Inforest
As an agroforestry research application, InForest aims to not only increase the accuracy and efficiency of forest data collection, but also provide researchers with a better way to share and display their data with students and other researchers.
WHAT
DALI Project
WHEN
Winter 2022
Purpose
Case Study
Team
Timeframe
Joshua Vorbrich – Designer
Ardelle Ning – Designer
William Perez – Design Mentor
5 months (two ten-week terms)
The Challenge
Our partners, a team of forestry researchers, came to DALI Lab with a problem. Every five years, they conduct a census of the forest, measuring the size, location, species etc. about every tree in the forest in order to track the forest growth and change. They were frustrated with their data collection process which was incredibly inefficient as it required the data collectors to reenter the data manually from the clipboards into the computer systems. Further, there were numerous parts of the data collection process in which field workers regularly made mistakes that were difficult to fix.
Pain Points
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Redundant data entry wastes time and creates room for mistakes
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Difficulties relying on field interns to correctly identify tree species
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Hard to identify and correct misidentified trees or mis recorded data
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Trouble navigating the forest and finding trees
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Lack of an easy and appealing way to share data with student groups on forest walks
The Product
InForest allows agroforestry researchers to more efficiently and accurately collect, track, and display data from forest censuses. InForest eliminates redundancies in the data collection and documentation process, increases the ease and accuracy of species identification, and flags potentially mislabeled trees. As a result, it greatly decreases both the amount of time required to conduct a forest census and the number of mistakes made in the censusing process.
We conducted user interviews of data collection field interns, our partners, and other forestry researchers before beginning to synthesize our responses into different user personas. We conducted industry research, identified the different contexts in which someone would be using our product in the field, developed user flows and journey maps to track the different stages that our product would be used in. Finally, we used point of view statements and How Might We (HMW) Questions to try to define our objectives.
User Research
How Might We streamline the data collection process and remove sources of error?
Initial Sketches – Crazy 8s
Each team member drew 8 sketches in 8 minutes as a design exercise
Through design reviews, critiques, and
continued conversations with our users, we were able to get user feedback on our designs, tighten our features, and continue iterating...
Greyscales and Initial Iterations
Style Guide
Final Screens
Takeaways...
Through this project, I learned a lot about what a professional design process looks like. It was the first time that I had gotten to work with other designers, so I learned a lot just by watching and working with them and through my design mentor.
Working with Partners
This was my first experience working with professional partners on a project. Our partners were incredible and I really learned a lot about how collaboration and communication with partners is managed.
Iterations, Design Reviews, etc.
I learned a lot about the value of iterating and receiving feedback through design reviews.
Summary
As an agroforestry research application, InForest aims to not only increase the accuracy and efficiency of forest data collection, but also provide researchers with a better way to share and display their data with students and other researchers.
Design Team
Me – Designer
Ardelle – Designer
Will – Design Mentor
+1 project manager and 3 developers
5 months (two ten-week terms) to design and develop
Inforest
WHAT
DALI Project
WHEN
Winter 2022
Case Study: Digital Design
Timeframe
Tags
UI/ UX Design
Hi-Fi Mockups
Rapid Prototyping