Despite Brazil being 56% black, we do not see black people in positions of power and occupying predominantly white spaces, such as in the medical staff of hospitals, in the faculty of universities, in politics, among others.

In addition, unemployment affects black people more than white people. One way to increase racial equity in these spaces is to ensure that job opportunities reach all black people, at various levels of seniority.

The solution I have developed, called the Ministry of the People, aims to expand and build a network that connects black professionals and potential clients or partner companies, from various areas and levels of activity, such as doctors, masons, programmers, painters, among others.

As a product, I designed a mobile application capable of connecting black professionals from various segments and levels of the market, to potential consumers, moving Black Money in the Brazilian economy and valuing the circular economy.

Context

According to data from the National Household Sample Survey (IBGE, 2019), about 56% of the Brazilian population identifies as black or brown.

But why is it so difficult to find a black cardiologist in a public hospital? or a black CEO in a large company? or a black professor at a Federal University?

Objective

To propose the development of a mobile application to connect black professionals in the Federal District with potential clients, enhancing the visibility of these professionals and promoting the movement of “Black Money” (suggested translation for the term Dinheiro de Gente Preta) in the Brazilian economy.

Specific objectives

1. To increase the number of services provided to potential clients by black professionals.
2. To contribute to making black professionals more easily recognized and found by clients.
3. To value the movement of Black Money, with more income being moved among black people.

Methodology

The methodology used for the development of the solution was an adaptation of the Double Diamond, known for solving problems in a more assertive, complete and empathetic way.

It was applied in four stages in the project: Discover, Define, Develop and Test and Iterate. Service design tools, such as personas, value mapping, and focus groups, were used in combination and will be described in the following topics.

Stage 01 – Discover

In Stage 01, Discover, I analyzed and studied various materials and described the insights from each of them in the previous chapter of theoretical foundation.

Then, I searched for and mapped similar initiatives to the Ministry of the People. Next, I asked a simple question to 6 people close to me to validate whether the solution I was building made sense to them, and the result was favorable.

Stage 02 – Define

In the second stage, Define, I defined the general and specific objectives, the target audience, created some personas, developed the naming and visual identity of the brand, and finally the requirements for the application.

Target Audience

Next, I defined the target audience, with two main groups: consumer and black professional audiences.

• • Audience 01 – Consumers: they hire services through the internet, in Facebook groups, on Instagram, by searching on Google, or mainly by asking for recommendations. They have average familiarity in using the internet on smartphones.

  • Audience 02 – Black Professionals: they are professionals who advertise their products and services offline, through business cards, flyers, and word-of-mouth marketing, and also online, in Facebook groups, Instagram pages, they may have their business page on Google, they usually respond via WhatsApp and email, and sometimes have a website. They have average familiarity with the internet on smartphones and computers.

Personas

Naming

The name was created around the word “povão”. Normally, it is a term used pejoratively to refer to people from less privileged social classes, especially black people. The goal of using this name for this project is to invert the semantics of the word “povão” and show that the black population is significant in number, strong, united, and self-sustainable.

There is also the word “Ministério”, which has, among its meanings, the work, exercise of a position, or function. For the project, it would have a sense of being a work aggregator.

Visual Identity of the Brand

The brand was developed based on the characteristics of the following words: Brazilian, black, culture, people, crowd, multitude, warriors, work, workers, aggregator, network, connect, connection, diversity. After the conceptualization, I developed some versions for the logo, choosing the typographic family and color palette, as well as testing the application of the brand in some graphic pieces.

Logo

The symbol of the logo was constructed from the merging of the Brazilian flag with a person representing Brazilians. Simple flat shapes, such as the blue circle on the head, the yellow diamond, and vibrant colors were used to represent the diversity of the country.

Typography

The typography used is Cabrito, developed by Jeremy Dooley, through the American studio Insigne Design and available on Adobe Fonts. The font was used in Light weight for the word “Ministério” and Norm Demi in “do Povão.” The words are in lowercase to convey a sense of practicality, humanity, and modernity. In addition, the weight in “do Povão” is intentional to value the black Brazilian people.

Color Palette

I chose six colors for the brand and they were later broken down for the prototype. They are very vibrant and contrasting colors, providing great possibilities for combinations.

Graphic Pieces

Some graphic pieces were created for Instagram to illustrate the idea of a network. The idea was to post original and curated content by black Brazilians.

