Milamex: My First Bilingual Experience
🗺️Mexico City, Mexico
My very first freelance gig of this type—and my first time living in Mexico—was with Centro Cultural Milamex AC, a nonprofit cultural center founded in 1964. Milamex is a nonprofit cultural center founded in 1964, focused on empowering Latino communities through a variety of programs that emphasize holistic growth and creativity.
Goals & Challenges
This project was my first time working in a truly bilingual environment—and my manager spoke very little English. I was also new to Mexico City. Fresh off the plane, I quikcly had to create a schedule that involved community on the metro to attend daily Spanish classes and volunteering duties outside my freelancing. They run multiple websites (in Spanish and English) and a mobile app for their cultural programs. I volunteered as a UX Designer to help them clean up and update their sites.
Goals:
Update the site design with a clean, cohesive look that reflected their faith-based mission.
Align Spanish and English content without using simple auto-translate—some pages and messages were intended only for the Spanish audience.
Improve mobile usability both on the website and their companion mobile app so members could easily find resources and event info on the go.
Initial Observations
Since my main contact spoke limited English, I had to communicate mostly in Spanish—something I wasn’t fully confident in yet. I relied on translation tools, visuals (like screenshots and diagrams), and prepared key vocabulary before meetings. This pushed me to improve my Spanish quickly and made me more intentional in how I shared design updates.When I started, I noticed a lot of inconsistencies:
The Spanish and English sites didn’t match in layout
Some links were broken
Text alignment and spacing were not consistent.
The dark, serious header made it unclear if users could scroll
Important sections (like the podcast and magazine) weren’t highlighted enough
I also noticed the mobile app had some issues with colors and visibility. The all also did not have a menu to better display what pages were available.
Before:
Tackling the Problems
Once I got editor access to their Wix and Squarespace sites, I focused on improving consistency and clarity:
✅ Aligned text and sections for better readability
✅ Updated the fonts and colors to match across languages
✅ Brightened the header and improved the hierarchy
✅ Fixed broken links and cleaned up the footer
✅ Made the “change language” link easier to find
✅ Added a banner promoting their mobile fitness app
✅ Updated the Intenzion page to match the rest of the site
What I Learned
By the end of the project, we had a more cohesive, user-friendly set of sites that better reflected their organization. I also gained experience collaborating bilingually and adapting UX work across platforms and languages.
This project showed me how design can help bridge gaps—not just between users and information, but across languages and cultures.
Current Status
The websites and mobile app are live and fully functional. The updates have improved consistency, accessibility, and user experience across all platforms. The organization continues to manage the sites in-house, with the option to expand features in the future.
