Platform
Mobile
Sector
Parks and Recreation
Tools
Figma
Miro
Photoshop
Team
Yuting Wu
Jianing Wang
Julia Liu
Alena Pulhug
My Role
I engaged in user research, interviewing, prototyping, usability testing as well as the UI design.
I individually designed the high-fidelity prototype.
“How can we help park-goers find their perfect park getaway?”
The Problem Space
As Toronto undergoes continued urbanization, there is a growing demand for parks and greenspaces among residents, serving as essential retreats from the hustle and bustle of urban life.
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Toronto’s current extensive park system spans a total of 1500 parks and over 8000 hectares of land, covering 13% of the Toronto land base. However, these parks are often underutilized.
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Several factors have hindered residents from effectively utilizing the city's spaces, with the primary obstacle being the limited access to comprehensive, cohesive and up-to-date information.
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Much of the current frequently used resources lack information on park amenities, such as washrooms.
NatureNavi is a mobile platform aimed at connecting park-goers to their perfect park. It provides a way for users to easily find park and greenspaces that fit their unique needs.
NatureNavi
Here’s how NatureNavi came together:
Empathize
1
User Research
Understanding the Users
To better understand pain points and unmet needs of Toronto Park goers, our team conducted primary research consisting of 10 semi-structured interviews in addition to an online survey distributed to 41 participants. We heard the feedback of Toronto residents who had experience visiting parks of greenspaces within the city in the recent year.
Key Findings
Among 14 themes, there were a few key insights:
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Parkgoers stressed the importance of easily locating and being aware of the locations of amenities like seating and washrooms.
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Parks are often used as a means of escaping the city life. Natural landscapes and greenery was a key factor for most park visitors.
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Park-goers preferred knowing about what was available in close proximity to their homes.
User Persona
From Research ➡ a Story
Meet Paul Parkson the park-goer. Paul represents the results of our qualitative and quantitative research.
Like our interviewees and participants, Paul needs a way to:
easily locate a park with his desired amenities so that he doesn’t need to spend an excessive amount of time researching
see real-time information and reviews to make informed decisions
Define
2
User Journey
As-is ➡ To-Be
To better understand Paul’s pain points, we mapped out his current journey in navigating and finding parks to visit and compared it to his ‘to-be’ scenario.
The steps remain the same, however, the pain points and feelings have changed dramatically.
Paul's current journey
Pauls revamped journey
Ideate
3
Brainstorming Solutions
Ideation
Our team brainstormed multiple ideas that could help improve Paul’s journey.
We prioritized the big ideas that addressed Paul’s needs and also aligned with our design goals. By casting votes based on feasibility and impact, we’ve identified the following significant and best ideas:
A way to display the location of different amenities
Show whats happening around in the community
The ability to filter for user preferences
Prototype and Refine
4
Wireframing
Starting with Lo-Fi
The big ideas were manifested into the form of an interactive map to display location based data, in addition to a checklist for data filtering and an events dashboard. We prioritized four user flows:
Customizing for the users preferences via onboarding
A filtered search to refine preferences and searches
A reviews and posts area to see up-to date information and feedback
A dashboard to view upcoming events in nearby parks.
Lofi-User Flows and Storyboarding
Usability Testing
Iterative Refinements
Remote lean evaluations were conducted with 4 representative users, which addressed issues of clarity, language and text ratio in the mid-fi prototype.
Hi-Fidelity Mock-up
We conducted a summative evaluation to understand the usability of the mid-fi prototype.
Individually, I created a high-fidelity mockup using the insights we gathered.
Some notable adjustments that further enrich Paul’s experience include system visibility, nearby amenities display, personalized recommendations.
A bright, energetic green was used as the main accent colour.
Play with the hi-fi prototype here! ➡
Evaluate
5
Next Steps
Explore additional use cases. With the introduction of filtering, there is a possibility for a further level of granularity when taking into account time and season of visit, taking into account new factors for filtering and searching.
Can this product compete with the market competition? - Engaging in quantitative testing. How does the utility of the app streamline the experience for users compared to the competition?
🔁 It’s an iterative process. Chances are - it won't be perfect the first time around. Embracing the process of iteration and continual refinement can lead to meaningful discoveries.
🧍 User testing is key! It allows us to check our biases when designing an experience, the user is at the heart and the eventual end-user.
Lessons Learned
Acknowledgement: Elements of this project, including data and graphic visualization have been modified and refined for the purposes of inclusion in this portfolio. Vector illustrations from Storyset.