To better understand the needs of our users, I conducted user interviews and usability tests.  User interviews helped identify general user attitudes and helped pinpoint desired features for our translation flashcard application. Usability tests helped recognize pain points and identify users' design preferences.

Below are the trends found when conducting interviews:

• Users want ways to learn on-the-go

• Users want practical ways to learn

• Incorporating games is desired when learning

• Short micro-learning sessions are preferred

We wanted to form a deeper understanding of our users' goals, needs, experiences, and behaviors so we created a proto-persona, Leslie, to represent segments of our user base. Leslie is based on user interviews and and helped influence all major design decisions. We used our persona whenever we needed to step out of ourselves and reconsider our initial ideas.

With the goals of our personas in mind, we began to identify the steps users will take to complete main functions of the application. We sketched a user journey map to identify how users will perform these actions. 

There were two main use cases identified:

1. Translating a word, phrase or sentence and saving it.

2. Accessing saved translations.
   
   

Using Balsamiq, I translated my user flows into low-fidelity wireframes. At this stage, the wireframes were defined enough for some initial user testing.  5 user tests were performed and feedback was collected.  Minor alternations were made to enhance the app before moving on to creating high-fidelity prototypes.