MA in User Experience Design project work
Pool portal
A citizen science platform and app to identify, record and monitor freshwater species.
I love nature and wanted to design something that would encourage families to engage with the habitats around them
I created a concept that helps people to identify freshwater species while also helping to monitor water quality
This was the final project of my MA and it culminated in a presentation video and reflection document
As this was my final project, I completed every aspect of it; from the initial discovery and exploration to the final delivery.
Research insights
Through desk-based research, I learned that leisure activites that support positive mental wellbeing and offer an escape from daily routine have been a growing trend since the COVID-19 pandemic (Walmsley 2022).
These trends have coincided with the growing popularity of a concept called social prescribing. Included in the NHS Universal personalised care strategy, social prescribing “aims to promote people’s health by linking them to activities and groups in their community that can meet their non-medical needs” (Westlake et al. 2023).
Another factor which is currently influencing decisions about how to spend leisure time is the cost of living crisis (Office for National Statistics 2023).
I created a 19-question, self-completion questionnaire to gather primary data. It was distributed online, via my own social media networks and achieved 46 responses. These responses supported my desk-based research findings.
Pond dipping
Pond dipping is an inexpensive activity that adults and children can participate in together. The equipment you need to go pond dipping can be bought or made by recycling common household objects (Wesley 2019). You can go pond dipping at local nature reserves or even in your back garden, if you have a pond.
When I was studying my undergraduate degree, I volunteered with the RSPB and assisted with organised pond dipping activities. It’s something I really enjoyed. I was able to see first-hand how engaged participants were and it was great to see families having fun in nature.
I spoke to three people with more recent experience of facilitating pond dipping activities. Each one confirmed that it was still a popular activity. Children enjoy getting wet and muddy, then organising their findings into different containers. Parents or carers tended to enjoy spending time with their children and using charts to help with species identification.
Who is this for?
I used my research insights to identify four potential user groups. To represent those groups, I created the following four personas. These personas influenced my design decisions throughout the project, helping me focus on what users would want.
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Kay is a parent who is looking for cheap family activities and days out.
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Tomo is a parent who is keen for his children to develop an appreciation for nature.
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Andy is a volunteer at his local nature reserve where he leads pond dipping activities.
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Rosie works for an environmental organisation and she wants to influence policy and regulations that affect the natural world.
The illustrations used here are from a website called Storyset.
The little details
These are the bits I’m particularly proud of.
Visual design
I want Pool Portal to appeal to people like Kay and her children without alienating Rosie. So I started by researching other forms of media that are designed to appeal to a broad range of age groups. This included Pokémon Go and The Beano Goes Wild at Whipsnade Zoo. I also explored current design trends, cosy gaming, and media that has an environmental theme.
You can explore this mood board yourself by opening the FigJam file here.
I then looked to Webtoon comics and manga art styles. One characteristic of web comics on the Webtoon app that I really admire is how well they use the vertical scrolling interaction in their storytelling. Castle Swimmer is a particularly notable example of this but there are plenty of others. I wanted to explore how the visuals could help to tell the story of going into a pond to explore. You can see how I’ve experimented with this idea in the images below.
Initial idea of placing bubbles over a gradient
Recreated the gradient idea using watercolour brushes in Illustrator
Sketches of pond plants
Pond plant sketches recreated in Figma
Pond plants over the gradient
Step-by-step identifier
A key feature of the Pool Portal concept is that it is accessible for beginners. This was a gap I noticed when evaluating the market and analysing competitors.
I wanted to include a step-by-step identification guide, similar to the one featured in the Merlin Bird ID app (Cornell Lab of Ornithology 2023). This approach also aims to replicate the printed and laminated ID charts provided during organised pond dipping activities.
I created a user flow to help me think through how a step-by-step identifier would work in Pool Portal and what users would need to do. This shows a series of questions that narrow down the species a user might have found.
You can explore this user flow yourself by opening the FigJam file here.
Verification
Pollution is a major threat to water quality in the UK (UK Research and Innovation 2022),(The Wildlife Trusts 2021).
The results of pond dipping (or stream surveying) activities can help to incidate pollution levels. For example, there are some freshwater species, like rat-tailed maggots, who thrive in polluted waters. There are others that will only live in very clean, such as dragonfly larvae.
Using Pool Portal to record these findings on a large scale could contribute towards water quality monitoring projects.
However, the data collected from citizen science projects is not always accurate or reliable (Vohland et al. 2021). Therefore a verification system would be needed.
This could be achieved via peer-to-peer verification, where more experienced app users are able to verify findings, possibly complemented by artificial interlligence.
The design journey
This is the video presentation I created and submitted for assessment.
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CORNELL LAB OF ORNITHOLOGY. 2023. ‘Merlin Bird ID’. Merlin Bird ID - Free, instant bird identification help and guide for thousands of birds [online]. Available at: https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org [accessed 9 Dec 2023].
KOTUR, Anup. 2023. ‘Swipe Left, Swipe Right: The UX/UI Design Behind the Simplicity of Tinder’s Mobile App’. Medium [online]. Available at: https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/swipe-left-swipe-right-the-ux-ui-design-behind-the-simplicity-of-tinders-mobile-app-cb2ac24ad1 [accessed 18 Jan 2024].
OFFICE FOR NATIONAL STATISTICS. 2023. ‘Cost of Living Latest Insights’. [online]. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/articles/costofliving/latestinsights [accessed 20 Jul 2023].
THE WILDLIFE TRUSTS. 2021. ‘New Report Reveals Pollution Is Biggest Threat to Wildlife on Our Waterways’. [online]. Available at: https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/news/new-report-reveals-pollution-biggest-threat-wildlife-our-waterways [accessed 18 Jan 2024].
UK RESEARCH AND INNOVATION. 2022. ‘New Research Will Improve the Quality of UK Rivers’. [online]. Available at: https://www.ukri.org/news/new-research-will-improve-the-quality-of-uk-rivers/ [accessed 18 Jan 2024].
VOHLAND, Katrin et al. (eds.). 2021. The Science of Citizen Science. Cham: Springer.
WALMSLEY, David. 2022. ‘UK Leisure Trends Market Report - Market Size & Forecast’. [online]. Available at: https://store.mintel.com/report/uk-leisure-trends-market-report [accessed 27 Jun 2023].
WESLEY, Danielle. 2019. ‘Pond Dipping: How to Pond Dip’. Woodland Trust [online]. Available at: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2019/08/how-to-pond-dip/ [accessed 17 Jan 2024].
WESTLAKE, Debra, Stephanie TIERNEY, Geoff WONG and Kamal R. MAHTANI. 2023. ‘Social Prescribing in the NHS—Is It Too Soon to Judge Its Value?’ BMJ 380, [online], p699. Available at: https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p699 [accessed 20 Jul 2023].
Find out more
If you found this case study interesting and would like to learn more about my thoughts and reflections, I will be adding blog posts about this project soon. In the meantime, why not have a look at other blog posts I wrote during my MA?
