The state of UX in Colombia in 2018
Intro
A lot of friends and colleagues from Colombia and abroad have asked me about the present state of design and UX in the country and this has moved me to do some research, to ask people, and compile information.
Having returned to Colombia after 15 years living abroad, I’m finding that the technology scene is very active and has strong communities, there are also many things happening in the country related to technology and there’s advancement in the field: we still have a long way to go but we are on the right path. But on the other hand, although Graphic Design has acquired an almost mature state in Colombia, Interaction Design, Product Design, User Experience Design, User Interface Design and even Web Design amongst others, are struggling to catch up or even get close to international standards or best practices: the reality is that there are many socio-economic reasons that affect the development of the UX field in Colombia but I’m not going to veer into that conversation, which is mostly political. The reason I’m writing this article is to paint a picture of the state of UX in Colombia from a perspective of someone who has worked in the field of design and UX outside of the country for many years and has been almost for a year working in Colombia. My perspective is now more of an outsider than it is as an insider, but I can almost tie those two points of view together.
In this article, you will find what’s going in the local UX scene. I will talk about UX and Design education, and I’ll show few examples of sites and apps created in Colombia.
The local UX scene
Medellín
I’m pleased and humbled to announce that I’ve just become the Local Leader of IDF Medellín at the Interaction Design Foundation. This means that, in the coming months, I’ll be taking up the responsibility (and pleasure) of building a vibrant and meaningful community of UX Designers in Medellín and helping the other local leaders from the IDF Colombia.
For UX designers in Medellín, as well as people around Medellín interested to learn more about User Experience, this means that there’ll soon be regular meet-ups where we can network with one another, discuss UX problems and solutions, and talk about anything relating to user experience and design. I can’t wait to see the community we’ll build together! The first IDF Medellín Meetup will be held at Cariñito Café by Ciudad del Río. We'll meet in a casual environment, over delicious coffee, and we’ll discuss the future of the IDF Medellín and the local UX community.
There’s a lot of talent in this city and there are some active groups in the UX community but this is a chance to grow the community even further: by being a Local Leader of the Interaction Design Foundation I have the perfect opportunity to be supported by a non-profit organization that is very serious about UX.
Presently, there’s only 4 Meetup groups related to UX in Medellin and none for graphic design.
Medellin User Experience Group is the most active Meetup group in the city and they have held 21 events since 2013.
Experiencias de usuario asombrosas by Pragma is a private Meetup group with some events held in the past.
Interaction Design Medellín Meetup Groups is organized by me, Juan Madrigal and as the Local leader for both the IxDA & IDF, we have support from them (by the way, we are looking for volunteers to help us organizing events).
Go to Ceiba is another Meetup group that offers good quality and interesting Meetups but is not 100% about UX or Interaction Design
Most of these Meetup groups offer two to three events per year which is a low frequency for a city the size of Medellin: this indicates there’s a need for more events but it could be also that people are not interested in Meetups or don’t know they exist.
In order to test the water and see what was happening with these meetups, I met with the leaders of these Meetup groups and we organized a Meetup in November 2017 called “Día de la Usabilidad: Planeación para el 2018” with the main objective of listening to the UX community and plan for next year: it was an interesting Meetup and we had around 30 attendees. We saw interest in growing the community by both the attendees and the leaders and we might join forces in the future to organize other events but each Meetup group seems to have their own agendas.
Now with the IDF Medellín Community, we have a chance to add a new way for the UX Community in Medellín for learning, networking, mentoring and meeting people that share the same interests.
Note: the Interaction Design Foundation has a membership but the events are mostly free and you don’t have to be a member to go these events or Meetups.
Bogotá
For many cultural reasons and very strong private and governmental sectors, Bogotá is more active in UX. We can find more UX meetups and events but not too much more than Medellín and the rest of large cities in Colombia, there is the IDF Bogotá local group and they held five events since 2015.
There are 7 Meetup groups. 4 Meetup groups about UX and 3 about Graphic design:
UX Experiencia de Usuario / Colombia, has a nice write up about their objectives but they haven’t had any events and there’s nothing planned on their agenda:
Ux Workshops Colombia held one quality event in 2017 and there’s nothing on their calendar for 2018:
Meetup IxD — Bogotá is a group that is looking to consolidate a local community, they have held two small events
DiseñoWebFusa is about everything related to Web design and they don’t have any past or upcoming events:
Designers Night — Bogotá is the official Sketch group of, yes you guessed it right, Bogotá and they held one event in 2017.
Más Diseño Bogotá is the most active and oldest Meetup group in Bogotá in terms of members, and events, it has held over 35 events since 2012 and although is not a Meetup group entirely focused on UX, they do a lot of UX related meetups.
Cali
As the third largest city in Colombia, Cali has 2 Meetup Groups and an active IDF Cali local group with 3 events held since 2014.
There are 2 Meetup groups. 2 Meetup groups about UX and 0 about Graphic design:
IDF Cali is a group organized by Cali’s IDF local Leader and they have held one event in 2017.
Cali Usabilidad Meetup is a group about Usability but they haven’t held any events yet.
North Coast or Caribe
There’s only one local chapter of the IDF in this region, it is the IDF Barranquilla and they have held one event in 2014 but nothing after.
Comunidad de Diseñadores del Caribe is the only Meetup group on the North Coast but they haven’t held any events yet.
The rest of Colombia
There's no UX meetups or IDF local groups in any other cities in Colombia and there are very few design groups that have held only a couple of events.
Makerspace — MakerMan Manizales
I’m guessing that there’s a chance that there could be other groups with different Meetup formats or platforms but the information above is the only one I found online. There’s obviously some sporadic courses, seminars or talks in Colombia but in this case, I’m only considering community building groups. If there’s any other groups or meetups that you consider are relevant, please let me know in the comments below.
Education
There are no programs in the country that specialize in UX, although you might see UX as a subject in some curriculums I couldn’t find any university in Colombia that offers a specialized program, neither for a Certificate (Especialización) or Bachelors (Pregrado) nor a Masters (Maestría) for User Experience or Interaction Design. That leaves a big question…
How are people getting formed in UX in Colombia?
There’s many answers to this question but the number one is online courses. The way I learned UX was a combination of online and in-person courses, working in the field, learning from colleagues, reading and Meetups on top of a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, this path took me many years.
Below, you’ll find a list of institutions and/or curses that offer some (or none) UX or web design related subjects in their curriculum, in no special order. Here you'll see anything from bachelors, masters, certificates or technical studies. Also, as with the groups or meetups, let me know if I’m missing something. The objective of this list is to have an overview of the UX or interaction Design education available in Colombia.
Bogotá
- Jorge Tadeo Lozano: Diseño Interactivo
- Jorge Tadeo Lozano: Diseño Gráfico
- Universidad Piloto de Colombia: Diseño Gráfico
- Fundación Universidad Área Andina: Diseño Gráfico
- Fundación Universidad Área Andina: Diplomado Diseño y Desarrollo de Publicaciones Digitales Interactivas
- Institución Universitaria Politécnico Grancolombiano: Diseño Gráfico
- Universidad Santo Tomás: Diseño Gráfico
- Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios: Tecnología en Comunicación Gráfica
- Universidad de Los Andes: Diseño Gráfico
- Universidad de Los Andes: Maestría en Diseño
- Escuela de Artes y Letras: Diseño Gráfico
- LCI: Diseño Gráfico
- Universidad Nacional de Colombia: Diseño Gráfico
Medellín
- Universidad de Medellín: Comunicación Gráfica Publicitaria
- Universidad de Medellín: Comunicación Estratégica para la Web
- Academia Superior de Artes: Tecnología en Producción de contenidos Gráficos Digitales
- Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana: Diseño Gráfico
- Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana: Ingeniería en diseño de Entretenimiento Digital
- Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana: Especialización en Diseño Estratégico e Innovación
- Bellas Artes: Diseño Visual
- Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia: Diseño Crossmedia
- Colegiatura Colombiana: Diseño Gráfico
- Universidad Católica Luis Amigó: Diseño Gráfico
- Cesde: Asistente en Diseño Gráfico
- UniRemington: Diseño Visual
- Institución Universitaria Salazar y Herrera: Diseño Gráfico
- Institución Universitaria Salazar y Herrera: Tecnología en Diseño Gráfico
- Politécnico de Antioquia: Diseño Gráfico y Dibujante Artístico
- ESDITEC: Diseño Gráfico
- EAFIT: Gestión de operaciones y tecnología de medios digitales
- EAFIT: Diplomado: Servicio como estrategia de negocio
Cali
- Universidad del Cauca: Diseño Gráfico
- Universidad Autónoma de Occidente: Diseño de la Comunicación Gráfica
- Universidad ICESI: Diseño de Medios Interactivos
Pereira
- Fundación Universidad Área Andina: Diseño Gráfico
- Fundación Universidad Área Andina: Comunicación Audiovisual y Digital
- Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia: Tecnología en Diseño Gráfico
- Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia: Diseño Crossmedia
Manizales
- Unitécnica: Diseño Gráfico Digital
- Universidad de Caldas: Diseño Visual
- Universidad de Caldas: Maestría en Diseño y Creación Interactiva
- Universidad de Caldas: Doctorado en Diseño y Creación
Armenia
- System Plus: Técnico en Diseño Gráfico y Artes Gráficas
- EAM: Diseño Visual Digital
Pasto
- Universidad de Nariño: Diseño Gráfico
Barranquilla
- Universidad del Norte: Diseño Gráfico
- LCI: Diseño Gráfico — Fotografía
Bucaramanga
- Universidad de Santander UDES: Tecnología en Diseño Gráfico Publicitario
Valledupar
- Fundación Universidad Área Andina: Diseño Gráfico
Villavicencio
- Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios: Tecnología en Comunicación Gráfica
Online & in-person courses (In Spanish)
- Next U: Diseño UI/UX
- Platzi: Cursos y Workshops en UX
- Platzi: Certificación UX-PM
- Universitat Pompeu Fabra: Postgrado Online en Usabilidad, UX y Diseño de Interacción
- Usaria: Capacitación y formación en experiencia de usuario y usabilidad (In-person courses)
- Geekboss: Curso de Experiencia de Usuario UX/UI (In-person course)
- Domestika: UX: Usabilidad y Experiencia de Usuario
- IEBS: Master en Analítica Web, Usabilidad y Experiencia de Usuario
- UX Learn: Usabilidad y Experiencia de Usuario
- EducacionIT: Curso de Introducción a UX
- Multiplica-academy: Corporative Groups
- Acámica: Diseño UI/UX
Online courses (In English and other languages)
- Interaction Design Foundation: 25 UX Courses
- Udemy: 115 different UX courses
- Coursera: 87 different UX (courses in English and Spanish)
- Career Foundry: Certified UX Designer (There’s other UX courses as well)
- DesignLab: UX, Interaction Design and UI
- Lynda: 1707 UX related courses
- Skillshare: UX Courses (note that the search results mix unrelated courses)
- edX: 24 UX courses
- Hack Design: Offers some UX courses
- Springboard: User Experience Design
- General Assembly: User Experience Design Circuit
- UX Trainning: UX Foundation
- Iversity: UX courses (in different languages)
UX in the Governmental and Business Sectors
Colombia is lagging in behind for User Experience and technology.
First, the government is seriously in behind, although there are very good initiatives and efforts and given the fact that it costs a lot of money to get up to date in technology and User Experience, the country could be more than 10 years in behind (up to 20 years) in comparison with developed countries.
For the private sector, the country could be anywhere between 5 and 10 years in behind, although some businesses are on the cusp of UX and use best practices, most are not. This is something I have been talking with many colleagues and friends in the tech industry, also with Colombians and foreigners, and we all have agreed that we are in behind.
Below you will find some examples that showcase the present state of UX in Colombia. Although I won’t get into a detailed critique of these sites and Apps, I will include a short overview of what is working and what isn’t, and it is also important to mention that this is a small sample of sites and apps. These sites and apps where chosen using the following criteria: they have to be part of the Most visited sites in Colombia for 2017 and Las 15 aplicaciones colombianas más destacadas, be easy to find information and they have to be up and running.
