Bunpo
2025
(BACK TO HOMEPAGE)
As someone who’s spent nearly three years self-studying Japanese, I’ve become intimately familiar with the digital language learning landscape. Bunpo was an early favourite of mine.
Recently, Bunpo rolled out three new features: Dialogues, Leagues, and Monthly Challenges. I tested them and provided actionable feedback for the team.
Context: What are Dialogues?
Dialogues were something that I was looking forward to testing when I started this project. During my 2+ years of self-studying, I haven’t been able to find many opportunities to practice speaking or texting. Currently at a N5~N4 level, dialogues is an easy way for me to practice using the grammar concepts I’ve been learning so diligently.
Current State
Dialogues are designed to help users practice conversational Japanese. However, the home screen’s layout mirrors a lesson overview rather than a chat interface, missing an opportunity to drive engagement.
The interface doesn’t evoke a chat experience, reducing motivation to practice.
Chat-like interface inspired by iMessage, X DMs, and WeChat.
Redesign
Conversations auto-sort by last opened; status tags indicate “in progress,” “completed,” or “not started.”
Challenge tracker accessible within each chat, not on the overview.
Suggesting sentences via a pencil icon is unintuitive, leading users to be unaware of the feature.
Sentence suggestions cycle within the text input, replacing the pencil icon.
With this new design, I believe that the experience of the dialogues feature feels more natural and akin to a messaging app, motivating users to practice their Japanese in conversation.
Context: What are Leagues?
Current State
Leagues, inspired by Duolingo’s leaderboard, gamifies progress but initially lock users out, requiring activities for access.
Unclear activity requirements and lack of feedback on progress.
Remove access barriers; allow users to explore leagues immediately.
No intrinsic motivation to unlock or compete in leagues.
Visual hierarchy highlights top 3 students per league, making the feature more motivating to get onto the podium.
Absence of meaningful rewards for high rankings.
Add rewards: coins, badges, and friend competitions to boost motivation.
With a couple of these small changes that I’ve outlined in the redesign and in this writeup, I believe that the leagues feature within Bunpo can become much stronger and entice users to use it more!
Context: Homepage Redesign
Current State
Chapters are presented in a long, scroll-heavy list, making navigation cumbersome.
Inefficient chapter navigation.
A grid view of chapters, with different colours based on completion (pink), in progress (yellow), or locked (grey) easily allows users to navigate through their chapters.
Membership banners occupy valuable screen space.
Minimizing the bunpo membership banner allows more space for the main content on the screen.
Language/proficiency selection feels buried.
The new language and proficiency picker allows users to select their learning mode in a more simplified way.
Context: Monthly Challenges
Current State
Monthly Challenges aim to encourage consistent learning, with three challenge types.
Carousel navigation is unclear.
Pagination replaces carousel for clearer navigation.
Medal collection lacks visual feedback.
Medals tab displays all possible medals for the month.
Challenge details are not easily scannable.
Challenge details organized into pills: date, deadlines, and requirements.
I thought that monthly challenges was a really well-designed and developed feature overall; with these changes I believe that it can become even better!
takeaways
Redesigning Bunpo’s core features challenged my approach to user engagement and interface clarity. By prioritizing intuitive navigation and meaningful feedback, I aimed to make language learning more enjoyable and effective.
To learn more about bunpo, check out the (Bunpo website). You can also download the app on the (iOS App Store) or (Google Play Store).
私と同じくらい楽しく日本語を学べますように！
Done reading? (Head back to the homepage).
Cynthia is a design engineer. Find her on (Instagram) and (X).