Seven things we learnt while building apps for remote Amazon communities.
Field testing Forest Watcher in Colombia and Peru.
As the motorised canoe sped along the flooded veins of water deep inside the Amazon rainforest, Rodrigo, José and Simão gazed up at the trees towering above them. Trunks rose out of the water within arm’s reach but they knew to keep their hands inside the boat. Their destination? A patch of deforestation captured by satellites and identified by Forest Watcher, an app that delivers deforestation data to frontline forest guardians — even when the internet is virtually non-existent.
When we first developed the Forest Watcher app for the World Resources Institute and Jane Goodall Institute in 2017, our research led to a set of assumptions we used to guide the build. Now we had a chance to test those assumptions in a field test and see for ourselves if Forest Watcher was meeting the needs of its users. Forest Watcher’s team of developers — Rodrigo, José and Simão — flew to Colombia to meet Liz Bourgault, WRI’s Forest Watcher Project Manager, and Rachel Petersen, Deputy Director of Global Forest Watch, and begin their Amazon Adventure.
Within 24 hours of landing their assumptions were already being proven wrong. This is the story of what we’ve learnt and the importance of collaborative planning when you have have just five weeks to deliver an essential update.
1. Don’t assume you’ll get good wifi in the city.
Excitement filled the air in Leticia, our team’s base camp in Colombia. The streets were full of people talking about that day’s local election and the atmosphere of anticipation was infectious.
Rodrigo, José and Simão collected the devices they’d be using for the field tests from Forest Watcher’s partner; The Rainforest Foundation. As they set about updating the devices, any excitement Rodrigo, José and Simão had absorbed from the crowds outside slowly turned to frustration as they realised the wifi in their hotel wasn’t good enough to download new data onto the phones and tablets. What’s more, the updates kept failing without any clear reason for doing so.
Eventually, Rodrigo, José and Simão realised the updates were failing because the software on the devices hadn’t been updated in a long time. Possibly because the internet connection was unreliable. Using Simao’s roaming data plan to create a hotspot from his cell phone, they set about installing software updates, making it possible to update the Forest Watcher app and download the data for areas they’d be visiting over the next few days. At 3am the updates were finally finished and everyone rolled into bed to catch some sleep before an early start in a few hours time.
2. The fastest way to travel in the Amazon is by boat.
The Amazon rainforest is the world’s largest tropical rainforest and thousands of rivers criss-cross the land. During the rainy season the river network expands and opens up access to remote communities that are almost inaccessible during the dry season. It’s little surprise then that the best, and sometimes only, way to reach remote communities is by water. From Leticia, the joint Vizzuality and WRI team took advantage of the swollen, rainy season rivers and traveled by boat to visit the communities we were collecting feedback from.
3. We learn how to use apps by using them and you can’t assume your users know what you know.
The interactions we use to swipe right on Tinder and roam around the PUBG battleground are gestures we’ve been unconsciously taught to use by the apps on our phone. When you use these gestures all day, every day, they become intuitive. The interactions designed for Forest Watcher are based on habits the development team are familiar with but once Rodrigo, José and Simão were in the field, they realised the people they were talking to weren’t. The Forest Watcher app needed to provide extra guidance to help people understand how to use and make full use of it.
4. Forest Watcher is used for reasons we hadn’t anticipated.
As we got to know the communities and their approach to forest management, we came to see that they were using Forest Watcher for uses we hadn’t accounted for in our research and planning. Yes, they were using the data to detect deforestation but they were also using it to record their own use of the land and provide proof of their ownership. In the Amazon, who owns what land isn’t always clear from a legal perspective, but each community has a clear boundary line that other communities will not cross without permission. By recording what’s happening within their parcel of land, communities have evidence of their presence and need for land.
When deforestation within a community’s boundary is detected, the village council meets to review the evidence. Each alert is considered on a case-by-case basis and the council will decide if it needs to be reported to government authorities or the NGOs supporting their forest conservation efforts.
5. Some people are using fitness apps to monitor deforestation.
The second community Rodrigo, José and Simão visited had a little surprise in store for them. They were using a fitness app to monitor deforestation. Why? Because they could import high-quality satellite imagery into the app and use it as a base layer to plan and track the paths they take to investigate the deforestation.
It’s impossible to download high-resolution satellite images when you’re in the middle of the Amazon, so the Rainforest Foundation has been downloading satellite images in their offices in Lima and sending them to remote Amazon communities on a USB stick. Each community receives an image of their land which they load onto their phones and import into the fitness app. When they investigate a case of deforestation they will use the app to record how they get there on foot and share it with anyone who needs that information.
6. The forest can be impenetrable.
On their second day in the Amazon, Rodrigo, José and Simão learnt that sometimes the forest will not let you pass. A patch of deforestation had been detected but without a clear image of the ground around it, it was impossible to plan a route to get there. They tried to get there on foot but the tangle of vines, tree roots and flood water made it impossible. It’s precisely these kind of conditions that forced the community rangers to adopt a fitness app to detect forest deforestation as it gave them a better view of what was happening on the ground and track their routes.
7. Collaborative planning leads to speedy delivery.
After two days in the Amazon, Rodrigo, José and Simão flew to Bogota with Liz and Rachael for a two-day planning sprint where they planned what changes needed to be made to Forest Watcher and what features they would prioritise.
They considered things like;
- What are the most common causes of crashes?
- Do people work in miles or kilometers?
- What are the common issues people have?
- What do they like about Forest Watcher?
- What do people not like?
From all this information they identified interesting ideas and potential new features but the list was pretty long so they had to narrow it down. Using a matrix that considered the priority, difficulty and value of each idea, tasks were given a low, medium, or high rating. Those ideas that offered the most value, were easy to achieve and could be done within a five-week timeframe made it to our job list.
To reduce the cognitive delay that occurs when you have a long list of tasks to do and don’t know what order to do them in, Liz added every item to schedule that clearly showed which tasks were to be done each week. For the developers, Rodrigo and José, this meant they always knew what the next task is, and Liz the Project Manager was able to see at a glance which tasks were being crossed off the list. This planning system worked so well, Rodrigo and José completed every task on the priority list and began working on some extra features on the ‘would be nice to have’ list.
Five weeks after their Amazon adventure, Rodrigo, José and Simão deployed the latest update of Forest Watcher. The findings of their field trip show how valuable it can be to spend time with the people you are developing products for. Until you sit in their environment and experience their unique circumstances, your understanding of them is limited to what they are willing to share over the phone. Sometimes it’s not until you see them with the app in their hand that you can truly appreciate how they are using a product and for what purpose. We’re extremely grateful to the people of Buen Jardín y Paraíso for inviting us into their communities and showing us what they need.
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