December 2023
UX Designer - User Research, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Rapid Prototyping
This mobile app was designed in 2 weeks.
In my Digital Product Experiences class at Utah Valley University, I was tasked with creating a mobile app based on a National Park.
The brief was rather open-ended, as long as we could justify that our product was intended for use as a part of the park-visiting experience, it would be approved.
Project Goal
Create a delightful product for National Park visitors.
Research Activity: Secondary Research
I started by looking into what kinds of experiences that park visitors were having and what challenges they face in different specific National Parks.
I wanted to identify a problem that could be solved specifically with a mobile app.
After spending most of the time allocated for this project experimenting with another idea, I pivoted to creating a mobile app that provided a more engaging park experience through encouraging social interaction, with the goal of driving more traffic to national parks.
Proposal for Dropnotes
I took my research and assembled a project proposal for the product. This project was inspired by my experience of playing the Dark Souls video games.
A significant feature of the series is notes. As you explore the environment, you stumble upon notes left by other players throughout the world. These notes can be clues to help you beat the game, jokes, or even tricks to harm you or waste your time.
A note found by a player in "Dark Souls II"
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/soulslike-player-messagest
Dropnotes Description
This app allows users to be able to create and view social media posts that are tied to a geolocation. They view the posts in an AR experience.
Who is the audience?
Park Visitor Guests - This app has a large possible user-base. It is an experience that could appeal to any person that decides to visit a national park.
I did some research into demographic information regarding park visitors, and found that it would be possible to segment the audience based on race, I didn't feel that this would be a useful for this product.
Desired Product Outcomes
Foster connections between park-goers
Provide a fun new way for park goers to engage with the environment
Increase park attendance, because if people wish to see the posts of their friends, they have to physically come see them.
Design Phase
Because I had spent so much time exploring another idea for this project, I ended up needing to compress my project timeline to a large degree. As such, I skipped creating wireframes and moved directly to creating a final design in order to be able to meet the project deadline.
UI Template
One of the first challenges I encountered was how I could go about conveying an AR mobile experience in Figma, after some research I ended up creating a template that not only showed the screen portion of the experience, but also the environment of the park.
Prototype Demonstration
Design Highlights
Project Reflection
What went well
This project was submitted as a final project for my Designing Product Experiences class, and received an "A" grade. I am proud I was able to create a fun and interesting project concept. I also figured out a decent way to design and prototype an AR experience in Figma.
Though pivoting away from the original idea I had was a risk because it left me with only 2 weeks to complete the entire final project from scratch, the risk ended up paying off, as my professor found this project much more interesting and worthwhile.
What could have gone better
If I were to continue this project, I would definitely want to explore another tool for creating a higher fidelity prototype, potentially even using "Unreal" to simulate the AR experience or a tool on directly on mobile.