WildLife
Providing protection for Australian native animals.
Overview
Australia is a place with an extensive variety of wildlife species which are found nowhere else in the world, making their conservation even more important. Some of our iconic species like the Koala, black-flancked rock-wallaby, hairy-nosed wombat, broad-toothed rat, just to mention some, are under a threat of extinction and the catastrophic bushfires of 2019/20 impacted nearly 3 billion animals. Human activity, population growth and the expansion of our cities are some other factors that are impacting and reducing the survival rates of injured and displaced wildlife in our country.
With all of these challenges faced by our wildlife, the non-stop changes in the way that we are living and growing as a country, we need to be part of the solution to help all those animals and ask ourselves:
How can we help wildlife that are in danger, injured or need help?
The Goal
We have to find a solution that advises people on a way to help wildlife that are in danger, injured or in need of help.
The Solution
I developed a feature that could help users to find the right information to know what to do when they find an animal injured and/or needed for help.
Roles & Responsibilities
The project was developed with the double diamond process (Discover, Define, Develop & Deliver) with a project manager overviewing it. I was responsible for the whole process, including research, data collection, ideation, development of the product and the deliverables.
My roles through the process were:
– Competitive and comparative analysis
– User research
– Usability testing
– Persona sets
– Customer journey maps
– Content writing
– High and low fidelity prototyping
– Usability testing
Finding the Persona
At this point I arrived at my first assumption. The product was most likely to be a mobile app and would eventually evolve across other devices. The reason behind this assumption is was due to the high penetration of mobile devices in Australia. Mobile devices are relied on even more when in remote or regional areas.
This assumption helped me to narrow down the way that I was going to develop the competitive and comparative research, and how to approach them.
For the competitive analysis I found there are two types of organisations helping wildlife in Australia. The first group are government organisations such as “NSW National Parks” and the second group are NGOs. Some of those organisations include:
Wires Wildlife rescue
Sydney Wildlife
Australian Seabird Rescue
ORRCA Organisation for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans
Friends of the Koala - Northern NSW Coast
Northern Rivers Wildlife Carers INC
Ku-ring-gai Bat Conservation Society
Sydney Metropolitan Wildlife Services
Taronga Wildlife Hospital
Manly SEA LIFE Sanctuary
Wildlife Rescue Australia
Centennial Parklands
In most cases, these organisations are working autonomously and are functioning only in the state where they have been founded. This creates difficulties in developing a cohesive national plan with one strategy to address the wildlife issues.
When I reviewed the competitive set I found that there were little differences in what they stood for. Their functions and options concentrated on:
Information about how they function as an organisation and their purpose and values.
How to support them with financial aid.
How to contact them.
Using the contact option, I reached out to these organisations and realised quickly that there wasn’t an option to ask for immediate help. Only some gave an option to be contacted later and only if the case was urgent.
I extended my competitive research to mobile applications that offered help and support to animals. I found some apps offering basic information about animals, and a big amount of games where you could play “helping animals”. Only two applications provided help to injured animals - “Wildcare Helpline” and “IFAW Wildlife”.
Wildcare Helpline provides:
Information about animals
Find a Vet near you
Information about them
IFA Wildlife provides:
Links to get help from different organisations
My rescue history
How to donate to IFA
Information about the organisation
How to contact them
To support my assumption, I did some research of the most popular apps used by Australians and discovered that Australia has one of the highest Social Media usability rates anywhere in the world.
With this information, I decided to make the comparative analysis with the 5 most popular social media platforms in Australia (April 22): Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter. The most remarkable points from this comparison are:
User Research:
To finish the research process, I conducted interviews with people aged between 21 and 58 who live in suburban areas with close proximity to parks and/or people who like to do bush-walks. Summarising the interviews, the most relevant insights were:
After gathering all the information, I was able to create the persona who was going to help with the ideation and the validation of the rest of the project.
After analysing every single of Selina’s frustrations and pain points, I was able to have a better understanding of the possible user and and how I could help them. I took all these points into consideration and I started to write down possible problem statements where I could address the most significant problems faced by Selina during her bush-walks. At the end, I came up with the final problem statement:
“Selina needs to find an easy access source about wildlife so that she will be able to use it during her walks in case that she could find any animal needing help.”
The problem statement and different insights gathered during the interviews were the base to create Selina’s Journey map. It helped me to identify the different pain points and opportunities that she could be facing and how I could help her with these key points:
To develop the “How Might We Statements” I used Selina’s experience with the App. Some of the most relevant points were:
All the approaches were interesting and well connected with Selina’s pain points and goals. However, I decided to explore the “awareness about wildlife” because it was strongly present through all the interviews. With that decision made, the “How Might We” chosen was:
“How Might We help to create awareness about wildlife?”
The Ideation
The statement was clear and I was ready to start ideation. I decided to use the Crazy Eights method to gather enough ideas. The fact that I was developing everything by myself, I decided to have two rounds of crazy eights, then I picked the strongest and most connected ideas according to the problem statement and Selina’s pain point and goals. After some deliberation, I used comparative and competitive research to help me with the decision about what ideas I should explore. The decision brought these 3 key points:
All of them were strong concepts and they were well connected with Selina’s pain points and expectations. I used them all for the interfaces in order to complete the user flow.
For the usability test, the goal was:
“Users will be able to find the animal details in less than 2 minutes in order to get the information required.”
And the task was:
“You are in the middle of a bush-walk and you find a Sugar Glider. It might need your help. Check the options that you have to find all the information that you need to know about Sugar Gliders”
The Results
The results showed me how important it is for the user to find a prompt solution to their needs in regards to searching for help. After analysing the results from this round of usability test, these are the recommendations to follow with the prototype before proceeding with the next round of usability test:
- The filtering to search for animals should be usable individually or as a group.
- The “Help” button should be part of the “search” options. This button should have more than one option to help users with different needs during the whole process.
- Once the changes have been made, it is recommended to have another round of usability tests.
- The information collected from the comparative analysis provided insightful information that should be used for the development of new features within the app.
Learnings:
It was a challenging process. I didn’t have anybody else providing different points of view and approaches that could help me to analyse the steps of the process and identify key points. However, it was a very rewarding process that has helped me to strengthen my skills and the way that I could face any kind of UX, service or product project in the future.
Every time that a project finishes, it highlights how well developed research is the key to developing the correct persona(s). And the combination of these two elements is essential to have a strong ideation process.
Believe in the process and put the persona in every step. This helps to validate the progress and outcomes throughout the project.