date. 2020
client. Itau Bank - OCA Uruguay
 Deliverables​
Sessions and reports
 My Role​
UX/UI Designer
 The Team​
Myself and OCA Digital Team
OCA is an institution regulated by the Central Bank of Uruguay that belongs to Itau Bank. With a new style guide already defined, this project consisted of studying and defining how the product's illustrations and iconography structure would be.
Context
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Throughout 2019 and 2020, the institution has been focusing on updating its visual language, seeking to reach the younger audience in Uruguay, especially with the advancement of Digital Banks.
Goal
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With this scenario, my objective was to define the best identity for the icons and illustrations in the new style guide through research and co-creation and validation sessions.
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Challenges
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Different countries, different minds - As the project was for Uruguay, it was necessary to understand whether banking concepts were perceived in the same way;
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Respect the base - When exploring styles, it was necessary to be creative, but within the new visual proposal and a bit of Banco Itaú's creative line as well;
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Language - Co-creation sessions would need to take place in Spanish.
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Process
Research
The Beginning
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I started this process by studying the new branding book and the new style guide, in addition to analyzing the tone of voice and communication that the brand already has in its communication channels.
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With the starting point defined, I raised the main categories that would need iconography. With these 15 categories defined, I did desk research and benchmarked Uruguayan competitors in order to understand the banking concepts in the country
Planning
Defining Concepts
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With the concepts studied, I proceeded to assemble the semantic panels that were the basis of the co-creation session.
Furthermore, in the selection of the images I focused on the striking characteristics that I found in the new OCA identity:
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Rounded shapes;
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Sense of continuity;
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Clarity of information;
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Spontaneity and naturalness;
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Organic aspects.
Raising Styles
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With the concepts closed, I then defined which visual styles we would like to validate with users and recalling the benchmark and aligning with the guidelines defined in the branding book. It is noticed that the results have similar characteristics such as:
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Style in flat design;
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No outlines;
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Inclusive;
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Distortions/ stylizations of human forms;
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Some uses faces, some doesn't;
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User actions always in the foreground.
Pilot
First Tests​​
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Before going to the final client in Uruguay, I carried out 2 rounds of tests to evaluate the relationship between images and concepts.
The first only with the design team and the second with members of the Bank who already had more contact with the Uruguayan scenario.
This phase was very important to understand concepts that were not clear, cultural differences that were already known by some participants and validate the duration of each session.
The Co-creation session
After three rounds of testing, a series of refinements to the semantic panels and with closed style definitions, I went to Uruguay to facilitate a co-creation session to validate the entire process and arrive at definitions. A very important addition here was the need to hold the session in Spanish. The session was divided into 3 phases and was held in Spanish.
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Phase 1 - Reflection
To warm things up a little, this moment was lighter, bringing only what would be the categories we were going to work on. So the idea was to bring these categories and ask users to write words/concepts that represented them.​
Phase 2 - Categorization
Reflections concluded, I divided the participants into 4 pairs. Each 2 pairs were responsible for associating images, illustrations and icons to panels corresponding to some of the categories.
After completion, a round of comments was made with post-it notes by the pairs from the other categories, so that everyone had a macro view of what was being addressed. The focus here was on understanding semiotic concepts aligned with their mind maps and translating results to icons.​​
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Phase 3 - Perception
The last step in the process was voting the styles for illustrations and icons aligned with an analysis of key elements of the new OCA branding book. With five options for each modality, the participants had to link an order of preference from 1 to 5, with 1 being their favorite.
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Validation
Results
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The conclusion of this entire process validated some icons concepts that we had chosen, showed us the need to reevaluate one of the categories: the miles program. And directed the styles to be followed in the final drawings.
The next step involved presenting the results to the design board. It was decided to continue with the purchase of a family of icons to optimize the creation process and we would use the Banco Itaú grids for adaptation of this icons and only then would the focus be on creating the illustrations.
Unfortunately, the Covid 19 pandemic began in the following months and the project was paused.
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Learnings
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This project allowed me to grow a lot professionally due to the challenges experienced and overcome.
At the time my position was UI Design and even so I suggested that we do card sorting, co-creation, which were very well accepted and were completely my responsibility to define and apply.
Finally came the opportunity to do this directly at the client and in another language. So even though it was not possible to conclude, I see that I left very complete material and that today it can be seen that it was part of what OCA has on its digital fronts.