DIAN
The example above, show the home page of the DIAN’s (Dirección de Impuestos y Aduanas Nacionales) site, we can see how visually out of date the site looks, but the real problem is how hard and convoluted the site’s navigation is. Yes, it is a complex and deep site but it lacks prioritization and categorization. I was supposed to do some legal paperwork on the site not so long ago and it was a frustrating experience where every step was painful and overly complicated. I ended asking for help from an accountant.
Presidencia de Colombia
The official site for the Presidency of Colombia has improved over the years but we can also see how out of date and also how it looks like a free Wordpress template although it is built with Microsoft SharePoint. It is somehow ok to navigate (not great) but it does lack accessibility and the responsiveness of the site is bad.
Cámara de Comercio de Medellín
This site is a governmental site for Medellin’s Chamber of Commerce. It is visually charged and out of date and it’s painful to see Verdana paired with titles in Yanone Kaffeesatz (Great for posters not web), there’s also Tahoma for subtitles, Arial and Helvetica not to talk about other fonts used in the branding material.
Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones
El MINTIC o Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones is the Government agency in charge of Technology and communications, the institution itself has many good initiatives to bring the country up to date technologically. The MINTIC has a great program (and somehow ok site) called Ciudadania Digital for digital literacy, including everything related to digital communications, e-commerce, ethics, etiquette, security, laws, responsibilities, health and accessibility. The MINTIC site is too busy and there’s so much visual noise that is hard to read.
For Apps it is pretty much the same story… Some examples below:
El Tiempo
El Tiempo is one of Colombia’s most recognized News Paper and they have been improving their online and print design over the years. The latest design updates are a big improvement in UX and UI. The site is nicely pairing Roboto Slab with Open Sans. The only complaint I have is with the top navigation: it could be improved. But generally speaking, the site has good UX, it has a very pleasant UI and a nice design. Last note: maybe they can use 17px. for the paragraph text like The New York Times Does.
Noticias RCN
The site for Noticias RCN is a typical case for Colombia’s sites, they have leftovers from a decade away: undefined margins, bad responsive site, an archaic page width and visual noise. The page width has several different widths and it is still using a less than 1170px, in some places it has 997px, in other places it has a little bit more or a little bit less. And Droid Sans is definitely a bad choice for paragraph text with only two styles, and hard to read titles in Oswald.
Exito
Their ecommerce is overloaded with sales and it has a very busy look and feel, yes an e-commerce is a site for selling products but so many sales everywhere become part of the same white noise. In this case I’m not going to talk whether I find it outdated (which it is) or not very visually pleasant but I do have to say that the level of frustration, pain and confusion buying online at exito.com is high: their checkout flow is badly designed and it feels like buying from an ecommerce 2.0 and we are starting to see ecommerce 5.0 which is AI-led.
IDOC3
IDOC3 is a simple app and it does work fine but it could be better designed in terms of readability, there’s a big chance for improvement in making it more pleasant and friendly. Funny note: I wonder if this is a mockup for the iPhone 11?—where’s the notch?
Tappsi
“Tappsi” is a bad pronunciation of Taxi in Colombia, but I have to say the name is pretty clever and cheeky. That’s it… Tappsi is a very bare-bones app that seems to be working well in the taxi industry, it looks like an MVP and it has very bad UI, I can’t say anything about the UX because I didn’t download it nor do I use it.
Rappi
I’m a regular user of Rappi and I would say I have only a couple of complaints about the UX but overall is a well-designed app, friendly and easy to use. I could say they have one of the best user flows on the Colombian app market but unfortunately, I can’t say the same for their technology which sometimes affects the customer experience more than the UX.
Nequi
Nequi is beautifully designed and with impeccable UX, trendy colours and it is a great product overall. The user onboarding is really smooth, the app makes you enjoy being a user and there’s no pains and frustrations.
Thank you, and I hope we can build a great community of UX designers in Colombia so we can take our practice to the next level.
— Very special thanks to my editor, Merriah Lamb.
