Lingo


Enrich your vocabulary by connecting to the world of literature.

Pure GUI class @ CIID IDP 2015

Where and when:

CIID IDP 2015: Pure GUI
taught by Marco Triverio, Timm Kekeritz, and Frank Rausch

Project team:

Vihanga Gore
Sergey Komardenkov
Håvard Lundberg

My contribution went to:

concept design
UI design
videography and video editing


Background:

The world of literature is a place to get lost, inspired and informed. Throughout time innumerable authors have contributed with their perspectives, thoughts and ideas. In turn, their words has shaped how we talk about and understand the world around us.

Today, this immense pool of knowledge is at our fingertips – all the time – but how often do we seek it out, beyond the frontpage headlines? And how does that affect the way we talk about and understand our surroundings?


Concept:

By analyzing the language used by both historical and contemporary authors, Lingo introduces you to authors distinct vocabulary by letting you explore their words. To help you understand the words, Lingo provides the context of which they were written and you can also get new quotes containing the same word. You can easily fetch new words and listen to them if you’re unsure about their pronunciation.

Lingo is all about enriching your vocabulary, so if you come across a word you didn’t know you can add it to your favorites to revisit it later to exercise memorization. Lingo is also a good reading companion. If you see an unfamiliar word while reading a book, you can quickly look it up.

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” - Ludwig Wittgenstein,Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)

Design Process:

Teams were allowed to pick their own briefs and we came up with a few alternatives after an ideation session. Eventually, we agreed that one of the ideas - a tool to enrich one's vocabulary - is something that we ourselves needed in our everyday life. We added to this goal the perception of how text and particular words are analyzed in preparation for theater performances, and came upon understanding that literature is one of the main sources of new words and new meanings. That set the direction for the concept behind the application.

Throughout next week and a half we got to work extensively with information architecture, interface design, typography, iconography and layout. Another learning outcome of the course was a better understanding of human interface guidelines for various platforms and how to design with these in mind.