MiGreat

Patrick owns a company that helps people who emigrated to Switzerland organize their retirement. In addition, he has a degree in finance and is a specialist in economics. With French and Portuguese as his native languages, he has frequent contact with foreign countries and knows the reality of Portuguese emigrants, as he is one.

Our client wanted a platform that would make Portuguese emigrants’ life easier, facilitating their transition and adaptation to a new country. Essentially the goal was to develop a Web App that would allow emigrants to translate different types of files, so that communication wouldn't be a barrier 

In addition, to speed up the beginning of their professional careers, the platform would have a CV generator; and a library of documents (templates) essential to the life of an emigrant - such as motivation letters or termination of contract letters -, ready to be customized and translated.  

Meeting with the client

This was the first step to knowing more about our users' needs and expectations. We used our client’s vast experience with the Portuguese emigrant community to help us create a product that would make sense for all over the world emigrants and improve their experience with the emigration process. 

Competitors research

Since our platform would combine different functionalities already developed and used by various sites and apps, we decided to start by doing a competitor's research. We searched the internet high and low for the best (and most used) websites and apps that translated text and files. The same for apps that generated a CV and documents.

We concluded that there was no website or app that combined generating documents with translation (innovative idea: check). But the research was not in vain! It served as inspiration and insight.

Not finding a site with the same purpose as the one we are developing showed us we were on the right track and that the concept had the potential to be a success. 

User research

Our platform would only make sense if it made sense for our users. With that in mind, we decided to conduct a few interviews specifically aimed at our main user type: portuguese emigrants. In order to get as much information as possible, we decided to create a google form and, additionally, make phone calls to some contacts the client provided. We conducted 3 interviews and got 3 answers to our form. We realized that the biggest difficulty when emigrating is the language barrier. All our interviewees mentioned using professional translators in the past and the high cost of their services.

User Journey

After analyzing the results of the interviews, we decided to look at the "journey" of our users to define the high and low points in the experience of being an emigrant. By doing this, it allowed us to create empathy with our users and to understand at what stage of the process we can have a positive impact. That gave us the background to brainstorm and come up with really new and surprising features.

The initial client meeting was very important to help define the basis of what would be the style guide and design system of the project. As the project was focused on the Portuguese emigrant community, the client wanted the product to keep some of this identity but on the other hand to be seen as an institutional product, i.e. transmit reliability and security. Therefore we chose a set of colors based on the colors of the Portuguese national flag (green, yellow, red). 

Being a product related to legal documentation and bureaucratic processes, the logo was inspired by documents. Oh, and the name of the product? It speaks for itself. Don't you agree?

The design system was created to structure, (now and in the future) the whole project, thus facilitating the creation of new designs, new functionalities, and the development process.

Our research showed us that our users wanted something easy and straightforward, so we decided to use functionalities that they already know from other software and that are indispensable to life between countries: translating languages, creating a cv, and creating basic legal documents. 

Translation

The main goal of this project was to create a platform that would help emigrants combat difficulties in the emigration process, essentially the language barrier, so the central feature was the development of a translator tool capable of converting various file formats. Much of our time was spent on this feature. 

Create your CV

There are numerous resume-generating platforms on the Internet. However, one that is capable of generating a ready to hand - translated and personalized resume - after simply filling in the required data (your personal and professional information) manually... It did not exist yet... Therefore, our challenge was:

1. Create a simple yet unique template so that the user can make a lasting impression on the employer;
2. Translate it to the language of preference.  

Create documents

The project would also have a repository with loads of templates for documents that are essential for emigrants, such as the letter of recommendation or termination letter. These documents would be customizable and free to download. Unfortunately, due to lack of time, we weren’t able to develop this functionality, but we have everything ready for it to be developed in the future.

In this way our users are ready to handle their documentation without language barriers and without having to ask for help from family or friends. They don't have to create a user account, they just go into the web app, translate (or create) the document they need and download it! It couldn't be simpler. 

In less than two months we created a product with the potential to help the emigrant community at different stages of the emigration process. All through a multilingual platform that helps with the translation of multiple file formats and the creation of key documents.