Application Requirements

As the last part of this stage, some requirements were defined for the application. The requirements serve to assist in the construction of the application’s structures. They are requirements for functionality, usability, user, and experience.

1. The application must be intuitive, with simple and fluid navigation;
2. The user can arrive at the same screen through various flows and functionalities;
3. The network should prioritize black people first;
4. The colors should represent Brazilian cultural plurality and diversity;
5. The user should feel sufficiently informed during their navigation.
6. The functionality of sorting professionals should default to location, up to 12 kilometers from the user.

Stage 03 – Develop

In the third stage, Develop, I began to structure the application. Based on the definition of the application’s requirements, research, and studies on interfaces, I chose the consumer audience to build the user flow in Miro, to better understand the navigation flow that the audience would have in the application. After that, I made some low-fidelity prototypes on A4 paper and grouped similar propositions, then prioritized them for further high-fidelity prototype development, which I made in Figma software.

User navigation flow

For the navigation flow, I chose the consumer audience to develop the solution. The flow is divided into three layers. The top layer, in pink, shows the main activities that users can develop in the application. The central layer, in blue, shows the steps users have to take to complete the activities. And in yellow, there are details, which are granular and more detailed interactions to complete the steps.

Low-Fidelity Prototyping

After defining the consumer user flow, I drew some screens by hand on A4 paper. To do this, I printed the templates in the proportions of the iPhone 13, the same size I would use in the high-fidelity prototype.

The choice of using the iPhone 13 as support is that my phone is an iPhone 12, and it would be more viable to test the application in real-time on it, but the solution itself was designed to run on a variety of operating systems and devices.

High-Fidelity Prototyping

n the high-fidelity prototyping phase, I developed the screens and interactions in the Figma application. Figma is a popular online vector editor used for interface development. It was possible to previously organize the entire application’s design system with buttons, typography, color palettes, icons, and much more, as well as designing each of the screens and their interactions.

Design System

The first step was to develop the application’s identity. To do this, I analyzed the development guidelines for the iPhone 13, which has some fixed elements, such as the status bar, located at the top of the screen. I chose this iPhone model because it is compatible with my device, enabling me to test more quickly. These guidelines were obtained through the Figma community page.

Guidelines: The base guidelines serve to define the limits of where a screen can be built. In red, we have the status bar, with 44 pixels in height. In blue, we have the vertical side limits, defined at 20 pixels. It serves as a safety margin to prevent content from sticking to the edges. And in pink, we have the area where the iPhone action button is located, with 34 pixels.

 

 

 

Grids:The application has an 8-column layout, with 20 pixels of safety margin (as shown in the blue color of the previous item) and 10 pixels of spacing between the blue columns.

 

  

Color Palette: from the brand’s color palette presented earlier, I developed lighter and darker tones to be used with even more contrast with the backgrounds.

Typography

The typography used throughout the application was the Montserrat font family. I used different weights and sizes according to the hierarchy of information. There are three weights for titles, three for body text, three for notes, and two for labels. Avatars

Avatars

Some avatars were created to illustrate the user’s profile in the application, as well as social media icons for the user to connect or register. There are three types: the first, which is standard, is the user’s name initials. The second is images uploaded by the user, and the third is illustrations representing Brazilians, similar to the brand logo. 

Professional Cards

The cards are repeated on many screens of the app and their structure is the same. They feature the avatar, activity symbol (represented by the green dot), professional’s name, professional category (below the name), and distance, as well as icons representing add to favorites, contact, and the arrow to access the profile.

Buttons

The buttons follow the same pattern, with the text inserted in a centered manner within a rectangle.

Inputs

When text input is necessary, there are two aesthetics that the inputs follow. The first is for the registration moment and is similar to the search input. The second is related to the inputs for completing the profile registration.

Ícones

The icons used in the app are from a collection in Figma. 21 icons were used, some to represent categories and others for app functions.

Screens

There were 33 screens developed. There are common elements in most of them, such as the top menu, cards, filters, and the contact menu. The idea is that the user can access the solution even without being registered, but when they register and maintain an active account, they have several benefits, such as being able to save professionals or stores in their favorites, leave reviews on professionals’ pages, and receive personalized recommendations based on their interests in categories.

Click below to navigate the prototype screens:

Step 04 – Test and Iterate

In the last step, Test and Iterate, after building the first version of the app, I tested the usability of the app with 6 users who fell into one of these levels of familiarity with technology: low familiarity with technology, medium/high familiarity with technology, and the third, Black professionals who have medium familiarity with technology.

