Yuma!
Role
UX/UI Designer
Illustrator
Services
UI Design
UX Design
Branding
YUMA! Is a Colombian brand of chocolate-covered fruits and nuts that works with local farms under fair-trade practices, seeking to build trust and cultural connection through its digital presence. In collaboration with two of my classmates we completed our dissertation around forming this brand + UX informed website for our client, Sofia Mallarino Preciado.
The aim of this project was to analyse consumer behaviour and digital journeys across cultures, creating a website + brand that adapts intuitively to Colombian and US users.
How can understanding of cultural perceptions contribute to investigating the link between visual design, consumer acquisition and engagement?
OUR RESEARCH QUESTION
Objectives
Understand how website navigation and content engagement vary by cultures via card sorting.
Create a UI that is understandable to users from both Colombia and the United States via usability testing.
Identify user types in Colombia and the United States via secondary research, social surveys, use profiles and consumer journeys.
The philosophical approach we took to complete this dissertation was Interpretivism, and we used a mixed-methods research approach which included the collection of both qualitative and quantitative data.
Data Collection Methods
Initial Research
To prepare for the implementation phases of this project, we conducted Online Surveys and Open Card Sorting tasks to determine how users from Colombia and the United States differ with product preferences, colour associations, and brand trust.
Since our primary goal for this dissertation was to analyse the implications of cross-cultural UX on consumer acquisition and engagement, thorough analysis of both cultures was crucial.
After completing online surveys and analysed cultural differences, we created two User Personas: one for Colombian users and the other representing users from the United States. Of the User Personas came the User Journeys, from which we created actionable problem statements.
User Personas + User Journeys
Information Architecture
Using the data collected from the Online Surveys, Card Sorting, and Problem Statements, we created a simple information architecture to help guide us into the ideate + prototyping phases.
Low Fidelity Wireframes
I created brand illustrations depicting the flora and fauna surrounding Colombia’s river Magdalena (affectionately called Yuma by native Colombians)
Final Prototypes
Created for Yuma! Chocolates
Collaborators: Sofia Mallarino Preciado and Elena Rusu
UI Designed Independently
