During my initial days at Harvard, I often landed up in situations where I had to ‘walk on eggshells’ while interacting with people because many a times I would just not be able to make sense of conversations when people used idioms like ‘elephant in the room.’

I then decided to create an app to help non-native English speakers like myself interact better in English speaking environments. Since then, every Wednesday, during our HGSE LDIT Design Studio sessions in Fall 2023, I would ‘go into my rabbit hole’ to work on creating a prototype of my app, Idiomverse!

Idiomverse Intro

Idiomverse is an app powered by lived-experience, AI, local contexts, and theories and industry-best-practices of learning design that helps non-native-English speakers communicate better in English speaking countries.

• How is lived-experience incorporated?
  Please read the quoted text in the grey box above.
• How is AI used?
  The main images used in the prototype are AI generated.
• How are local contexts incorporated?
  The example sentences are framed using local Indian contexts.
• What are the targeted learner demographics?
  Currently: people from India who plan on moving to English speaking countries for undergraduate or graduate studies, for the first time. Needs refinement, I know.
• What theories /concepts / ideas of learning are incorporated?
  Scaffolding, Active Processing, Culturally Relevant Education, Arts as a Distinctive Way of Learning, Learner Analysis, Establishing Learning Goals & Outcomes, etc.
• What industry-best-practices of learning design are used?
  Design while keeping in mind the learner at the center; who are you NOT designing for; the ideation-prototyping-testing cycle, etc.

Idiomverse Prototype Link

Here is the link to a working prototype (of the app) that I designed on Figma. You are welcome to test the prototype out like an actual user and share feedback with me, my email: kalpitkamaljain@gse.harvard.edu

Idiomverse Prototype Updates

21st November 2023

Today, the day when I am creating this post on the HGSE Design Studio, the prototype contains 1.20 idioms: the 0.20 is one-fifth of the second idiom (one complete idiom deck includes five cards and my second idiom currently has one card). I will keep working on the prototype (and subsequently, create an app) and post any notable progress in newer sections / paragraphs in this very post.

The “wiring” visible on the Figma prototyping page enthrals me, sharing a screenshot below.

Let’s Play Idioms!