INVESTIGATION OF THE USABILITY AND USER EXPERIENCE OF MOBILE LANGUAGE LEARNING APPLICATIONS: BUSUU, DUOLINGO, AND MEMRISE

Abstract

This study explores the effects of usability and user experience of mobile language learning applications on learning process by evaluating three popular applications Busuu, Duolingo, and Memrise. The data were collected by user interviews and the diary method. With the help of the think-aloud method, user interviews were actualized, and in addition to that the researcher kept a diary by trying all three applications for 10 days. Nielsen’s Heuristics and an adapted version of these heuristics were used within the framework of this study. The researcher's diaries were coded with the help of heuristics. Findings emphasize the strong connection between the user experience and mobile language learning applications’ efficiency. Results indicate that even the adapted version of heuristics has shortages, and it is needed to be developed for future researches. As a result, investigation of user experience is recommended to be evaluated separately for the different phases of application usage in further studies.