Oct 11, 2016

Citizen Science Water Quality App Interaction Design

A navigation flow for the Puget Sound Water Quality Citizen Science App, organizing which general idea will lead to which in the app.

The Summary

In this module, we were asked to design a citizen science app for Puget Sound water quality. A citizen science site is a site that many different people can post their findings to, and then a multitude of data can be used for research. In order to decrease the complexity of design, each of us chose a specific factor of water quality and just one user. I chose water pH level and water sport athletes. I had to map out the navigation of my app first, and then I drew out the screens and connected them with arrows to show how the app would be navigated. Next, I drew the screens on index cards and uploaded pictures of them to create a prototype using the app POP. My app prototype can be viewed at https://popapp.in/w/projects/57f58e2e7e1ed5716ec555e3/preview .

Index cards with the drawn out screens for the Puget Sound Water Quality Citizen Science app. I took pictures of the cards with my iPhone and uploaded them to the POP app to make an application prototype and add interaction design.

What’s on the App?

The Water Quality app supports data entry, photo upload and location tagging, sharing of textual information, and a wildcard feature, which in my case is a discussion board feature this way other users can comment on posts. The app also had to have a motivational feature to keep people using the app. Because my target users are water sport athletes, I assume they are fairly adventurous, so when they submit a post on the app, they are provided a fun destination to visit in their general location. Here’s a video showing what the app includes and how it’s navigated.

A video of me navigating and demonstrating the interaction design of the Puget Sound Water Quality Citizen Science app prototype with the app.

A Walk in Another Person’s Shoes

At first, when I was designing the application it was difficult to think of the best way to set up the navigation. I had to put myself in the shoes of the user and set it up in a way that would make it similar to other commonly used apps. This is because when making an app with the purpose to be useful, the design pattern should be like other apps so that a user can navigate without having to think about it. However, when making an app to stand out and be different the design pattern should be new and intriguing.

Ideas in Motion

I enjoyed creating an app prototype, because it was fun to see my design in motion. I tested my prototype by having other people use it and observing if they were able to easily navigate through the pages or not. There were some problems with it, for example, at first, the save button was not interactive, and people suggested that it should lead back to the general upload page, so I made some adjustments. Through people’s input I was able to improve the design and improve the interaction design.