Embedded Files
Cultivate
Responsibilities
UX Researcher: Competitive Analysis
UX Designer: User Flows, Wireframes, Lo-Fi/Hi-Fi Prototypes
Project Details
February 2023
Created during the Design at UCI Design-a-thon
Tools: FigJam, Figma
Background
During the Design at UCI Design-a-thon in 2023, I partnered with 3 other designers from the University of North Texas to create a product that would shine a light on the cultures of immigrants in the DFW area.
Prompt
Living in a world often divided, it’s more difficult than ever to foster community across individuals of diverse backgrounds and perspectives. As a result, we often see marginalized voices being suppressed and devalued as less than. As designers who can create and inspire change, how can we amplify and empower cultures of community and inclusivity in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and beyond?
Solution
My team decided to answer the prompt by creating Cultivate, an online platform where people from around the DFW area would be able to host classes on specific aspects of their culture, whether it be food, music, art, or some other facet of their customs. These classes would be hosted online, allowing others in the area to participate and learn about their neighbors from the comfort of home.
Product Brainstorming
With the prompt in mind, our first step was to figure out which marginalized community our product would be designed to empower. After we each brainstormed numerous options, we settled on the immigrant population, as all of our parents are immigrants, and we've witnessed many of the ways they are marginalized first-hand.
After deciding on the community, we discussed which of their issues we could design for. We saw that many times, immigrant voices are suppressed because others think of them as outsiders and don't have a way to learn about them as people. We wanted to create a way for immigrants to share their culture, customs, and personality. Our hope was that with Cultivate, immigrants can take a leading role in educating users and humanizing those who share their backgrounds.
User Research
In order to understand the best ways to go about facilitating this education, we conducted user interviews with 10 of our peers in the DFW area. These interviews, along with a survey answered by over 30 more of our peers, led us to the idea of a virtual hub for live classes showcasing specific aspects of creators' cultures. Users would be able to join a creator's class and learn how to cook a dish, craft a work of art, navigate a dance style, and more. These live lessons also grant the creator a platform to share stories from home, raise awareness for causes they support, or even advertise their own small business.
Feature Ideation
Once we had a more defined idea of who our target users were, what problem we wanted to solve, and how we would do it, we had an ideation session to generate possible features for the product.
With limited time, we knew that we couldn't prototype all of the ideas we had to the quality level we wanted. We organized the features into an impact matrix so that we could properly prioritize items to work on throughout the duration of the 36-hour design-a-thon.
User Flow
Given the time constraints of the event, we had to quickly iterate through the next steps. First, we played around with various user flows before settling on what felt like an intuitive navigation.
Visual Inspiration
Next, we researched how other platforms like Coursera, MasterClass, and Skill Share present their courses, using their UIs as inspiration for our own.
Prototypes
What followed was a long and sleepless night of wireframing and prototyping. While on a Discord call with the rest of the team, I went through what felt like countless iterations of our designs, frequently taking breaks to look up YouTube tutorials on how to prototype a specific feature on Figma or hopping on calls with mentors from UCI to chat about our ideas. In the end, we created a functional prototype we were proud of and submitted our project at the competition deadline.
Results
While our project didn't end up placing, we got incredible feedback from a panel of industry judges highlighting the key aspects of our design that worked for them. Our idea was unique compared to the competition, and the judges really liked where we went with our concept. Ultimately the deciding factor that kept us from a podium finish was a level of polish on the final product compared to the teams that ended up winning.
The experience was invaluable to me, being my first time participating in a design-a-thon. I learned more about product design in that 36-hour timespan than I had in the previous 36 weeks. Having to lock into the UX process for the duration of the challenge allowed me to focus on accomplishing each step as efficiently as possible. This forced me to learn new, faster ways to approach the process without sacrificing quality.
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