IMA2- Usability testing report: BUSUU, the Language Learning App

I decided to do my usability report on Busuu. I thought about doing Duolingo as it is the more known, but I knew that my subjects had both used it before and I wanted to check out something new. I have also been a paid subscriber of Duolingo for years. Busuu.com is the website that serves as the information, or advertisement of the Bussuu app. It is a very simple site with the main goal of getting you to download their app to learn a new language. According to the site they offer about 17 languages to learn. They claim that it is easy, have several positive reviews displayed and claim you can learn from the community of learners. Like most businesses and websites, they are showing their 5-star reviews, and not all their reviews. Since I have used Duolingo extensively I decided that before I started questioning the users on Busuu I would download the app myself and play around with it. I started with doing the tasks I would ask them to perform. I also played around with it a little. I wanted to be informed on what my subjects would be experiencing. I think this was both a good and bad idea. I had some issues with one task in particular and even went to reddit to try to solve it, but there was no solution. This might have made me a bit biased on this app, but I tried my best not to let that influence my test subjects. I, the test administrator, performed my usability tests on two family members. I did this due to proximity and necessity. This is how I knew that they had used the Duolingo app and decided to try something different. I asked each of them to carve out time out of their day for me with no distractions. Each session lasted around 30 minutes. During the sessions I explained what was going on and why I was doing the testing. I did use the script provided and typed out the responses as we went along. I read each task and timed them as they performed the tasks. After the tasks the administrator asked the participants to rate the app on a 5 point Likert Scale with measures ranging from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. The end of session questionnaire was a subjective measure that included:

• How easy or hard was it to complete the steps necessary to create a new account.
• How easy or hard was it to find one language you like to learn and add it to your profile/account.
• How easy or hard was it to change the language to another language you like to learn.
• How easy or hard was it to turn off and turn on auditory sound.
• How easy or hard was it to go to a setting/preference and change a setting option.

After the end of session questionnaire was completed, the test administer asked the participants to rate the satisfaction of the app overall by using a 5-point Likert Scale (Strongly Disagree to Strongly agree) for the nineteen (19) subjective measures including:

• Overall satisfaction of how easy it was to use the language learning app.
• How simple it was to use the app.
• Effectiveness of being able to complete the tasks using the app.
• Ability to complete the tasks quickly using the app.
• The efficiency of being able to complete the tasks using the app.
• Comfort level of being able to use the app.
• How easy it was to learn the app.
• Effectiveness of being able to complete the tasks using the app.
• Belief in how quickly the participant could productively use the app.
• The efficiency of being able to complete the tasks using the app.
• Clarity of error messages.
• Ability to recover from mistakes quickly.
• Clarity of language used in app.
• Ease of finding information needed in the app.
• The language of the app was easy to understand.
• The information was effective in helping complete the tasks.
• Clarity of organization of the information in the app.
• Pleasantness of the interface.
• Likability of the interface.
• Functions and capabilities expected.
• Overall satisfaction with the app.

In addition, the test administer allowed the participants to have a few minutes to get familiar with the language learning app. After allowing them at least three minutes they were asked:

• What would you tell a friend that asked about the language learning app?

In this test I used two participants, all who were volunteers. Both participants were scheduled on the same day to complete the tasks. One was called into the office in the morning, and the other was called in to respond in the evening of May 26th 2025. Both participants were male of two different generations of computer usage. I was curious to see if there was a difference in how each generation tackled the prompts. This did not seem to matter with the tasks given in the end. The test participants were asked to look at the website, then download the app. They then attempted to complete the following five (5) tasks on their own:

• Task 1: Complete the steps necessary to create a new account.
• Task 2: Find one language to learn and add to your profile/account.
• Task 3: Change the language to another language you would like to learn.
• Task 4: Turn off and turn on auditory sound.
• Task 5: Go to a setting/preference and change a setting option.

All participants were able to complete Task 1 (complete the steps necessary to create a new account). All participants were also able to complete Task 3 (Change the language to another language you would like to learn). Then all participants were able to complete Task 5 as well (Go to a setting/preference and change a setting option). None of the participants were able to complete Task 4 which required them to turn off and turn on auditory sound.

When it came to time some tasks were easier to complete than others. The shortest task was Task 2 (Find one language you would like to learn and add it to your profile). This took no time in the Busuu app because to complete your new account you had to pick a language, so it was a straight click from Task 1. The longest Task was 4 (Turn off and turn on auditory sound). Task 4 took the longest because the task itself was impossible, because there is no way to turn off the sound in the app.

The participants were observed on how many clicks it took them to achieve each task. The most clicks were done on Task 4 (Turn off and turn on the auditory sound). The test administrator lost track of the amount of clicks from Task 4 from the frustration of trying to complete an impossible task. The least amount of clicks were from Task 2 (Find one language you would like to learn and add it to your profile/account). The reason for this was it was taken care of in Task 1 (Complete the steps necessary to create a new account).

At the end of the session the participants were asked a series of questions. As you can see in the chart below the consensus was that the app was super easy to complete the steps necessary to create a new account. It was also Super easy to find the language to learn, because you had to pick it to complete your setup. The only thing that the participants said was super hard was turning off the sound. This is because it is not just super hard it is impossible. The participants also found it hard to change the language because the app either made you leave and come back, as participant 1 figured out, or you had to complete the first lesson on the first language you picked, as Participant 2 found out, as you can see from Task 3 in the clicks to complete chart above.

During the Satisfaction part of the end of session questionnaires we find that both participants were satisfied with how easy the app was to use, and easy to learn the new language. They both agreed that the information and the was easy to understand and clear. They also agreed that the interface was pleasant. Neither one liked the fact that they were not able to complete Task 4 (Turn off and turn on auditory sound). This inability to complete this task did skew the satisfaction of both participants. Neither participant encountered an error message, hence the N/A in the chart below. Participant 2 did make a mistake in one of his lessons and was still able to get back on track and finish.

I don’t have many recommendations, except to perhaps fix the fact that you can not turn off the sound. I went to the internet to search and there were many hits of people complaining about not being able to turn off the sound effects. I even went in to Duolingo, since I have used it for years, and easily found how to turn of the sounds in the settings. One participant jokingly turned down the sound on their phone to try to bypass Task 4 (turning of and turning on auditory sound). The ability to turn off the sound does not affect the learning of the new language as much as it is a slight annoyance which is why I put the severity at medium. I found no real high severity change that needed to happen during the testing I did myself and observations of the participants. There were no critical errors. I did see that the focus on making the app fun could also affect the learning it was still medium, because sometimes you have to make things fun for people to learn.

Most of the participants found the app Busuu easy to use, pleasant to look at, and something that if they were truly looking to learn a new language they would possibly use. There could be better and more customizable settings, a more intense focus on the language itself over fun activities, but overall, a decent app. I personally still prefer Duolingo, and I feel that if people were given the choice of downloading both apps and playing around with each app others would too. I found the lack of being able to turn off the loud dings annoying and not being able to turn them off added to the participants frustrations. The entries on the internet begging the company to fix that issue was not grand but still out there. When the participants were asked what they would tell a friend about the app the replies were similarly lackluster of you could probably learn the language using it, but it wasn’t the best language learning app out there. Overall if you don’t mind ads, or paying and want to learn a new language you could use the Busuu app to learn. There are several languages to choose from and it seems pretty easy to get started.

Educational Value: This lesson allowed me to learn how to do usablility testing on subjects. I think this would be helpful not only for testing apps, but for testing programs at the library.

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