Earth Discovery
Project
Duration
Role
End-to-end iOS application
2 months
Summary
About
People care about the well-being of natural landscapes and animals worldwide, but often lack knowledge. To learn about each landscape, users must visit multiple websites, each offering different information tailored to its own audience, resulting in inconsistent and incomplete knowledge.
How might we help nature enthusiasts with a deep interest in learning about natural landscapes worldwide access thorough and consistent information?
How might we showcase basic information to satisfy the curiosity of people who wants a general understandings of different landscapes?
Solution
Researching user’s opinion towards Conservation & Global Warming
I started this project wanting to create something for conservation. I did a data collection on how people felt about conservation and worldwide habitats. A survey sent to 10 users revealed 88% of respondents care about our natural landscape, but many people lack knowledge and feel hopeless.
“ I'm prevented from taking action because of a sense of hopelessness. “
“ I feel a bit indifferent; it’s hard to take action for a cause that is difficult to see visibly. “
“ I don’t have the means to help out beyond trying to reduce my waste. “
People lack knowledge about how to care after our natural landscapes and I quickly realized that no single site covered thorough information on natural landscapes and animals worldwide and ways to conserve them.
Websites varied in topics they shared.
Websites range from official government and conservation organization sites to travel blogs and educational platforms.
I replaced project focus from 'habitats' into 'natural landscapes' because it encompasses national parks, World Heritage Sites, conservation sites, and more, all of which share the same criteria of care from people.
Would accept stricter environment rules and regulations
Lack the information and guidance on what to do.
People felt they need resources and equipment from public authorities.
Why do people lack knowledge about conservation for worldwide natural landscapes?
Competitors offer limited subjects, with some using text-heavy scientific language that's hard to understand, while others are designed for children. This leads to needing multiple resources to fully learn about each natural landscape worldwide.
Some sites provide full animal databases like NPS, while others only offer a few general paragraphs on selected landscapes worldwide like National Parks.
Conservation sites like WWF focus on specific landscapes, rather than offering information or opportunities for all natural landscapes globally.
Seeing this lack of holistic coverage for worldwide natural landscapes sharing consistent information created a potential problem to be solved.
Users expressed the need to explore multiple resources to learn about natural landscapes worldwide. Surprising insight also show users have a strong interest in learning about the animals in these landscapes.
They consistently tied their desire to learn about animals to their interest in natural landscapes and conservation sites.
Mixture of users with wanting to gain different levels of knowledge during research.
I interviewed five users with varying levels of knowledge and interest all confirming the lack of a reliable consistent resource for learning about Natural landscapes.
Through these interviews, I gathered insights into what users would need from an app to make it a dependable go-to source of information.
Animal List
Users want to learn about animals. Some appreciate a detailed animal database, while others prefer a simplified list focusing on the "cool" animals for each specific natural landscapes.
General Information
All users seek basic information on natural landscapes. Information including weather, history, and conservation. Some prefer in-depth explanations for each.
Travel Destination
Users research natural landscapes when planning vacations, needing details on safety, hikes, tours, and other trip-related information.
Dangerous and Endangered Animal
Users are curious about dangerous wildlife and endangered animals.
Conservation
Users are interested in conservation efforts for worldwide natural landscapes. Some seek international, active involvement (e.g., volunteering, donating), while others prefer local or passive actions (e.g., turning off lights, recycling).
Map Feature
Users desire a map feature with filters to customize their view when exploring different natural landscapes, similar to google maps.
Surprisingly, my initial assumption that conservation would be the primary focus was challenged by user interviews. While conservation remains important, users expressed a desire to learn about animals in a way that is both understandable and allows for deeper exploration.
This shifted my understanding of user priorities. While animals and conservation are connected, user interest leaned more heavily toward animals.
With Earth Discovery, my goal was to present comprehensive information that offers a general or deep understandings of worldwide natural landscapes. Earth Discovery allows user further exploration into areas such as wildlife and tourism. This makes sure that users have the convenience of depending entirely on the app, eliminating the need for multi-source searches and saving valuable time.
Developing personas to define the range of user knowledge/ interest we are designing for.
Melinda Bui the Nature Enthusiast.
Jai Ford a Nature Novice.
I created a product feature roadmap focused on incorporating a user-friendly way to access resources about animals worldwide.
