Prende & Emprende 💻 : turn on and launch!
📁 Overview
Prende & Emprende is a non-profit organization with the objective of eradicating technological illiteracy in Latin America through fun programming games that help young students develop programming skills in order to incentivize entrepreneurship and provide greater opportunities for Latin American youth. I designed the non-profit's website for desktop and mobile.
👩🏻💻 My Role
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Chief Executive Officer
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Product Designer
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UX Researcher
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UX Writer
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Visual Designer
Case Study Explained
📌 Problem
There are several problems associated with a lack of education in technology. Some of these include:
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Digital divide: People who lack access to technology and education in technology are at a disadvantage in today's digital age. They may have difficulty finding and keeping jobs, and may miss out on opportunities for personal and professional growth.
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Limited technological literacy: Without education in technology, individuals may have limited understanding of how technology works, which can make it difficult for them to fully participate in the digital economy and make informed decisions about technology use.
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Limited innovation: A lack of education in technology can also limit the number of people who are able to contribute to technological innovation, which can slow down progress and development in the field.
🎯 Goal
Our mission is to offer underprivileged youth an opportunity to learn how to code with the partnership with Tynker to create and mold their own unique curriculum through Tynker's wide range of games and tutorials. This way, incentivizing entrepreneurship through technological literacy.
As a designer, the goal is to design a landing website where people can donate and know more about the non-profit organization.
💡 Brainstorm & Ideation | as a Visual Designer
I started from the very beginning of brainstorming how the logo would look like and deciding the primary colors for the website.
As for the name Prende & Emprende, I came up with it because in Spanish it means "turn on and launch", because you're turning on your computer and launching that amazing idea. I chose the color orange because it's associated with optimism and energy, to convey a message of positivity. On the other hand, the blue was chosen to convey intelligence and wisdom.
🔎 Primary Research | as a UX Researcher
To gather as much information as possible on the demand for technological literacy, we conducted interviews with kids ages from 8 to 13 years old from government schools in Mexico. I asked them if they had any basic computer class in their school, and they told me they did not have any technology education whatsoever, much less programming lessons.
Forbes Magazine wrote in an article that around 73 million jobs could disappear by 2030 because they were being replaced by programmable computers and machines. (McCarthy, 2020) From these gathered insights, we concluded it is vital to incentivize the youth to help them learn to code.
We also created a user persona to empathize with the user and get to know their pain points.
🔁 Information Architecture
✍️ Sketches
Since this website is only an informational website to know more about the non-profit, I decided to go for a one-page website approach; meaning, the website's information will be centered in a single page, and the navigation menu will help as an anchor to a specific section within the page
🧷 Low-fidelity Prototype
Figma was used to create our low-fidelity designs. Using it, we were able to create basic guidelines and bring our sketches to life. These are the screens that were designed at low-fidelity.
🪄 Hi-fidelity Prototype
📲 Interaction Design | as an Interaction Designer
📝 Conducting the Pilot Plan
We conducted a pilot program to see how 3 kids from ages 8-11 years old. It was a total success! They all had no coding experience whatsoever but enjoyed it very much. Each of them built different projects on their own during their spare time.
Sienna
She is 11 years old and she made a song with Tynker.
Pablo
He is 10 years old and he made a zombie project.
Elias
He is 8 years old and he was trying out an project with animation.
🎨 Design System | as a Design Program Manager
Creating the design system for the website made the design process much easier. This is a sticker sheet I made with the components that were most used on the website like the colors, icons, typography, headers and footers.
Benefits of a Design System
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Ensures consistencies in the company's brand.
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It saves time and money by increasing efficiency for individuals and teams. Members of a team will have fewer questions about design specifications, so the work can be finished more quickly.
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They are scalable. It is a system that's able to maintain performance levels when workload increases. This can be particularly helpful at a rapidly growing company like a startup.
🌟 Impact & What I Learned
Designing the website for this non-profit organization was a great experience. I learned how to design to highlight the organization's mission and impact to clearly communicate the organization's mission, goals, and the impact of its work in promoting technological education. Likewise, a responsive design for website is important for a non-profit, as it will make it look good on all devices and screen sizes, and also improves the user experience.
As the creator of this foundation, I learned how to make a pilot plan and I am grateful to put my grain of salt to help youth learn to code and incentivize entrepreneurship, to change the lives for the better, as it changed mine.
Prende & Emprende Foundation was a finalist at the Rise Global competition, a program that finds brilliant people who need opportunity and supports them as they work to serve others for life.
🎵 Check out our song!
Having seen the incredible projects made during the pilot plan, I decided to try it out myself! This is what I made: