struggled with.
The graphs above show the results of our survey question asking respondents which of five feedback categories they felt were important. The upper graphs depict the percentage of native English speaking respondents identifying a category as important; the bottom graphs do the same for non-native English speaking respondents. While both native and non-native English speakers had similar preferences for Body Language and Volume feedback, non-native English speakers tended to identify feedback for Word Choice and Tone as more important than native English speakers did, while native English speakers identified Speed as a more important category than non-native English speakers.
Select Needfinding feedback
“The difference between English and many other languages was the sheer amount of exceptions that exist. Context of a conversation was a large hurdle I had to overcome.”
“I was forced to really develop my English speaking in college. My peers were instrumental in my growth.”
“English is different from other languages because it is much more prevalent. The language is everywhere—the internet, signs, etc. It forces you to work harder to assimilate, so to speak”