Due to the project time limitations, I could only create certain must need features. What helped me select priority was by seeing the number of users during user interview expressing a need for it and also including level of difficulty building the feature.
Visit Page
Include a "Visit" tab on each Natural Landscape page where users can find the necessary information to successfully travel to each landscape.
Natural Landscape Page
Each natural landscape will have its own page, including multiple topics with short summaries and options for users to click for more in-depth information.
Geolocation for Personalization
Geolocation is used to suggest nearby natural landscapes, animals, and conservation efforts, as users showed and interest in the wellbeing of their local areas.
Individual Natural Landscape Page Tabs
Bottom Navigational Menu Tabs
I used card sorting to determine the destinations for each sections, helping create a user flow to be intuitive and aligned with user’s expectations.
5 participants sort a total of 51 cards into two categories: “Bottom Navigational Bar” and Individual Natural Landscape Page”.
The goal is to make Earth Discovery a dependable, single-source resource.
Bringing Earth Discovery to life
Iterative design process to ensure we provide simple and organized information for understanding, while also offering thorough detailed information for those seeking to gain deep knowledge.
Begin with low fidelity wireframes designs surround the user flow that meets our user’s highest needs.
User Flow 1: Find the complete list of amphibians at Fiordland National park
User Flow 2: Learn how to stay safe when visiting Fiordland National Park
I began by creating an initial draft of low-fidelity wireframes and sent out a survey to gather user feedback. Using those results, I designed a second round of wireframes, providing multiple design options based on the features users liked. After sending out another survey, I crafted my final low-fidelity wireframes, ensuring they were aligned with user needs after two surveys and three rounds of iterations.
Simple, Organized Information with In-Depth Learning Options
Each subject provides a short summary in small paragraphs for quick understanding, with the option to click for in-depth learning. This helps users quickly grasp the basics, while those seeking deeper knowledge can dive further into the details.
Beginner and Advanced Animal Research to meet Varied User Interests
Dedicated tab allows users to search through a comprehensive animal database with filters, including endangered species categories. Each natural landscape also features individual animal pages, enabling users to learn about specific animals without redirecting to a general database search.
Geolocation for Quicker Access to Nearby Landscapes and Animals.
Each Natural Landscape and Animal Page displays information about nearby locations based on the user’s geolocation. This feature helps users save time by offering quick access to relevant landscapes and animals in their vicinity, without needing to filter or research separately.
Consistent Safety Information for Natural Landscapes Worldwide
Each Natural Landscape Page includes a visitor information tab with details like “Activities to Do” and “Safety Info.” The safety section provides consistent information, with links for users who want to explore further, ensuring comprehensive safety guidance across all landscapes.
Results from 5 participant testing our the prototype on their mobile phone to make sure designs looked good from a mobile perspective.
User Flow Tasks:
User Flow 1: Find the complete list of Amphibians at Fiordland National Park
User flow 2: Find the safety page for visiting Fiordland National Park.
Concerns
Users felt that the “Read More” and “Read Less” buttons for safety information was an unnecessary step.
Users were confused about the purpose of the filter icon on the search pages.
Success
Users enjoyed the simple, organized information structure and found the safety tips and animal details easy to navigate.
The first flow receive 8.8/10 for ease of use while the second flow scored 9.2/10.
Decluttering unneeded icons. Removing the filter icon from the search pages.
Its original purpose was to show the number of selected filters, but with only a few options available, it ended up confusing users.
Creating more user efficiency by taking out the “Read More” and “Read Less” buttons and displayed all the safety information upfront.
Since users click on the Safety tab intending to read everything, it provides a better experience without the extra step of expanding
Reflection & Next Steps
Lessons
Building Components from the Beginning:
Building components when there are multiple parts can be time-consuming when fixing small, repetitive elements across all components. Building each small part of the component from the start will save time in the long run.
Value of Card Sorting:
The smooth user flows were largely a result of the insights gained from the card sorting process. Having participants perform card sorting revealed noticeable user patterns.
Next Steps
The focus of this project shifted from my original assumption of highlighting conservation to a stronger emphasis on animal information, based on user interviews. However, conservation was still important to some users during these interviews. The World Map feature would have required more effort to develop, and due to time limitations, both the World Map and conservation will be key components in future designs.