Sophie - UX researcher
I am a UX researcher specialising in neurolinguistics and data science, as well as user behaviour and advanced acoustic phonetics and phonology.
I have worked as a language tutor and as a private academic research assistant.
I have a degree in linguistics from the university of York.
Below are a number of case studies highlighting recent research projects I have undertaken for DamnFineDigital.
Case study A
Japanese Language Learning Application: Quantitative analysis
To inform the development of an upcoming Japanese learning application, I undertook a two-week quantitative analysis project to determine the current state of the language learning market, and users’ self-reports on their efficacy.
This would help stakeholders and project leaders better understand how to position the upcoming application, along with what features should be included in the MVP.
Involvement
Junior UX Researcher:
September - October 2026
Tools
Trello (kanban)
Tally (survey design)
Excel (survey results)
Figma (communicating findings)
Recruitment & methodology
As the client was a start-up, they did not have an existing user base to draw upon. Therefore I needed to engage in outreach across social media (e.g., Discord, BlueSky, Reddit) and dedicated channels of Japanese language learning to gather survey participants.
After two weeks, 126 survey completions were collected, with 100 providing complete (non-partial) data. The survey itself asked several questions around app use, self-reported proficiency, and familiarity with Japanese scripts, and was GDPR compliant.
A core filter statement prior to sharing the survey was: "You have been using at least one language learning app to study Japanese for 6 months or longer". This ensured that the collected data was relevant to the project’s requirements.
The raw data was automatically captured in Excel, before being mapped onto a visual chart to aid communication with stakeholders and the wider team.
Findings & recommendations
Several core findings could be parsed from the aggregated data, such as users reporting low confidence in Japanese proficiency despite several months of practice, as well as a surprisingly low familiarity with the hiragana and katakana scripts which pushed against our initial assumptions.
I communicated these findings, along with recommendations for the app’s development, via email and a 45 minute remote Teams meeting.
Next steps
Future research has been planned around competitor research and testing of an Alpha-phase prototype with users.