This project was my third undertaking in General Assembly's User Experience Design Immersive course. It provided hands-on experience working collaboratively in a team of three towards a common goal. Through this project, I gained valuable skills in project and time management, as well as user-centered design.
Duration:
2 Weeks
Responsibilities:
User Research, UI Design, Prototyping, User Testing
Over the course of two weeks, we employed an agile approach, running multiple small iterations in each phase of the project. This iterative process allowed us to continually refine our ideas and solutions.
Users Do Not Feel Confident Planning Routes Through NParks site.
Imagine this: a perfect day to enjoy the great outdoors, your family is ready, everything is set—except for one problem. Where can you go? How do users plan their hiking or trekking routes in Singapore? This was the primary question our team aimed to answer with this project.
At the start, we questioned why users were not utilizing the NPark site. Was it not detailed enough? Were users seeking information on facilities like rest areas, toilets, and picnic spots? Who was the target demographic—event planners or families? We also considered what Google Maps offered that we could reference, and whether users were using other sites for planning their routes.
User Focused Research
We hold great importance in the voice of the users. In this research, we took more of a qualitative approach - interviewing 23 users to find out about their user needs and behaviors.
This is including contextual inquiry with interviews at East Coast Part itself! This provided a lot of great insights as users were on site themselves providing information that was relevant to the project.
This phase was crucial for validating our assumptions. Initially, we thought NPark was being bypassed in favor of Google’s information. However, user insights revealed otherwise.
Our affinity map highlighted key points:
During our research, we discovered the NParks Explore A Route (NEAR) app, which allows users to chart trail routes. This led to a pivotal idea: enabling users to plan routes on their PCs and navigate on-site using their mobile devices. This aligns with our user research, which indicated that users primarily plan on PCs but use Google Maps on mobile while on the go.
We first redesigned the landing page of the site, taking note of the feedback of the users, we cleaned up the global navigation, turning into a super-navigation.
Our main idea was to integrate a Google Maps-styled route planner into the NPark site. This feature would allow users to select different routes in a specific area, calculate distances, and assess difficulty levels based on elevation gain. This would provide users with more control over their planning, giving them the information and confidence needed for their events.
After planning, users could save their route and link it to the NEAR app for seamless navigation.
We aimed to preserve the wealth of information on the NPark site, which includes details about Singapore’s wildlife, from insects and birds to plants seen on trails. Instead of reducing this content for a cleaner design, we organized it to make it more digestible.
Users could access detailed information by clicking on cards at the bottom of the screen, presenting bite-sized information without overwhelming them.
We also made quick mock ups of the mobile responsive for the site.
This project taught me a great deal about designing for governmental sites, including the restrictions and guidelines needed to ensure accessibility. The lessons learned from user testing were invaluable. While the scope and direction of the project seemed daunting initially, the dedication and capability of my teammates made it possible to present the final screens confidently. This experience reinforced the importance of collaboration, iterative design, and user-centered thinking.