Usability testing:

A few days before the tests, I sent an email invitation to all the people who volunteered to participate, containing the link to the Google Meets call. I explained what the Ministry of Povão app was and the purpose of the tests, and asked for permission to record screen, audio, and voice. To start the tests, I asked two questions to understand their consumption habits:

1. How do you hire a professional or a service today? Describe the step-by-step process. If you use an app, which one is most used?
2. Which of these points – quality, price, location – is the most important factor that you consider when hiring a professional or service?

Then I entered the second block of the test, which was to test the app itself. I sent the link to the high-fidelity navigable prototype in Figma in the Google Meets chat and individually assigned one of the following tasks to each user. I divided the tests into three blocks of users and asked them to share their screen while they performed the tasks.

• Task 01: Access the glassworker Milton’s Instagram page through the search function.
• Task 02: Sign up for the app as a consumer, complete the profile, and access Milton the glassworker’s phone number.
• Task 03: Access the glassworker Milton’s website from the favorites page.

The first block lasted about 45 minutes and was done with Madu and Vitor, two Black designers who were categorized as consumers. The intention was to separate them from the others because they are designers and have experience with interface design, which could end up hindering the performance of others.

The second block lasted about an hour and was done with Ester and Kali as consumers and Victoria as a professional/consumer. They are aged between 22 and 26 years old and fall into the category of medium/high familiarity with technology.

The third and last block of tests was done with my mother Rossana, a user with low technology skills. The test was done in-person because I wanted to closely follow each touch and navigation intention, and I used a smartphone to run the navigable prototype.

Usability Analysis

After the individual execution of each task, the following usability metrics were evaluated: a) After-Scenario Questionnaire (ASQ), and b) System Usability Scale (SUS).

After-Scenario Questionnaire (ASQ)

Originally called After-Scenario Questionnaire, it is a questionnaire created by J. R. Lewis and consists of three questions on a scale of 1 to 7 that measure the level of ease, the level of satisfaction with the execution time, and the level of information and support during execution. The questions and respective response averages were:

1. 1. On a scale of 1 to 7 (where 1 represents very difficult and 7 very easy), what was the level of ease in performing the task? Average: 4.4 out of 7

   2. On a scale of 1 to 7, how satisfied are you with the time it took to complete the task? Average: 4.8 out of 7

   3. On a scale of 1 to 7, how satisfied are you with the level of support and information while completing the task? Average: 5.1 out of 7

After-Scenario Questionnaire (ASQ)

The System Usability Scale, created by John Brooke in 1986, is composed of ten questions that range on a scale of 1 to 5 and evaluate the usability of the application, covering points on the integration of functionalities, ease of use, and desire to use, as well as the level of support and prior knowledge for use.

1. 1. I think I would like to use this application frequently.

   2. I think the application is unnecessarily complex.

   3. I found the application easy to use.

   4. I think I would need the help of a person with technical knowledge to use the application.

   5. I think the various functions of the application are very well integrated.

   6. I think the application is very inconsistent.

   7. I imagine that people will learn how to use this application quickly.

   8. I found the application clumsy to use.

   9. I felt confident using the application.

   10. I needed to learn several new things before being able to use the application.

The overall average of user responses was 62 on a scale that ranges from 0 to 100, where the average is normally 68. Averages below 68 usually indicate issues with navigability and usability. In the case of the solution, I needed to improve some points.

At the end of the tests, all users were invited to share their general perceptions of the application as a group. Some of the points brought up during the discussions were accepted in subsequent iterations, while others did not make as much sense for the essence of the solution, or could compromise the planned experience.

Final Considerations

I conclude the work by revisiting some of the highlights. Working with racial and social themes is always a challenge, as there are several visible and invisible factors to be researched and deeply understood before creating solutions for those who will be using them.

I believe that the high-fidelity prototype was able to visually translate the objective of enhancing the talents and visibility of Black and Brown professionals in all structures and elements, whether in the colors, buttons, position of each icon, hierarchy of information on each screen, or providing customization opportunities for professionals.

The work developed was limited to the consumer flow, as it would be a more interesting MVP at the moment. As future possibilities, I would develop the application by building the flow for professionals, creating a collective forum to further expand the network.

I would also build training initiatives in various areas for professionals to specialize with other Black professionals in the network and with the support of the Ministry of the People. The application has a lot of potential to be implemented, and for that, a technology team would be needed to continue with development and programming.

Thank You 🙂