Mr. Lingo

Mr. Lingo is a gamified English learning app — built for the moment most language apps lose their users: day three, when novelty wears off and discipline hasn't kicked in yet.
Year 2025
Role Product Designer
Focus Gamification, retention, mascot-led UX
Website hamedbahadori.com
Mr. Lingo UI

The real question

Around 80% of language-app users churn in the first seven days. Bad UI plays a part, but the deeper failure is emotional — daily practice feels like homework, not a game.

How do we make the next session feel like the obvious thing to do — not the responsible one?

The answer wasn't "more features." It was treating emotion as a system: mascot, rhythm, reward, recovery.

Who I designed for

Persona · Amir, 10

The kid

Learning English to talk to his cousin in Canada. Gets bored fast. Motivated by stars, animation, and leveling up.

Persona · Zahra, 32

The adult

Career-driven. Wants short daily exercises with visible progress and gentle consistency nudges.

Five decisions that shaped the app

01 · Identity

Mr. Lingo as the through-line

A joyful panda mascot with reactive states — the emotional anchor across onboarding, lessons, and recovery.

02 · Onboarding

Three taps to first lesson

Name, goal, daily streak time — then learning starts. No setup wall.

03 · Structure

Story-driven map

Levels appear on a playful world map — forest, desert, underwater. Progress is spatial, not just numerical.

04 · Lessons

Swipeable, not tabbed

Drag-and-drop, fill-the-blank, tap-to-speak. One interaction style per screen, no menu maze.

05 · Reward

Celebrate, don't congratulate

Fireworks and mascot reactions after lessons — felt feedback, not a "+10 XP" toast.

★ Outcome from testing

"I feel like I'm playing, not studying"

The line from a tester that confirmed the emotional brief had landed.

Trade-off that shaped the product

Tempting A study app with gamified veneer Streaks and points bolted onto a textbook. The "game" never quite convinces.
Chose A game with learning inside it Map, mascot, celebration are core. Lessons are levels — not exercises with badges.

What the testing showed

Engagement

4 → 8 min avg session

Doubled after the mascot landed in the lesson loop.

Completion

100% on first lesson

After simplifying the UI and enlarging kid-friendly CTAs.

Signal

Felt like play

Tester language shifted from "doing the lesson" to "playing the level."

What changed after testing: tabs became swipeable lessons, CTAs grew for younger users, and the map navigation was simplified to one tap per level.

Design system

Inter Tight Primary #0056FF Success Green Soft gradients Mobile-first Rounded · soft shadows

Visual identity

Mr. Lingo himself does a lot of the work — his reactions (proud, surprised, tired, encouraging) carry the emotional state of the session. Backgrounds shift by location to give the world progression visual weight.

Screens

Reflection

  • 01A joyful UX retains better than a utilitarian one. Emotion is the retention loop.
  • 02Visual storytelling carries kids further than instruction. Show the world; let them learn inside it.
  • 03Mascot + reward + rhythm = habit. Three small systems doing one big job.

Next: social leaderboards, a richer mascot reaction set, and MVP onboarding data to find where the next 20% of churn actually happens.