Rain Forest Regeneration Survey App
DELIVERABLES
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Design Thinking Workshop
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Information Architecture
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User Flow
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Low & high fidelity mockups
TEAM
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Lead UX/UI Designer (myself)
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Engineering Manager
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Product Managers
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​Front-end & Back-end Engineers
DURATION
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6 weeks (until handoff to development)
TOOLS
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UXPin
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Miro
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Teams
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Slack
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WhatsApp
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Jira
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Confluence
SECTOR
Nonprofit, Environment RainForest company
BUSINESS NEED
The client (ClimateForce) needed to expedite and improve the assessment of Rainforest health by digitizing data collection from the manual survey process. This would enable immediate access to the information from anywhere and inform ongoing efforts through reporting.
SOLUTION
A specialized tool allows scientists and volunteers to utilize an offline application to collect site conditions & biodiversity rates as they survey sites within the rainforest.
PROJECT PHASES
Emphathaize
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Design thinking workshops
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Persona definitions
Plan
Project plan and timeline
Build
MVP for pilot testing
Design
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Information Architecture
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User Flows
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Wireframes
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High fidelity prototypes
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Design Systems
Design Thinking workshop
PERSONA DEFINITIONS
Our primary focus during the design thinking workshops was developing empathy for the various users involved in the survey process. Each set of users had different frustrations with the current process, and the goal was to address them through the new tool.
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We developed fictional personas based on experience and assumptions. We interviewed clients about the various aspects of their work, goals, aspirations, and frustrations. I believe this level of empathy is key to creating practical and useful design.
After the workshop, I documented 3 different personas that we identified as the primary users: field scientist, farmer, volunteer, and external scientist.
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Below is a snapshot of the field scientist persona definition.
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Design Thinking workshop
USER STORIES
The next step after persona definition is creating simple user stories that describe the subject, action, and outcome. We scheduled follow-up meetings to document the user stories for the 3 different personas we had identified.
One sample screenshot.
Open PDF
Design Thinking workshop
"HOW MIGHT WE" (HMW) QUESTIONS
Since it was already clear that we were going to design a field survey tool, the client interview focused on "how might we" (HMW) questions. We dug deeper into the use cases and details of what they were trying to accomplish and phrased them in the form of these questions with the hope that the design would be able to answer/accomplish them.
Below are some snapshots of the questions from the session and the questions that were voted to be the focus for this release.
Screenshot of HMW questions from the workshop
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HMW questions chosen for the first release
Design Deliverables
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Information architecture (IA) diagram is an effective way to identify critical components and understand how users perceive and categorize information.
​Building an informational architecture helped me, the team, and the client:​
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Sort through the existing PDF documentation and structure the information.
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Document various forms, functions, and pieces of information for a clear understanding.
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Understand the connection between the various forms and create a hierarchy.
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Design Deliverables
USER FLOWS
A key step after the design review involved user flow testing and collaborative brainstorming between the design and client teams. The snapshot of the Miro board below provides a glimpse into the collaborative platform used during this phase.
Design Deliverables
HIGH-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
Prototyping the design was an iterative process that involved creating mockups, reviewing with product managers, incorporating feedback from the client, and testing the design before handing it off to the development team.
TRANSLATING PAPER FORMS TO SCREENS
Before & After Example
The snapshot below summarizes, in a nutshell, the process of translating the paper forms into a mobile interface. It is one of the examples of a form and corresponding screens.
STYLE GUIDE
The colors and themes for the tool were inspired by the rainforest and nature imagery, and the style guide exactly fit the client's expectations.
CONCLUSION & LEARNINGS
The design was delivered on time and is currently in build (as of December 2024)
Two challenges come to mind when I think of how the project went:
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1. The complexity of design was underestimated based on the client's initial request and proposal. The design thinking workshops revealed more and more about how complex the use cases were and required more follow-up meetings and conversations.
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2. The client was fairly unaware of the scope of what they were requesting. There were multiple dependencies even in the simpler user flows that introduced new information elements and expanded the scope of the MVP.
​The learning from both of these for me was to ask more clarifying questions earlier on in the project. What helped us navigate these challenges was the intimate involvement that the client representatives had with each project phase and deliverable.