Indiana University has three Grand Challenges initiatives in progress: Precision Health Initiative, Prepared for Environmental Change and Responding to the Addictions Crisis. With the theme of environmental change, we primarily focused on combating deforestation through reforestation, with “maintain & mend” as our motto - Maintain existing ecosystem while also planting new trees for the deforestation has occurred to convert the land into urban areas.
IU Grand Challenge
Storyboarding
Prototyping
Cognitive Walkthrough
Usability Testing
My Role - UX Researcher, Project Manager
Duration - 6 Weeks
Team - Abhikant Nirbhavane, Meenal Jakatdar, Sharvari Jalit
Neighborhood extensions, timber harvesting, and livestock raising are the leading causes of human-caused deforestation in Indiana. These factors have led to Indiana’s low ranking among the greenest states in the nation. Despite non-profit organizations and environmentalist groups' efforts to make Indiana greener, little progress has been made. As a result, our problem statement was to reduce the detrimental effects of deforestation caused by humans while also improving forest health.
As a User Experience Researcher, I conducted primary research, secondary research, usability testing, and analysis to help provide actionable and meaningful data-driven insights representing multiple users’ voices.
As a Project Manager, I was in charge of developing a well-crafted research plan with clear research objectives. I collaborated with the team to discover and recruit targeted end-users for specific research studies.
EcoCash is a gamification app with the end goal to encourage users to visit forests and make them plant and maintain trees. The application creates incentivized tasks for the users, such as “Plant 5 trees” in a nearby forest, and they will be guided to the specific location using AR hotspots.
The Division of Forestry of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) published plans to log nearly 300 acres in the Yellowwood State Forest backcountry area in 2017. This wooded area was set aside in 1981 to provide tourists with a woodland experience.
Even so, forestry officials now argue that timber harvesting is a necessary part of managing the backcountry as a "wilderness area." As a result, forest land commercialization may be a valid explanation for the loss of wilderness in our state forests, and the Department of Natural Resources also permits it.
We spoke with six people in four age groups: 18-24, 25-40, 40-55, and 55 and up. We inquired about the origins of their knowledge, their perception of misinformation, and how to identify it. Interviews with journalists and fact-checking educators taught us about academic approaches and technologies. Meanwhile, we conducted a competitor analysis to determine what has been done and what needs to be done.
Through our primary and secondary research, we collected raw data focused on our problem area. To move from the broader problem area to a more defined problem framing, we conducted multiple sessions to create an affinity diagram and a thematic diagram to make sense of the data collected.
We used affinity diagramming to analyze the data gathered, which helped us categorize and prioritize problems, issues, and challenges.
To make more sense of our insights from the affinity diagram, we decided to use a thematic diagram. Thematic makes it easier to filter out themes from our findings to focus.
How might we design a solution which motivates the users to plant more trees, spreads awareness and also make the experience engaging and interesting?
Based on our interview findings, we created personas that helped us gain a clear perspective of our target users and their goals and interests. For our MVP, we decided that our system's target users would be the IU students having crimson cards who can visit and explore the forests that Indiana has.
We began brainstorming ideas that would best suit our requirements and technological feasibility once we had the problem statement established and the target user group identified.
We selected the concept outlined in scenario two after considering several factors such as viability, gamification, and university students as target users from the following two storyboarded scenarios.
We evaluated the feasibility of the solution by looking at:
Technical feasibility - The app could be partnered with an established AR-based app solution provider, such as "EcoTour," in a similar space. As a result, we can take advantage of already-developed technologies to reduce turnaround time.
Social Feasibility – Since our target users are college students, this app will be readily embraced by them for rewards like cash-like points.
Economic Feasibility – Using the points earned in the crimson card for each task completion, users can get food or coffee at a reduced price from Starbucks. Cafes like Starbucks will be interested in getting involved in such a cause to support Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR).
There were several iterations in the final design process. It all began with sketching a user flow of what the design should include and concentrate on. We created a low-fidelity prototype on paper as the second step, which helped us achieve cognitive walkthroughs. The feedback through these walkthroughs was considered for improvisations, which were implemented during the final high-fidelity prototyping.
We started working on concepts for the EcoCash application after defining the problem and doing research. Below is the final paper prototype.
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The design evaluation was an iterative process conducted on low-fidelity prototypes. The usability tests were conducted in 4 sessions on the primary tasks of the application. We asked the users to think aloud while performing these four tasks, and we noted down the users' challenges.
Tasks:
1. User signup process
2. Plant a tree walkthrough
3. View reward points
4. Redeem the reward points walkthrough
Based on our initial evaluations with users, we observed the challenges users faced and made significant changes in the signup process by replacing the manual signup form with a scanner-based registration using a Crimson card.
We also introduced an option to switch between the AR and normal mode and add a bar-code in the view rewards page to redeem the points for the user.
Based on the iterative design evaluation process conducted on low fidelity prototypes, we reached the following state of high fidelity prototype.
In the future, we want to work with forest officials to assist us in locating and exploring deforested land within the forest and providing the necessary tools for reforestation.
Eco-cash could also work with an established AR-based software solution provider in the same sector, such as "EcoTour." As a result, we will take advantage of technology that has already been implemented to reduce processing time.
Another factor is to have more labels, which will provide students with more opportunities for redeeming their incentives, thus attracting more students.
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