What is your role at Auralog?
My team essentially has two roles: one is to coordinate all of our software development projects, and the other is to oversee the usability of our products. We are involved from the moment Auralog decides to develop a new product. From the start, I name a project manager and a usability expert whose job it is to analyze the content of the development project. When we design the software, we always think in terms of why and how the user will use it. In this respect, the role of the usability expert is to think about the all the various functions of the software and it’s on-screen layout. Using a blended instructional design approach we are able to blend the latest learning theories and best practices into our programs. When the software’s layout is complete and has been fully tested the program is then considered to be in a state for release. TELL ME MORE is endowed with a wealth of content and functions, and yet our product remains easy to use and navigate. Thanks to its usability, the different elements are organized and presented to the user in an intuitive manner with maximum flexibility.
What has been the most significant product innovation that you’ve participated in?
What made the biggest impression on me was the development of the first web-based version of TELL ME MORE, which in my opinion was a huge leap forward for the company. Users register online, then receive their login information by email. When users connect to the portal, they then can directly access all of our online course content. At the time, I was the project manager for the online version. It was the company’s first venture into offering its solutions over the Internet. There was a team of us who worked on it for a year. Since then, there have been a number of subsequent versions that have been increasingly tailored to match our clients’ needs, but that has to be one of the biggest innovations I’ve been a part of here at Auralog.
In your opinion, what makes TELL ME MORE unique?
Our product by far is most renown for its speech recognition technology, since the technology we’ve developed is the most advanced in its field. However, our product has other strengths, notably the variety of languages that can be learned, as compared to many of our competitors who mostly only offer one language. Another thing that makes us unique is that we offer both CD and online versions of our product, which can be used to complement one another, if the client wishes. Furthermore, although our solutions are geared toward the learner, we have also developed tools to help those who accompany the learner through his or her training: instructors, tutors, administrators… We’ve added a number of services that go along with our product, such as conversation classes and 24-hour support. In my opinion, these services play an increasingly important part in our solutions. I think this is another of our strengths. We are passionate about language learning and keep finding ways to improve our solutions.
