Timeline
Sep. 2022 - Jun. 2023
Role
Sole Product Designer
Team
Cultural Survival
Creating an audio mobile streaming app for indigenous communities
Overview
Overview: In the Fall of 2022 to Spring of 2023, I was the sole designer among a team of 5 developers and 1 project manager tasked with creating a mobile audio streaming app for the non-profit Cultural Survival, who requested a mobile accessible version of their radio streaming platform.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
What's
Cultural Survival?
Cultural Survival is an indigenous led NGO and registered non-profit founded in 1972 and dedicated to supporting indigenous communities’ self determination, cultures, and political resilience. They utilize advocacy, media, public education, and other resources in order to provide platforms that amplify indigenous voices. One of Cultural Survival’s most popular platforms is their Indigenous Right’s Radio Project, which has over 1200 radio stations in 55 countries.
THE PROBLEM
Currently, Cultural Survival’s Indigenous Rights Radio does not exist in mobile streaming form.
Cultural Survival’s Indigenous Radio broadcasts to over 10 million indigenous people annually ... But although the organization has existed since the 1970s, they still lack a centralized way to distribute their radio shows.
The Indigenous Rights Radio
The Indigenous Rights Radio is, as self-described by Cultural Survival, "uses the power of community radio to inform Indigenous communities of their rights. [They] envision a world in which Indigenous communities, equipped with the knowledge of their rights, are empowered to protect their lands, languages, and cultures."
Above is a map that hosts the number of countries that Cultural Survival's Indigenous radio is present in, as well as their presence in varying countries.
SNEAK PEEK
Accessible, familiar designs
As the lead product designer for this app, my responsibilities ranged from interface and branding design to hosting usability workshops and testing. Before starting, I tasked myself with design goals (both emphasized by the NGO and my team of developers) in order to create specific feature pages. There were unique struggles within this mobile app's user group that needed to be considered and I kept them in mind with the following goals.
Functional
Filtering
Organized
Grant
Database
Offline
Functionality
CREATING DESIGN SOLUTIONS
Wrapping up
At the end of the Spring semester, I emerged with a design file full of multiple iterations and a scalable "design system" of icons, components, and screens ready to ship. Throughout the process, I user-tested the app with multiple other developers and noted some popular insights that I would like to consider for future iterations or collaborative work with the NGO.
IDEATING + CONCEPTUALIZING
Making shopping playful.
My team and I were interested in implementing our research by creating design solutions that would drive interest and motivate young shoppers to explore Shop's diverse e-commerce space. We used the crazy-8's method to ideate 15+ ideas, then focused on 3.
REFLECTIONS & THANKS
Special thanks to Cal Blueprint ↗
If you made it this far — thanks for reading! Thank you again to my lovely team at Cal Blueprint. Here's what I learned during this project.
Reflection 01:
Good documentation is key to working with developers, especially for eventual project-handoffs. This was my first design project in which I collaborated with developers, and I realized establishing a good design system and establishing a clear vision was so important.
Reflection 02:
Working with developers means developing a clearer sense of technical constraints. Because my team varied in programming experience, I had to be cautious and realistic about what we could achieve. An algorithm suggesting new shows to users, for example, was not buildable.
Reflection 03:
I learned to ask lots of questions. Navigating tech jargon is intimidating, but I was lucky to have a really lovely and patient team. Ultimately, this was one of the most valuable learning experiences I’ve had the opportunity to receive in my time at UC Berkeley and I’m very thankful.
