Role
Duration
Tools
Year
Team
UI/UX Design
UX Writing
Research
Prototyping
4 weeks
Figma
Winter 2024
Individual
OVERVIEW
Challenge
With over 500 million users, Duolingo is known for its successful outreach to language learners of all backgrounds — with a mission to make education universally accessible. However, the current Privacy Policy leads users offsite and forces them to read long blocks of text, making it hard for them to find important controls and information. As one of the most data-hungry language learning apps, Duolingo has a responsibly to inform users about how their data is being used in an accessible way.
How might we improve access to privacy controls in Duolingo in a way that empowers users to learn about their data, while also reflecting the brand voice?
DISCOVER
Research
Duolingo is one of the most data-hungry language apps due to its freemium model. Users have expressed concern over their privacy, as free apps typically treat user data as its product. I looked into Apple, Mozilla, YouTube, and Google’s Privacy Policy for inspiration. I found that these examples all used accessible, readable language and graphic aids to help the user navigate through their data portals. I collected screenshots of different visual elements and referenced their brand guidelines for the Privacy Policy rewrite.
The current process of controlling and accessing personal data is unintuitive and involves multiple user flows, which are not connected.
DEVELOP
Wireframing
Based on areas of opportunities, I created rough sketches to explore further. Some options included condensing information in tabs, creating an informative showcase of privacy data, adding more opt-out controls in the settings, and adding more information to the Privacy settings.
Updating the Privacy Settings page
The Privacy Settings page was originally very barebones, with only two checkboxes and no descriptions or headings. I created the "Privacy" and "Access Personal Data" sections, pulling assets from the existing Data Vault page and adding more links where users can "learn more", taking them to the Privacy Policy page rather than searching for it in a footer.
Changes based on feedback
- The options look like an unclickable list: Updated alignment of checkboxes, with increased checkbox and font size.
- It's unclear where the link leads: Changed "Learn more about how your data is used here" to "Learn more about how your data is used in our Privacy Notice", and made just "Privacy Notice" clickable instead of the full link
- Added the option to change leads
Redesigning the Privacy Policy
Lengthy legalese doesn't fit Duolingo's brand. To make learning about privacy more manageable for users, I adopted a multi-tab format with clear headings. I wanted the new section to feel more personal and friendly, like Duolingo.
Changes based on feedback
- It's hard to find certain options: Changed ordering based on high-priority sections.
- It's hard to differentiate sections: Added icons for visual contrast.
- Readjusted the spacing of the data table to minimize scrolling and improve readability, since I noticed a lot of scrolling up and down during the first usability test.
- Clickable links now in blue and underlined, which was met with positive feedback during further testing.
User Testing
I asked participants to score the design based on 7 adjective pairs and then provided feedback. Each participant tested a different prototype, which I would then iterate on for the next test.
Participants rated the difficulty of the new features, and then gave an open-ended response based on their ratings and overall experience.
My solution merges the offsite Data Vault with the main settings page and adds more opt-out controls. I explored an educational approach to a Privacy Policy with writing that is more readable for the average user, clear headings, and illustration assets. The information is presented in a concise tab format, replacing the original Privacy Policy which required a lot of scrolling.
