This was a project I completed as a member of the fraternity, Lambda Sigma Upsilon Latino Fraternity Incorporated and wanted to take this opportunity to get more practice with iOS development and mobile interactions. Most importantly I wanted to take this concept and run with it, and create a more engaging, mobile solution for connecting brothers and expanding on the 4 goals of the fraternity.

Brothr 79 is composed of a small team that is currently working on developing a platform for Lambda Sigma Upsilon Latino Fraternity Incorporated, to practice Product Design/Development skill-sets through problem solving leveraging real users.

Brothers have expressed difficulties connecting and networking with other brothers within Lambda Sigma Upsilon Latino Fraternity Incorporated. In addition, some alumni brothers lack sense of purpose and career guidance after graduating. My brothers and I currently use apps like GroupMe and Facebook Groups (left) but these have their own goals and are not really tailored for the fraternity. Therefore, there is no “official” means of communication between the brothers, especially one that aligns with out goals, discussed later.

I started my research by deep diving into the color palette for the app by researching for color and inspiration. Competitors use of colors and and pulling from a wide variety of over 80 photos that were then categorized and put into clusters . To make this clearer and easier to show our testers I created four inspirational mood boards: Dark Ocean, Dark Sky, Light Ocean and Light Sky; all of which were inspired by the brand of the orginization.

After down selecting the colors from the mood boards, I developed a grid like color system that embodied the four color schemes from the pre-design that inspires the dark and light mode directions in the circular grid. A circular grid would give a clearer view for stake holders and the team to see how these colors may work together.

To address the complexity of the app, over 50 screens were designed, covering various functionalities such as user onboarding, dashboard setup, support, and search engine features. In order to maintain consistency and streamline the design-to-development handover process, an evolved color palette and a modular design system were implemented. This system was based on reusable components, including cards, nibs, list items, and controls, each with their own states. This approach allowed for flexibility in rearranging and combining components while ensuring design consistency and recognizable UI patterns for the users.

One of the highly sought-after features in the app was a robust search engine that would enable users to find brothers based on specific needs and requests, in a quick and efficient manner. The goal was to create a simple and intuitive discoverability experience that would cater to individualized queries (e.g., Dominican, Irish, mechanical engineer, comic books) and associate them with relevant user profiles. Through in-depth conversations with the brothers, we identified unique connection points within the brotherhood, including interests, hobbies, careers, and passions. By leveraging these insights, we developed a one-tap interaction that allowed brothers to easily edit their connecting points, including tags and discoverability, within the fraternity as a whole.

Continual user testing is a crucial step in the design process, even after each iteration. The design process is a continuous journey, with opportunities for improvement at every stage. In this project, the next step would involve implementing changes based on the customer journey experience testing. Live testing sessions would be conducted with brothers from the fraternity who participated in the focus groups, ensuring that their feedback and insights are incorporated to enhance the user experience.