Case Study: Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 10th edition App

Case study: Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 10th edition app

Creating a better dictionary experience while addressing internal business challenges.

Overview

The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 10th edition is the world’s bestselling advanced-level dictionary for learners of English, in app form.

This project was to redesign the interface to tackle development and maintenance issues experienced in previous versions and to address key interface complaints and requests relating to previous editions of the app.

The brand-new app was delivered across Android and iOS mobile and tablet devices.

Problem

Previous implementations had maintenance problems that were proving difficult for the developers to keep up with and were incurring high refactoring costs.

The previous implementations also made use of custom design, which, for a dictionary, was proving unscalable and causing various discrete issues.

The user base had expressed issues with data synchronisation, experiences varying across devices, and the overall cost of the product: “Dictionaries should be free.”

The initial remit for my role was only to change a few icons. To bring more UX value to the project required lots of stakeholder management and demonstration of how I could tackle some core in-app problems within the constraints of chosen business model.

Approach

As the UX and UI lead on this project, I was responsible for undertaking research, stakeholder and supplier engagement, documentation of Material Design and Apple iOS design systems, wireframing, prototyping and user testing.

I worked closely with stakeholders from different departments and with an offshore development team.

Time frame: 2 months.

Challenges and their mitigations

Initial UX remit was narrow as perceived need was only to update a few icons.
Mitigations:
Engaged stakeholders, proactively conducted a heuristic review of the current app implementation and catalogued previous implementations, to show how much UX could improve this edition of the app.
Too many bespoke UI elements had caused numerous maintenance issues for the development team to keep up with.
Mitigations:
Shift towards native iOS and Material Design components for simplicity and consistency.
Documentation and explanation of how design systems should be implemented.
The app development had become forgotten among other business priorities, so the project time frame was extremely short.
Mitigations:
Created a staggered delivery plan for the developers so we could work in sprints, while maximising development time.
Some business decisions were initially outside my role’s scope.
Mitigations:
Collated evidence from end users to help inform business decisions and direct stakeholders to key issues they were unaware of to better align the business and the users via UX.

Research

First, analysis was undertaken on the 8th and 9th editions of the dictionary applications. Heuristic reviews of each implementation on different devices were conducted and all historical customer feedback from the app stores and directly via customer support was organised into themes. These ranged from account and code access issues, outdated look and feel, as well as interface usability problems, subject matter and readability concerns.

Stakeholder interviews were conducted with editors and the external development team. This uncovered that previous other dictionary builds had caused numerous development and maintenance complications because too many bespoke elements were being used to make all the editions look exactly the same. These would break when new OS updates were released. Agreements were made to approach this application and future dictionaries differently.

Wireframes and prototypes

To address the core development issue of too many bespoke components, we adopted the Apple Human Interface Design and Google Material Design UI Guidelines. Not only did this streamline the briefing of the new app designs, but having a focused adoption of native mobile and tablet components would lead to fewer maintenance issues and the sense that the dictionary was a core component of that system.

The principles also had the goal of improving the visual relationship between the apps, website and print materials, enhancing the readability of the entries, while incorporating the new identity of the product.

Mobile and tablet designs for iOS and Android were designed, including search, entries, product pages, navigation, quizzes and a word of the day feature.

`Detailed specification wireframes across iOS and Android devices`

Reducing the number of fonts used in the application, in addition to the use of native components, also significantly contributed to major performance improvements compared to previous dictionary applications Oxford University Press had released.

The new design system rooted in the Apple and Google guidelines has allowed for scalability for dictionaries that have followed and lowered development costs, which gives the editorial team more scope to bring in features and content that speaks to customer needs sooner than they have been previously able to.

How was success measured

Sales data and app store feedback showed the app releases had been received well in many markets with areas for improvement identified and passed to the development backlog.

The team were encouraged, saying that, “It now looks like a proper app.” They were happy that their content was being shown in a better light and they felt motivated to take what they had learned and apply it to their wider dictionary catalogue.

Development and maintenance costs were greatly reduced, allowing the developer to promote more features and focus on fine-tuning other aspects of the experience.