Role: UX/UI Designer
Tools: Figma, Illustrator, Google Docs, and miro.
Simbi Foundation is a non-profit organization that provides support for refugee communities that face challenges accessing quality education.
As a UX/UI Designer Volunteer, I’ve been collaborating with Simbi Foundation for redesigning of Simbi Learn Cloud and the whole design system. SLC is an offline platform in which South Sudanese and students from different parts of the world can improve their educational curriculum. SLC is based on the Rachel operating system in the microcomputers that can work offline.
The main goal was designing an accessible platform for students with with impaired vision due to the civil war - never used glasses. And also, to ensure it's a quick and intuitive process.
The research was based on the Ugandese educational system, the South Sudanese culture and disabilities focused on new technologies. My team and I made surveys to discover the student’s and teachers’ needs toward SLC. We also investigated about from different research and an interview with one of the directors in Africa. In addition, we did a comparative research analysis in order to research different websites layout that can be a good fit for SLC. Finally, we did a Rachel's audit based on the heuristics.
We concluded that Rachel is hard to navigate because most students and teachers are not familiar with new technologies or has low computer literacy and groups of students have limited time to use SLC. It also has too many buttons on one single page and the user is left wondering where to click, doesn't prioritize content and doesn't provide instructions for navigation.
After the research, we started wrapping all the research information we obtained in an affinity diagram and create our personas.
We made an accessible color palette and font pairing and we tested for accessibility with a contrast checker. We also tested the color palette with people that are not familiar with new technologies.
We design the low-fi and mid-fi wireframes. We did an A-B test of two versions with children and then, we present and discuss the most suitable elements for SLC.
For the hi-fi wireframes, we designed some icons and some volunteer illustrators helped us with some backgrounds and imaginary.
At the moment, a beta version of the SLC was launched and a full version will be available after the new BrightBoxes will be installed in Uganda.
