High impact areas of environmental conservation to address with Design

Areas I might have to leave behind, and ideas for the future

Through my Masters of Design, I’ve been seeking to work out how we can improve social and environmental outcomes of environmental volunteering.

Unfortunately, all projects must at some point decide what they’re not going to do. Instead of letting them drift quietly into the ether, I decided to share some of them in case there is other Designers (or other people who are interested in designing and inventing solutions) who wish to pick up the mantle.

Part One: the domains of a conservation group

Image from my second critique in which I presented three domains groups must focus on.

Here follows some of the areas to further investigate, as I believe they’re particularly high value:

1. Improving the relationships between funders and community groups [Governance]. This is one of the primary areas of frustration for many in the sector; whether it’s replication of existing activities, flow of information, appropriate support and funding, or something else. I suggest that exploring this area through strategic design / systems design / service design, would all be valid approaches, as would establishing a social lab.
2. Improving the way volunteers find groups and activities, and stay informed [Admin & Coordination]. From my experience, this is one of the biggest frustrations for volunteers, and a constant headache for group coordinators. The challenges of building and maintaining effective websites, creating compelling content for social media, and managing event sign ups is common across many groups in Australia and New Zealand. Exploring this through service design & UX design would be fruitful, in my opinion.
3. Improving the system of compliance for community groups reporting to agencies [Administration & Coordination | On Ground Events]. My research showed that often groups were subject to the health & safety and reporting protocols of multiple agencies, whilst working on small budgets for administration and overheads. Exploring how to streamline these systems across multiple groups and agencies through systems design / service design / UX design is much needed.