Tracking Down Squirrels in UW — Animal Census

Interaction Design

What did we do?

Our primary goal is to create a data deposit consists of data citizens provided and used by scientist. To help scientist collect data of squirrels in UW, my group came up a set of ideas of how to design a squirrel’s census application. First of all, the question was what type of information that scientist will need should we collect. Then we think of the locations of squirrels and the time when they appear in campus. Data like how many squirrels appear in a day or a week, where did these squirrels like to be should be basic information that we can provide to scientists.

How does it work?

A photo can give a lot of information, and video gives more. However, a cute squirrel comes and goes in a short amount of time, so I put a camera sign in home page so that people can quickly capture it before it goes. If no sign of squirrels for now, the log in button is right below. The reasons why we want our users log in before upload are that we can give extra credit to them if they are a UW student, secondly, it saves users’ upload history and provide credits for their resources (make them more trustworthy), and finally, there will be further interaction between user and his/her friends on specific media later. After users log in, two sets of features are showed to reporter and scientist accordingly. Users can easily upload photo or video, look up their old posts, and see friends’ posts. For scientist, summary showing general data is easily accessible, a real-time scatter diagram is displayed by gathering posts at the time, and squirrels mapping for the day, week, or month is provided as well.

What intrigues users?

Why would citizens like to download such an app? Our primary users are UW students, then UW staff, and finally visitors. Speaking of motivation for students, extra credits are an excellent external motivation for them to download the app. For UW staff, some of them may be researchers who need the data and resources in the app. When come to visitors, I think an internal motivation is essential for this app to keep its popularity. Therefore, I add a feature called “My Virtual Squirrel”, which is a virtual pet that users can gain foods and even dresses for it by uploading posts. There are also games with the virtual squirrel, and interaction with friends’ squirrels is very interesting as well. A ranking feature is also included to trigger users’ interest to outrank their friends by finding more squirrels in campus. Besides, a feature called “Squirrels World” shows fun facts and news about squirrels, which expands users’ knowledge about squirrels.

Now what?

Since this application about squirrels is informative and useful, it is certainly applicable in many fields: not only can we learn more about squirrels, but also other small mammals. Supposed we want to learn about wild cats in certain area, or if we want to help local homeless puppies. Moreover, the types of animals that we can use this application on is not limited: hikers can use it to gather information about wild animals living in forest; beachgoers can gather information about marine animals such as sharks and jellyfish. From conducting zoological researches to protecting endangered animals, this application can realize its values and can benefit our future in many ways.

What do I find most enjoyable during interaction design?

Interaction design is a process you have to consider users’ experience and others’ thought. At the beginning when my group was doing brainstorm, we came up lots of ideas that may improve users experience, and we shared opinions about what is good and what is bad about each specific idea. I think interaction design not only values the interaction between what we design and the users, but also the interaction between designers. Through the discussion, I changed my user interface several times based on my teammates’ advice to be more practical and convenience for users.

In my opinion, interaction design is about relationships, which could be relationship between people or relationship between user and product. And work to improve relationship is what I found most enjoyable