PUEBLO

Mexican Folk Dance wisedom for everyone‍
Folk•lore, noun.       Spanish Meaning Folk: Pueblo      Lore: Wisdom
DURATION
2 Weeks (2023)
MY ROLE
Folk Dance Researcher & UI/UX Designer,
TOOLS
Figma, Adobe Suite

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Addressing the gap in cultural and educational
resources for folk dance enthusiasts in Mexico

PROBLEM STATEMENT
After 15 years of practicing this discipline, I could observe that Traditional Folk Dance in Mexico lacks a centralized platform for cultural preservation, education, and community interaction, posing a challenge for dance enthusiasts and educators to access, share, and promote this rich cultural heritage.
GOAL
Provide an educational engaging experience for students, native dancers and anyone interested in Mexican folk dance.
TASK
Delve into the Arts and Culture marketplace and its relation with digital interfaces focusing on the potential users to create an optimized experience.
SOLUTION
A platform that combines the features of a social platform and a community repository to address the most relevant needs of this big and non- explored community.
KEYWORDS
• Access to Education
• Culture Management
• Interactive Digital Collection
• Research Tools
Unleasing Mexican Folk Culture Through an app. Image of the homescreen being displayed.
Rethinking music player, never miss the second again.
Community that shares content.

Research

The following questions drive this process of discovering and defining the project
01
What does the art/product market look like?
02
Who is our target user?
03
How can we support Camila's needs?

In-depth understand of Mexican folk dance online resources revealed needs and opportunities to impact historical, cultural, and educational aspects.

To start things off, I conducted a market research to understand user interaction with existing platforms and external references for inspiration.
As I explored the topic of Folk Dance in Mexico and its relationship with technology, I discovered a lack of information about this industry to make informed decisions. This led me to conduct a survey to better understand the market opportunities and limitations with users.

Down bellow the insights that helped me understand the targeted market and users preferences.

Key Takeaways

Current digital platforms lack immersion and educational value
Increasing interest in folk dance education and preservation
The information is shared through personal network and that brings limitations.
Mexican folk dance has a rich history and cultural significance with several regional variations

Research

The following questions drive this process of discovering and defining the project
01
What does the art/product market look like?
02
Who is our target user?
03
How can we support Camila's needs?

After acknowledging a technological gap, it's time to understand who is the target user.

The goal is to understand the needs, preferences, and behaviors of the target audience with regards to the acces of Mexican folk dance and cultural education.

Through user interviews with dance researchers, masters, dancers, and students, a new gap in the community's access to material was uncovered. While some masters held valuable information, there was a disconnect between their traditional methods of sharing and the growing preference for internet-based platforms.
View Affinity Map

So, how might we help her...

Key Takeaways

Users were open to share the pieces of information they own
Users highlighted the importance of cultural preservation
Identified challenges in accessing reliable resources
Need for a platform that fosters a sense of community

Research

The following questions drive this process of discovering and defining the project
01
What does the art/product market look like?
02
Who is our target user?
03
How can we support Camila's needs?

She needs to find a trustworthy digital platform that provides reliable information on folk cultural practices

Let's Prioritize Features

PAIN POINT
Difficulty to find reliable information about dances and culture of Mexico.
CAUSE
The institutions or people who have access to it don't have a platform to share it.
SOLUTION
A centralized platform that promotes the exchange of
valuable information.
PAIN POINT
Discovering events or performances is hard and there's no record of them.
CAUSE
Community use social media to share content and their scope is limited to their followers.
SOLUTION
Adapt and improve the social media interaction to promote culture and dance events.
PAIN POINT
The most used tool/digital product, music player, is difficult to use when dancing.
CAUSE
The interface design is not optimized for users in motion specially for dancers.
SOLUTION
Promote music files sharing with a intuitive design interface for dance performance.

Create

The following questions drive this process of ideating and implementing the project
01
How to build up a product with these insights?
02
How does Pueblo feel and look like?
03
Ready to dance?
Interacting with Mexican culture

Building an interactive app for immersive learning and knowledge sharing of Mexican folk dance.

Once I had a clear vision by leveraging our research insights, I was able to design a structure that prioritized the needs and preferences of our users.
After exploring different scenarios,
I thoughtfully designed user flows to ensure that accessing resources is both quick and intuitive. Aided by a simple and well-organized product structure.
View Site MapView User Flows

Create

The following questions drive this process of ideating and implementing the project
01
How to build up a product with these insights?
02
How does Pueblo feel and look like?
03
Ready to dance?
Interacting with Mexican culture

After a lot of feedback, sketches,
iterations, and magic

A brand that embodies the vibrant and diverse and powerful essence of Mexican culture.

Mexican cultural heritage is huge, and so this color palette, that reflects variety, and acts as a guide for the navigation.

A logo that symbolizes an open eye for discovering new experiences, showing respect to mexican traditions

As a simbol of power and identity, the logo of Pueblo redeems a tribute to Nahui Ollin a concept in Aztec/Mexica Cosmology.

Create

The following questions drive this process of ideating and implementing the project
01
How to build up a product with these insights?
02
How does Pueblo feel and look like?
03
Ready to dance?
Interacting with Mexican culture

Introducing a dynamic tool that preserves, promotes, and empowers the rich cultural community of
Mexican folk dance.

Having a broad impact on a range of individuals, including students, educators, choreographers, anthropologists, ethnologists, artisans, and more.

A home screen that invites you to discover.


The UGC User Generated Content and PGC Professionally Generated Content are displayed in the homescreen as Collections.

New content is displayed along with the source.

Events and performances are shown as tickets that will redirect users to other pages.

A leaderboard adds a gamification touch to increase engagement and trafic.
‍

Reliable content that will create more wisdom.


Curated by professionals in this area, Pueblo brings a new opportunity to employ graduates from this career.

Presenting the right information with complementary videos, music and images, as well as the content posted by users.

Bringing an amazing opportunity for anybody who is interested in knowing more about Mexican culture.
‍

Finally, a special music player for dancers.


Inspired by the most used apps like Spotify, but adding the content that has been keept by native dancers.

Dancers and coreographers will no longer need to switch between their notes and music player with the Sequences option for manually entering dance notes.

Opening a space of reflecting upon a political situation about Copyright to traditional musicians.

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A profile that's also a portfolio and grows a community.


The perfect profile for a dancer, a company, an artisan or any artist related to dance and performance that is looking to share their work.

Sharing an image, a song, or writing a post turns this app into a powerful tool for creators looking to preservate Mexican Folk Culture.

Feedback? Yes please.

After having a prototype to test, I conducted a Usability Test with 5 participants, and here are some of the iterations that were collected from their valuable insights.

What I learned:

This usert testing tought me how to adress cultural interests unbiased.
I had the pleasure to speak to high-directives of this  area, and learn from them
Innovation comes from innovative minds, not specially form institutions.
This short project was a challenge to deliver the best MVP.

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Designed and Coded by Yazmin S. 2023.
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