User research for a nature walk mobile app
Tumamoc Tour: A hiker's field guide to one special place
The Challenge
Hikers come to this highly protected research preserve for exercise and to socialize while enjoying the views. They don’t come to listen to lectures. How might we entice them to learn some science and history of the place. Would they become better stewards of the site?
The outcome
We learned a lot about users and created a mostly audio app as a minimal viable product. This generated a group of site stewards. Due to cost, time constraints, and poor software development, no version 2 was made. The app now lives on the website.”
Project
Tumamoc Tour mobile app
Organization
University of Arizona, College of Science, Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill
Tagline
The story of the Sonoran Desert told while walking the Tumamoc Hill trail.
Summary
THE TUMAMOC TOUR is a mobile app that provides audio narration and visual site-interpretation for visitors walking the 3-mile route at the Tumamoc Hill Sonoran Desert ecological research preserve.
Project summary
The Desert Lab on Tumamoc Hill is a National Historical Landmark, ecological preserve, and active research site owned by the University of Arizona.
The problem: Increasing use of the access road by the public as a walking route over the previous decade began to conflict with the needs of working scientists. The University decided to allow public access with strict limits, viewing walkers as an asset for community engagement.
The goal: To turn visitors into stewards of the site, we wanted to educate them on the history and ecology of the field station. Everyone carried a mobile phone, so a phone app was seen as a medium for reaching them.
My role: As artist-in-residence, my role was UX designer, writer, illustrator, photographer, collaborating with a small team of writers, artists, and scientists, led by the lab director.
Selling the idea
University administrators accepted our proposal based on the following sketches. The sketchy nature of the art communicated that we were open to ideas and iteration. The field guide feature on right was shelved in favor of the tour, and saved for a future version.
Initial screen flow concepts
Definition and discovery phase
Administrator’s goals
Meetings with administration revealed these goals.
Opportunity
Changed their view to see visitors as assets instead of a problem. Open to the public with strict limits.
Community engagement
The research station could fulfill a role as an environmental education hub for the Sonoran desert
Protect the environment
Educated visitors are more likely to respect the rules and become long-term community stewards of the site.
Phase 1: Discovery, understanding the problem space
Discovery and problem definition
As a scientific research site, there was no time or budget for user research, and no understanding among stakeholders of UX design.
The university was used to lecturing to others less knowledgeable. However there was a gap between science education and the goals of most of the visitors. This was a casual learning situation, people had not signed up for a class. Scientists thought very differently from the general community.
The College of Science decided to build the app, based largely on assumptions, and the success of a previous science app done for the nearby Catalina Mountain Highway.
Research questions
- Between 1-2000 people walked there every day. What attracted them to the place?
- What parts of the Tucson community was represented here?
- What pre-existing topics, questions, and interests could we use as “scaffolding” to build upon and expand?
- Can we identify explicit vs latent needs?
- Would people be able to view a screen while walking in bright desert sunlight outdoors?
Turning challenges into strengths
On-the-spot surveys of 100 walkers, two focus groups, and two town-hall meetings confirmed several visitor goals.
Here’s what we knew about the audience:
- People walked the hill primarily for exercise. Some compared Tumamoc to an outdoor gym, or a treadmill with a scenic view.
- Walkers loved the place and made regular visits per week–Tumamoc was a hot spot to meet and a safe place to walk alone.
- People usually walked in groups, socializing while exercising.
- An estimated 1500-2000 people walked the 3 mile loop every day.
- Most walkers carried their phone, and some walked with headphones of earbuds.
- Walkers stopped for showy flowers and animals, eg. deer and rattlesnakes, crossing the road.
- Around half the people spoke Spanish as a first language.
Finding latent needs
Starting with obvious needs like fitness, socializing, and scenery, we listed things that are visible in the landscape that people wondered about. I wanted to build on existing interests with some of the science that laboratory was famous for. Every topic had to have something people could see from the path.
Design
We designed a logo for the app.
Next, I started sketching out flow diagrams and shared them with the team. As these drawings got better, I did some paper prototyping with people who were available, to see if they knew what to do on each screen.
More screen iterations
Final screens
What we learned
We had to make many compromises in the final development phase. I had little control over how the developers finalized the designs. The reasons for this are familiar: technical, budget, and time. These constrains caused the following issues.
- The developers had a strict “waterfall” process. We gave them all our final artwork and they worked almost entirely in a closed system. We had one beta release to test and get approvals for before receiving the final product. As a result, everything was “baked in” using legacy software. We could edit anything after the beta period without redoing the entire app.
- I felt that some of the errors could have been avoided if there was closer team communication. But, due to hard time contraints, the management it was faster and more lean to work in smaller groups or silos.
Follow-up
Three months out, the number of users was lower than expected. We were watching the analytics, and observing people in context.
Insights: Capitalize on the social aspect. One interesting observation I made personally: I saw couples listening together on speakerphone. That ties in with previous observations of the social nature of hill walkers. Even science can be something to share and comment on while socializing and exercising.
Future
- By the end of the project, there was some added awareness of incorporating a UX design process to more fully tie existing user needs and motivations to the science of this place.
- Because of the legacy software used, the app could not be updated to remain on the app store, and is now a link on the website.
We really need to engage visitors with what they came to the hill for–exercise and socializing. In the next version we’ll do some design thinking and user research.
–Desert Lab Director
Yes, agreed. I did manage to increase the level of UX design thinking within the lab staff. That in itself is a win.