A Digital Nature Walk Experience

Designing a digital experience app for nature enthusiasts end to encourage outdoor exploration.

Role

UX/UI Designer

Industry

Entertainment

Duration

5 Months

I designed a mobile app for a digital nature walk experience. This app was designed for nature enthusiasts and to encourage outdoor exploration. The experience combines a digital and physical element that immerses the user on an experience that engages their senses.

More Experience, Less Functional

A digital experience is less functional and more experience-based, with a memorable and meaningful design. I had to research what this truly meant and my idea. In the end, I had explored methods in which a nature walk in a park could be enhanced for better mental health, which filled the criteria for a meaningful design. Further developing my design idea, I added an element of novelty, the user could collect items across the park that could be scanned via the phone app and take selfies within the app after every trail completed, which fulfilled the criteria for a memorable design.

The idea: A digital nature walk that features audio-based narrations that direct the user on a guided meditation experience using headphones through different trails in parks that collaborate with the service. The trail would have its own unique activities, different narrated stories, and actions that allow the user to scan objects along the trail to unlock content.

Design Execution

Design Framework: Starting with the design framework I began by creating a design persona to lay down all the pain points, goals, phycographics, motivations and frustrations of a possible user who would use and benefit from my design idea. This enabled me to tailour the digital experience to that target group by creating a scenario for the persona and visualising the users journey in maps such as, experience, journey and service maps. I then vosualised these in a storyboard which helped to understand the digital connection to the environment.

Persona:

Experience Map:

Key Scenario Storyboard Snippet:

More Experience, Less Functional

Design Execution

Design Framework: Starting with the design framework I began by creating a design persona to lay down all the pain points, goals, phycographics, motivations and frustrations of a possible user who would use and benefit from my design idea. This enabled me to tailour the digital experience to that target group by creating a scenario for the persona and visualising the users journey in maps such as, experience, journey and service maps. I then vosualised these in a storyboard which helped to understand the digital connection to the environment.

Persona:

Experience Map:

Key Scenario Storyboard Snippet:

High Fidelity Prototype: After creating the design framework, I was able to use it as a guide to create a high-fidelity prototype. I produced wireframes from the storyboards, then established a component style for the app. The style consisted of earthy colours and art that reflected nature; lots of greens and brown colours for soil and ground. I used a simple minimalist design style that gave a clean and pleasant aesthetic. As the digital experience I wanted to produce was for improving mental health, there needed to be no clutter on the screens. Once both of these assets were created, I could then build a high-fidelity prototype in Figma. The image below shows my prototyping procedure.

Reflections

The experience is memorable and meaningful as the designs integrate selfie taking, audio or guided narration, and collectibles. Through interactive phases in the walk that provide an incentive to interact with the surroundings directs the user's mind relaxes and then remembers the walks they have been on. The overall aesthetic of the app was also clean and minimal, which provides a simple UI and ease of use.

For improvement, I think that the whole experience could have collaborated with a brand, which has become apparent to me, and I think it would have made the experience more noticeable in the market and credible for potential users to use.