01 NestNet

📱 UI/UX

My Role:
Research, Analysis, Conceptualisation, Design, User Testing, Evaluation

The Team:
4 Designers

Timeline:
6 Weeks

Technology:
Figma

NestNet is a mobile application that connects birdwatching communities to plan birdwatching activities and help them to identify and record birds as well as birds’ habitats. Recorded data will not only help the birding group, but also helps city councils to better understand local ecosystem.

Play with the Prototype ▶️

Backgrounds

Bird watching (birding) has been a cherished pastime for centuries and continues to captivate millions in the present day. Nowadays, birding groups have created thousands of groups online to organise birdwatching events and sharing bird-related posts everyday. Besides, birding groups also use online encyclopaedia to identify birds. with their searching functions.

Birds Habitats can also be valuable data source for local councils to determine planning schemes and enhance ecological performance. In Australia, such habitats reporting relies on professional survey, which is not timely. A crowd sourcing data source on birds habitats could also benefit the local councils.

Initial Thinking

Target User

All levels of Bird Watching
Enthusiast, Education Users

Research Method

Online Survey (Google Form)
In-Person Interview

Merlin Bird ID

Using a 5-step questionnaire to perform advanced search, which is cumbersome to use.

eBird

Requires taxonomy knowledge to use, with text-only results that may block beginners.

What We Should Do?

A platform that integrates bird identification, observation logging, and social engagement features, enabling birders of all levels to connect, learn, and organise activities.

Merlin Birds ID / Nest Net

Research Process

Phase 1: 🔍 Exploratory Research
Market Scan: Reviewing Existing Solution
Desktop Research

Phase 2: 🎤 Interviews
1 on 1 Interviews on Birders

Phase 3: ✅ Validation
Concept Testing through Online Survey

Phase 4: 👤 Persona
Develop a Persona

Phase 5: 🗺️ User Journey Map
Map out how different users will use the service under different circumstances

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Do We Need NestNet ?
Yes!

What Should We Do?
A platform that connects birders and provide tools to identify birds, with user engagement design.

Validated Needs

73%

Birders have experienced unclear search results when looking up a bird

87%

Birders have difficulties to connect with other birders

84%

Birders experienced hardship when organising a birding activity

53%

Birders cannot access birds habitats maps

User Journey & Personas

Motivated to connect his community, Mark uses NestNet to organise a birdwatching event, share details, and engage attendees through group chat.

Curious to learn, Alice identifies a backyard bird using NestNet and shares her discovery with the community.

Solution & Design Goals

📜 Design Statement

How might we integrate birds identification, social activities planning and birds location reporting seamlessly to provide a smooth user experience?

👉

📒 Sharing Posts and Activities
Allowing users to share content and activities

🔍 Image Based Searching
Provide search with photos of birds and give image results

📖 Encyclopaedia of Birds
Integrate an encyclopaedia which can be modified by users.

📅 Event Planning
Let users create events and invite others to join.

📌 Birds Habitat Marking
Using users’ report data to mark the habitats of birds

User Flow

After stating the design goals, users flow were illustrated to help design team to decide information architecture of the App.

Insights were later being processed into wireframe to conduct the first round user tests.

Key functions include

View Discussions on Bird Watching
View Available Activities Nearby
Post Discussion Threads or Posts
Create Activities and Publish Them
Search Birds with Images
Contribute to Birdypedia

Wire-framing

Wireframes were generated after information architecture has been determined to facilitate communication and discussion within design team and review the design.

First round user testing was conducted using the wireframe and valuable insights were generated through this process.

Design System

Concept

We aim at creating a friendly, all-in-one birding community that supports both beginners and experts. We intend to enhance the image of connection with nature and warmth through interface design.

Design Iteration

1. Community Page: Improving Efficiency

65% of participants mentioned others’ users stories were not helpful in wireframe tests. Users primary goals were knowledge sharing and image exchange, effectively supported by the discussion and post features which needs to be highlighted.

The stories and chat were removed to improve effectiveness. This adjustment enhanced visual clarity, and positioned the ‘Posts’ section prominently above the fold, improving access to key features.

First Iteration to Final

2. Profile: Engaging Users

Users reported a lack of sense of achievement during the first round user tests. Hence, a birds collection feature was added to the profile. After capture a bird’s image, it will be added to the collection, showcasing their efforts.

With this feature, users reported they have felt more sense of achievement, making them want to use the platform.

Users’ Collection Was Added

3. Homepage: Event or Discussion?

We set out to design a social-media like platform. However, during user test, 78% users reported they would like ease access to see birding events and do not favour the idea of social media.

During next iteration, the discussion board entry was replaced with upcoming events on homepage, providing easier access to events overview.

Events Replaced Discussion Board

Design Solution

All In One Platform

NestNet offers a all in one platform for birders to organise activity and discuss birding watching relevant topic, sharing knowledge with birding group. Helping birders to connect with their community.

Know Your Birds with Ease

Identifying the bird with taking a photo. With AI, it understands what bird this is and return multimedia results.

Photo’s exif information (incl. location information) is synced with the bird species name and automatically update NestNet’s database entry about birds’ habitat location.

Engaging Users

Threads discussion is designed to cater users who would like to exchange ideas and knowledges with others in NestNet, whilst we also create the Moment feature, allowing users to simply share pictures to the community, lowering the threshold of content contribution to platform.

To offer more sense of achievement, title badges are created to honour contributions to the community, with ranks earned through posts and bird captures. More contribution would help users to earn higher titles.

Activity Planning

Planning birding activity made easy. Users can add an event, with specified time and location, and post it along with thread to engage more users in the activity.

When posting an event, users would see how many people have decided to participate in the event, including the avatar of their friends. Such design would encourage users to signup for activities, as they can see their friends are going.

User Feedback

Testing Feedback

The testing results shows users are highly satisfied with the solutions we offer, meeting the design objective we decided to meet.

“The One Platform ideal is convenient for birders to use and organise activity.“
“The capture feature and return result is straightforward, really good experience.”
“Birdy-pedia is a powerful tools helping people query birds.”
“The moments feature encourages me to share photos I took with others”
“I love the activity who connects our community”

Reflection

The design solution we proposed managed to solve the problems we observed in birding groups and helps build a birding community.

However, concerns raise when it comes to offering social network service, maintaining online discussion environment is important, especially for a service that allows people to plan event and meet in reality. Testers raised such concerns and that is not well addressed in current design.

If we had more time, we would conduct user research in online safety design and improve it accordingly.

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Home 🏠

Backgrounds Initial Thinking Research Process Validated Needs User Journey & Personas Solution & Design Goals User Flow Wireframe Design System Design Iteration Design Solution User Feedback Reflection