ATLANTA SOUL

A creative and historical user experience project on soul food in Atlanta.

the problem

How can we continue to promote black-owned businesses in a unique way and while also educating others on the history of soul food?

The Solution

Create a system and resource people can use to easily access to support black-owned businesses while at the same time gain knowledge on black cultural heritage. We decided to create an interactive website experience that is connected to an outdoor exhibit around the city of Atlanta. An exhibit that allowed users to browse through the streets to find various posters with a unique QR code giving them access to our interactive site and receive discount codes for unique soul food dishes.

target audiences

This project was specifically created for newcomers and tourists as well as hometown Atlantans who value their experiences with good food usually around the ages of 15-50.

the research

First, since we were expecting to take out any potential biases and generalizations we carried ourselves, we devised an anonymized document in which we recorded our group’s internal biases and took part in a group discussion to expand our ideas. Next, we conducted secondary research by examining all kinds of external resources including articles, papers and books. We additionally conducted interviews with a diverse group of students to guarantee that we had an accurate understanding of how our userbase’s discernments over soul food. Finally, we also contacted specialists to gain further input and information on how to implement our findings into the experience being built.

OUR CROSS-CULTURAL PARTNERS

Throughout the 12 weeks, we’ve connected with various local experts, students and facilitators:

• Denise Harrison, professor at Kent State

• Dianne Kerr, European retired public health professor

• Michael James, a student at Arizona State

• Nakiyah Organ, a student at Kent State

• Noemi Griffin, a former student born and raised in Atlanta

USER PROCESS

We came up with three ways in which the users can experience our interactive site:

1. The user will discover our website through Instagram

3. The user will be walking around Atlanta and will see a poster around the city that features a soul food dish and QR code.

The Tools Used

• Adobe Photoshop

• Adobe Illustrator

• Figma

• Slack