The Brief
As technology becomes an increasingly integral part of our daily lives, it’s easy to overlook the simple wonders of the natural world. We wanted to create an app that would encourage users to engage and evoke wonder over the natural world.
SKYLENS
UX Design Case Study
Turn sky watching into a learning adventure. Point, snap and discover the wisdom of the sky.
4 Weeks
3 Designers
The Research
We wanted to conduct research to understand what aspects of nature people were interested in and if navigating the outdoors was something people wanted to gain more confidence in.
144 minutes of gathered insights from participants. We found that participants were already taking photos of the sky and sunsets just out of admiration.
4
One-on-one interviews
15
Survey Responses
16 questions total with the top response on what motivates people to get outside: Mood boosting effects and stress relief.
Affinity and Empathy Mapping
After collecting data we were able to map out the information into five different categories, Nature Aesthetics, Weather Tracking, Gamification, Motivations to be outside and Nature Skills.
After affinity and empathy mapping we found
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that not many people ventured out far enough into the wild to need navigational skills, like how to detect where the nearest stream etc.
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We did find that majority of people agree that they learn best when they are able to attach personal experience with the lesson
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People loved sunsets, skylines and cloud formations.
User Journeymap
We created a user journey map to see possible frustrations the user may have, following this we created another user journey map to show how SkyLens could improve these frusterations.
Key Findings
The user loves admiring the sky and all its formations, once the user uses SkyLens they not only can learn but share their love with a community.
User Persona
Quinn Kale
Quote
“The most important thing about nature is how vast it can feel. It reminds me I exist in a large expansive world. That reminder helps me alleviate stress.”
37 Years Old
College Educated
Elementary School Teacher
Goals
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Find fun ways to learn while she is on her nature walks.
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Have a place to document and share her sunset photos.
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Wants to find more apps to compliment her hobbies
Pain Points
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Finds most educational apps dull or impersonal
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Wants to integrate learning on her walks but isnt sure how.
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Loves stargazing apps but isn't able to find any for during the day for sky gazing.
Competitive Analysis
We created a competitive analysis of similar products in the industry to assess what our competitors are doing well and were they are falling short.
Key Findings
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While existing apps address cloud identification and weather tracking, they lack a cohesive experience that integrates functionality, fosters ongoing engagement, and builds a connected community. More importantly, they fail to nurture users' curiosity about the science behind these phenomena.
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These gaps present a significant opportunity to innovate and differentiate by creating a tool that connects users to both the educational and social aspects of weather exploration, transforming it into a daily habit and a hub for learning, collaboration, and discovery
Creative Matrix and Feature Prioritization
To get an idea on what features we may want to include that align with our users needs we filled out a creative matrix as a team, which you can find here.
Next, we needed to find what features would be most useful and offer the most value for potential users.
After dot voting we decided to prioritize our focus on these categories of features:
1. Community space to share findings.
2. Explanation of the science behind cloud formation.
Task Flow
Before diving into the wire framing and prototyping we wanted to create a task flow to narrow down which pages we would first bring to life.
Site Map
We then drew up a sitemap to organize every page SkyLens would offer.
Developmental Stages
We started in grey scale, lo fidelity before working our way up to hi fidelity to ensure faster iterations, better collaboration and more effective problem solving at each phase.
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Style Guide
We created a style guide in order to streamline the prototyping process, create a cohesive design and structured brand.
A/B Testing
We believed that if we gave the users an accelerator to move past the analysis they would engage less with the educational portion.
A
B
With version A users had to scroll down to get to the next action.
Accelerator
A/B Testing Results
Our testing disproved our hypothesis. We found users spent longer on the page if they were immediately given an exit option. Version B gave users more freedom and control thus leading to more engagement.
Version A
Version B
ASD : 60 seconds
Litmus Scale : 4
Pages Visited : 4
ASD : 74 seconds
Litmus Scale : 4
Pages Visited : 6
This also corresponds with Jakob Neilson's 3rd Usability Heuristic, "User Control and Freedom", which states, "The ability to easily get out of trouble encourages exploration, which facilitates learning and discovery of features."
Hi-Fidelity Prototype
Explore the prototype Here
Conclusion and Next Steps
Future Steps
Introduce features to interpret barometric data.
Further iterate and add to our challenges portion of the application. Showing progress of challenges increases user engagement.
User's most important needs
Fostering a community, allowing users to share and engage in each others content and offer challenges.
Deepening understanding of atmospheric science.
