myCards - vocabulary flashcard applications

Description

Vocabulary flashcards using Spaced-repitition algotithm for recurring study.

Objective

The client experience (CX) initiative was a cross company initiative to improve the learner experience at Gaba. As head of the Academic Development section, I developed a multi-product home study updgrade to improve the clients’ out of lesson experience that aimed to connect their in-lesson learning with. The flashcards applications would connect with the client’s lesson information in the student portal and populate the flashcards with vocabulary input by the instructor after the lesson as new words. This new vocabulary would be presented as flashcards with a definition in English, the Japanese translation, and an example sentence taken from a custom dictionary.

Build

We partnered with a local academic for the purchase of the custom dictionary and guidance on the design of the flashcard system, and contracted with a third party developer based in India to build the application. An internal IT developer colleague was assigned to assist with connecting the vocabulary datase to the application and the client’s lesson record. We aimed to build native iOS and Android app along with a web application that the student could access from their home study portal.

Challenges

As part of a cross company initiative each department was tasked with submitting detailed budget requests for their proposals. This required undertaking a through requirements analysis for the vendor to submit their proposal and for the final contract to be agreed. The full scope of the project was therefore detailed in the agreement to get sign off on the costs involved. In hindsight, the overall objectives for this initial build were too large and resulted in significant schedule overuns and budget increases. The total build for three applications (web, iOS & Android) took over three years, by which time many of the technologies we had begun building with had been overtaken by newer faster alternatives and many upgrades were required pre-launch for the native apps. Syncing data between the client’s learning portal, the web and native apps was also a significant technical challenge for the developers. Our team in Japan and team in India also encountered communciation challenges working in English across timezones.

Learnings

- Agile development would have significantly improved our ability to deliver a quality product; A smaller scope to begin with and a solid MVP would have given us a foothold to iterate and gain buy-in from senior management; Better stakeholder management of senior leaders in the business and internal IT teams would have reduced friction as the development progressed; Maintaining more frequent check ins with the vendor management would have smoothed the development process and enabled us to address communciation challenges earlier

Result

The myCards branch of the new home study was the longest running project of the four home study elements and ultimately was only released on the web application due to budget overuns and changes in senior management within the organisation. It was a sincere dissappointment to myself and the others working on the initiative that we were not able to fully realise the vision of the revised home study for clients. However, with the release of the web application that was connected to the client’s post lesson vocabulary a major step forward in their learning experience was taken. Monthly usage of myCards was well over 5000 clients making up more than a quarter of the organisation’s total client base.