cuco

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  cuco, a cultural compass, promoting societal appreciation of cultures across the globe

Briefly describe your project in relation to the challenge prompt

Though the arts is a well-regarded and almost immediate association that comes to mind at ‘creative expression,’ we define creative expression as all multimodal influences of our identity. Culture is expressed in various forms and sentiments to bring a sense of unity and connectedness. Our identities and backgrounds also make up so much of who we are creatively. Our app wants to embrace the potential of sharing different cultural perspectives across multiple generations and homes. As children of immigrants, we’ve experienced guilt of assimilating to our national identity by rejecting or casting aside our ethnic culture.

Living somewhere outside of our ethnic enclaves definitely gives rise to different mindsets compared to one’s ethnic origin. This is not a negative attribute, the unique upbringings of our identity are all valued. However, it can often lead to questioning one’s identity because of the disconnect. It’s paramount to preserve culture and understanding between generations to not only give justice and promote equity to those who’ve faced adversity but as well as, creating a more empathetic and educated understanding of each other.

Describe your main design decisions and how they contribute to your product

Our first major design decision we made was deciding to take the idea of creative expression and expanding the idea to cultural preservation and connectivity. Some other topics we considered included collaborative art spaces with game-ified prompt incentives. However, we saw more opportunities in promoting equity and creativity through bridging the gap between individuals curious about their identity makeup and individuals passionate about sharing their cultural prospects. Additionally, we utilized “Country Tags” on app content and profile customization to make the experience catered to an individual’s ethnic background OR interests. We also wanted to consider individuals with multi-racial and/or multi-nationality backgrounds. This decision allowed us to transition into another major design decision, which was utilizing multimedia content. We wanted to conceptualize a platform that would hold all forms of these cultural identity exchanges as archives. Documentation and retrieval of oral history, pictures, music, and stories in an accessible and digestible manner.

Furthermore, the decision to include a means for users to translate the text between different languages was a very important design decision that massively increases the accessibility of the app. As the main purpose of the app is to facilitate the education and awareness of as many different cultures as possible, it is crucial that users around the world are able to read and thus educate themselves on cultures that do not write or speak the same language. Through the use of the translate feature, users are able to transform text written in another language into a language that they are fluent in, allowing for a smooth and seamless solution.

Built With

• figma