Sospiro Textbook

Figure 1: Cutlery, the book cover illustration for Sospiro Textbook.

How can I build tools to overcome language barriers 50 years into the future?

UX + UI

2018

                                                                                                  

Role(s): UX + Product Designer, Writer, Illustrator

After finishing the prototype for the Sospiro app, I realized that the tool meant to aid constant migration and language barriers is severely lacking in teaching capacity.

Sospiro Textbook addresses that shortcoming and teaches a language and detect learning patterns to adapt to their learning journey through visual, audio and motor input.

Figure 2: Cover of the printed Sospiro Textbook displaying the Cutlery subject.

World Building

The IMPACT cards that were previously picked in the Sospiro App challenge was something that we are already familiar with. This defeats the purpose of the IMPACT card activity that strives to challenge our perception of the world so I took a new spin on the story.

Chosen Impact Cards (4/6)

Identification and Learning
Produced by the Government
Climate
Earth is reset to pre-industrial conditions
Economic System
Money expires after one year
Work Conditions
Emotional labor is held at a premium
Health
Diagnoses are crowd sourced
Personal Communication
Language between generations is mutually unintelligible
Expand for World Building and User Persona +

50 years into the future, the lamenting of humanity’s loss is to be prevented from repeating itself through strong government regulation and heavy tracking. Information is held at its utmost priority and with the potential of political and environmental factors, transparency between the government and its citizens along with raw, unbiased content from trusted scholars ensure a brighter future for generations beyond ours to experience.

The Government of Alexandria is responsible for:

  • Distribution of educational material through variety of mediums
  • Updating the curriculum and set up schools
  • Setting up the Alexandria network across libraries internationally
             Distribution: Digital texts to access worldwide
             Preservation: Recreate ancient or old texts
  • Prevent outside factors that may harm the libraries and people (environmental, political, etc)
  • Distribution should not contribute to harming the planet

Due to scholars from different backgrounds migrating and texts of varying languages, a default language is chosen to not favor one nation or language over the other to prevent conflicts of interests, nations, and religions that may disturb world peace.

The language both written and spoken are decided to be Ancient Egyptian with sub-national languages including:  English, Latin, Greek and Sanskrit as they make up the bulk of many ancient and modern languages. Ancient Egyptian was chosen out of all languages as it relies on both literary and artistic skills to learn the language. Most mathematics lessons derive from Egyptian texts which will be used in classrooms. Artistic virtues (will be explained in future sections) are praised as they fulfill the emotional needs which is held at a premium standard in the future. Most noticeably, the same language evolves so quickly that generations need a standardized set of rules to communicate.

With the protection of knowledge, the government has to look into environmental factors in the short term and long term. Now with the technology of 2068, methods of resetting the damage done to the planet is possible and heavily regulated to further protect ancient texts from deteriorating in polluted air and ensure the best health for its citizens. Further maintenance to the planet prevents unexpected natural disasters from climate change.

Furthermore, an intense care for emotional needs of people are met with the technology that is available in the future. A long time myth disregards beauty as an extra flavor to add and functionality is first priority philosophy. Though artistry serves no additional purpose to an object, it heightens the emotional virtues that in return increase mental health within one. As creativity and expression are valued, more attention to appeasing those virtues are not only encouraged but infused into daily life.

This is: LAM

Age: 35
Family: Married
Occupation: window washer, figurine merchandise distributor
Motivations: Raise a family and catch up to society
Interests: photography, reading non-fiction

Lam is one of the recent immigrants who arrived in Stratford with his family. Often he takes his wife and child out to take pictures in the park during spare time.

As a busy man, he struggles to make time for himself to sit down comfortably. He struggles to integrate himself and needs affordable access to materials. Reserved and shy, it is difficult for him to ask for help and bears full  responsibility when completing a task or has favors from his workplace regarding shifts.

Paper E-Book

The idea behind paper e-books borrows from the idea of an e-book with a paper surface for easy readability and writing. Gestures will be supported on the paper e-books demonstrated in the case study booklet.

Sospiro e-textbook concept and sketches

Figure 3: Doodles of the concept paper e-book on Photoshop.

Figure 4: User journey of persona using the textbook.

How do I Understand language learners?

To further understand the difficulty of learning an unknown language from scratch, I took on the challenge of learning to read hieroglyphics with the help of a book called: How To Read Egyptian Hieroglyphics by Dr. Mark Collier and Dr. Bill Manley.

This writing system will be placed side by side with English for Lam to learn and reference off when he's studying with the paper e-book.

Book Subject:
Cutlery

To put myself in the position of someone who is completely new to the English culture, I decided to create a category textbook from scratch with a topic even I had no idea about: Western Cutlery!

With research from online resources, I set to work by making illustrations fashioned from each silverware and compiled them into a table setting on the adjacent page to help users see the tools being implemented.

I wrote the book and designed the layout in Adobe InDesign keeping in mind the original design and styling for the Sospiro app from Figma.

Feats

  • Books provide uninterrupted flow through lessons
  • Plastic cover protects pages from folding and stains
  • Matte paper allows user to write effortlessly
  • Note taking in textbook saves desk room
  • Standard A4 size to fit most bags for easy portability

Flaws

  • Soft cover binding doesn't allow the book to lay flat without pressure
  • Lack of support for non-earpiece users with pronunciation
  • Textbook page number may be confused with item number diagram

In the Future...

  • Use stapled binding for lay flat feature
  • Add pronunciation support for users with no earpiece
  • Limit function to loading/unloading lessons to keep book as functional and affordable
  • Add a function/definition to the vocabulary in category books

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