Designers
Sarah Franke, Sabrina Kuom, Paula Trummer
Year
2024
Category
New Talent
Country
Germany
School
Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd
Teacher
Carmen Hartmann-Menzel, Georg Kneer
»Cosmo is an innovative platform offering a fresh approach to personalized learning paths using AI support. It combines meaningful gamification with conversational learning missions and a modern UI to create engaging experiences and address the decline in language learning. This strong creative concept helps children expand their vocabulary and supports teachers with progress insights. The jury highlights prompting as an area for further consideration, as it can weaken the interaction flow, especially if children lack language skills.«
Michelle Castañeda and Sofia Ryan
And the award goes to...
Three questions for the project team
What was the particular challenge of the project from a UX point of view?
We dealt with a very diverse user group, who are currently in a dynamic phase of personal development in which different interests and character traits come together. The interviews and testing therefore had to be conducted with great care.
Later, it was a balancing act to reconcile and translate the users' wishes with the latest scientific insights and the methods to be derived from them.
In the UI design, we had to find a harmonised balance between the concept of experiencing a 3D world and the flat design of the navigation elements. Additionally, the high requirement for autonomous action in the application meant that the navigation system had to be as explorative as possible.
What was your personal highlight in the development process? Was there an aha!-moment, was there a low point?
As it was difficult to establish contacts at the beginning, it was even more pleasing that we were able to work very closely with our user group and experts. One highlight was definitely organising a workshop with a school class, which gave us a lot of insights into their everyday life and thoughts.
So far, few apps focus on intrinsic motivation over extrinsic means. Discovering the concept of meaningful gamification was one of the key points of the research to open our eyes to more sustainable methods. We had a significant breakthrough when we figured out how to position our app within the extrinsically driven school system and still encourage students' intrinsic motivation.
Where do you see yourself and the project in the next five years?
We envision that our project will have a significant impact on the education sector, particularly on textbook publishing.
As digitalisation continues to advance, we aim to integrate our concept more deeply into the school environment, fostering a stronger connection with students. We believe in being open to new learning methods and see language as a tool that can be explored in many different ways.
By embracing innovative teaching strategies and recognising that there is not just one way to discover and learn a language, we hope to provide students with a more engaging and effective educational experience, focusing on keeping them intrinsically motivated and actively engaged in their journey.
