ProjectProposal-XuexinZhang
From CS 160 Fall 2008
Vocabulary Game
Contents |
Target User Group
The target user group of my serious game is the SAT, GRE, GMAT, and many other exam takers. In those exams, exam takers are expected to be able to understand the meaning of a huge amount of vocabularies, and be able to spell them correctly. Exam takers need to memorize those vocabularies in order to do well in the exam, and they want to have a very effective way to help way achieve their goals.
Problem Description
The problem of target user group is that the traditional method of memorizing vocabularies is not effective enough, and it lacks the interaction based on the user progress. The goal of the project is to help target user group improving their vocabulary skill by using the proper utilities and methods.
The traditional and most commonly used vocabulary studying method is flashcard. Many people find it useful, but it is very difficult for users to maintain the flashcard banks and keep them up to date according to their progresses.
With a technical solution that helps users to maintain the vocabulary banks, and interact with users learning progresses, the current situation could be greatly improved to be more effective and helpful to users.
Problem Context and Forces
The target users are highly educated and more familiar with technologies, with less spare time to spend on memorizing vocabularies. They are motivated to learn because the pressure of getting a good grade from those exams.
Also, we need to pay close attention to the memorizing curve. According to a research about memory, people tents to forget what they learned as the time advances. As we can see in the (in)famous forgetting curve, people would be able to retain a long term memory of a subject if they are remind of it after they memorized it in the beginning. If we could employ any method that beat the forgetting curve, we could be able to provide target users a very effective software to improve their experiences.
According to my own Internet research, there are many flashcard software available out there; however, I couldn't locate any software that offers user the interactive, progress-based vocabulary bank. And I believe such feature could greatly improve the user experience and also the efficiency of the vocabulary learning.
Solution Sketch
I would like to propose a software system that available on both PC, and Android platforms that could synchronize user progress and vocabulary information with each other.
The mobile end of the platform is designed to remind users the vocabularies that they already learned. The most important advantage is that users could refresh their memories without any physical limitation of locations and time. They could use it on the walk, during the commute on the bus or on the Bart.
In addition to the feature of the mobile end, the PC end of the software would be able to automatically help users to maintain their vocabulary banks based on their progresses.
