Citizen Science Step 8: Design & UX Write-Up
Hi everyone! I’m back with more to show for my Citezen Science App Design. Let’s do a quick recap. I am creating an app that is designed to motivate the user to reduse the amount of trash they use during the day. This is a fun and uplifting app created to engage the user and encourage them to change little daily habits that can lead to making a big difference on the environment.
The main section of this app is the plant section. This will be the homescreen of the app. It will show a plant in the process of growing. Underneath the plant will show the amount of points the user has earned. They earn points by doing good deeds which they can keep track off on the app. Every time they upload their good deed, they recieve however many points. The more points they continue to get, the more the user’s virtual plant will grow. Once the plant is fully grown, the user will earn a badge for their good service. This badge will be shown on their profile.
To upload a good deed, the user simply has to tap on the plus button and then select from the list of options. I originally was exploring how to add more emphasis on this experience. I wanted the user to remember why doing these things were important. I ended up creating brief descriptions about the good deed once the user selects it.
In this section, the user will find a recycling option. If they recycled or wished to recycle an object, they would tap on that section and go through the simple process. If the user did indeed need help recycling their item, the app would open the user’s camera and allow the user to take a photo of their item. Once the photo is uploaded, the app would scan that item and tell the user which bin to place the item in. This process is shown below in the following image.
As I briefly mentioned before, users can earn badges for fully growing their plant. These badges can be seen by all users who have an account. The user will have the option to search and look at other people’s gardens they are growing. On a profile, the user gets the chance to see the badges that account has earned as well as their current success on the plant they are growing. I believed by adding this transparency to the app, it would motivate people to consistently keep earning points so that others will see their success.
Once the user has successfully grown their plant, they will have the freedom of selectng and purchasing their next plant to grow using the points they earned from the last plant. They can find the different types of plants to purchase in the market section of the app. I added a small navigation bar to this section to help the user find a specific type of plant faster. I thought will would make the experience easier on the user to scan through the variety of plants shown.
I also thought that the user should be able to see the amount of points they have somewhere on the screen. This is so they didn’t have to remember how many points they had to see if they earned enough to buy a specific plant. This led me to place the user’s points in the top right-hand corner.
It was very difficult making all of these decisions when designing for this app. It needed to have a nice flow to it so that the experince was enjoyable to users. This app almost feels like a game. Which is probably why I had to make so many screens for it! It is important to keep the icons simple but still interesting to the user. I wanted the layout of the entire app to feel consistent with each other but also clean and open.
The next step I will take in this project is conducting interviews and receiving feedback on how effective and enjoyable my design is to the user. Wish me luck!
