The Bond and Bridge
Client
Krystal Williams
CEO of The Bond of Bridge
My Role
UX Design Lead
Timeline
4 week
Tool
Figma
Adobe Creative Suite
Miro
My Role
UX Design Lead
Summary
* change to bullet points:
This is project is about building a digital platform for young professional Caribbean diasporas
to help them finding a community in local area and reconnecting their heritage.
For users high acceptance on AI features, we created AI-driven service that helps user to find a community with shared interests and developed a design system for brand cohesiveness across platforms along with extensive user research.
Problem
*write in one sentence and user icons visualize
▫️Disconnected from heritage and origin
▫️Hard to find local community
▫️Lack of brand cohesiveness across digital platforms.
Solution
▫️Promote local events to experience Caribbean culture
▫️Create AI-driven services to help reconnecting local Caribbean community
▫️Develop design system and component library to have brand cohesiveness across various digital platforms.
*show "before" and "after' vusualization
*tell where did I find the problem and how did I find a solution
* use the same 3d or 2d icons
Process
Discover
Synthesis
▫️Affinity map
▫️Persona
▫️User Flow
▫️Service Blueprint
Design
▫️Sketch
▫️Wireframe
▫️Design system
▫️Lo-Fidelity
▫️Hi-Fidelity
Prototype
▫️Hi-Fidelity
👀
🔍
📊
🎨
💻
Research
▫️Stats
▫️Interview
Discover
* less words, more visualization
Our client created a social network platform for young adult professional Caribbean immigrants who are interested in learning and carrying on their homeland culture to reconnect with their own origin-identity.
The current platforms such as website and Face Book page had inconsistent brand identity in terms of design, a lack of accessibility and functionality for user to find desire communities with common interests.
Our client wanted to increase the user traffics across the digital platforms with upgraded accessibility and functionality.
As a Design Lead on the project, I focused on developing easy accessibility and useful functionality with design cohesiveness across various platforms by understanding the current users and the future users based on our user research methodologies.
Research
1. Demographic stats
Key Takeaways
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4.5 million Caribbean immigrants mostly live in Florida and New York.
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Lack of access to Caribbean community outside of New York and Florida.
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Most of them are working age (18 to 65 years old)
4.5 Million
Caribbean immigrants in the US in 2022
Two-third lived in 2 big cities
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41% in Florida
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25% in New York
78% of working age in US
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73% working age born outside of US
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59% working age born in US
2. Interview
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Interviewed 11 Caribbeans + 2 stakeholders
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Surveyed with 30 responses
Key Takeaways
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54% of survey respondents having difficulty to connect with local Caribbeans
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65% of survey respondents said the family is the key aspect of being Caribbean
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42% of survey respondents never or rarely socialize with the Caribbean community outside of their own families
"You grew up feeling too American to be Caribbean and too Caribbean to be American."
- Krystal Williams, CEO, The bond and Bridge
54% of survey respondents
having difficulty to connect with local Caribbeans
65% of survey respondents
said the family is the key aspect of being Caribbean
42% of survey respondents
never or rarely socialize with the Caribbean community outside of their own families
Synthesis
1. Affinity mapping
Trend from Affinity mapping
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Connection through family and language
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Having identity as Caribbean in US
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Food is a strong connection
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Guilt and regret of leaving homeland
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Connection through traveling motherland
2. Persona
Design
Design Studio
Sketch
Wireframe
Lo-Fidelity
Feature1 : AI matching profile
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connecting with heritage
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Speaking in their own languages
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Forging cultural community
Feature2 : Custom Itineraries
-
make own eternities
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connecting with people
- continue the community
Feature3 : Local Business Directory
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Bridge local business with community
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Promote their own business
Design System
To provide cohesiveness of branding across digital platforms, I built up the design system and information architecture.
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Takeaway
Understanding another culture is one of key elements as a UX designer.
It was a great opportunity to learn about Caribbean culture and to hear their thoughts and concerns. As an Korean immigrant myself, I was able to find a lot of connections of Caribbean diasporas desires to continue their heritage and identity.
Furthermore, bridging the delivering heritage to the next generation with the advanced digital platform was the reason I want to continue the user-centered design.