Ruta N

Ruta N is the innovation and business center of Medellín; its purpose is to contribute to the improvement of the life quality of the citizens through science, technology and innovation.

Role

Design system, Product design, UI design, UX design

How did I help?

Product discovery, Benchmarking, User research, Information architecture, Wireframes, Mockups, Design system

Project duration

15 months

Challenge

Design and develop a new portal that would bring the people of the city closer to the Ruta N brand, where every user would have access to science, technology and innovation information in accordance with their interest.

Solution

We created a new user-centered portal with a new information architecture that allows users to find valuable information according to their profile, as well as, reduce the path in searches, postulations, opportunities and services that the corporation offers. Also we were able to create the brand's own CMS, in order to centralize the information and improve the user experience in the admin and tracking data.

Research

As the UX design leader, I began with research to understand the users' needs and align them with the project.
We conducted a benchmark and usability test in the main innovation centers worldwide. Then, we created user profiles based on brand studies and generated hypotheses about their needs. We validated these hypotheses through a survey of real users.

The survey lasted 3 days, during which we received 110 responses from recurrent users of the Ruta N website. In that survey, we were able to identify: user profiles, interesting, reasons to visit and content that they would like to find on the Ruta N website.

Architecture

Based on the survey results, we identified critical aspects to improve the website experience. I led card sorting sessions with the Ruta N team to develop the sitemap.

I spent weeks taking inventory of the content and designing navigation flows to ensure consolidated information.

This process culminated in the creation of wireframes to show the team the path of the website.

UI Design

A design system was established to maintain consistency in the user interface (UI) and provide clear guidance to the development team. Then, mockups of the views defined in the architecture process were created, adapted for desktop, tablet, and mobile.

MiRuta

During the project development, we recognized the importance of providing a user-centered experience on the website. Therefore, we created "MiRuta," a space where users can centralize their interests according to their profile, receive relevant information, and authenticate with a username and password.
This allows them to save information for future event registrations, offers, and other corporation services.

CMS MiRuta

As a part of the need to centralize the information and ways that it's administered, the dev team proposed building a platform to manage the information that is deployed from the website.

This platform provides a single point of management and traceability of information, benefiting internal Ruta N users by simplifying their work.