National Park Service App
Adding a feature to the NPS App to let users personalize their visit planning
Project Details
ROLE
UX Researcher, UX/UI Designer
DURATION
4 weeks
TOOLS
Figma, Miro, Milanote, Google Forms
TLDR:
Project Overview
Background
There were 297 million visits to United States National Parks in 2021. The National Park Service created its official app less than 5 years ago. The goals were to enable people to access information about the parks from anywhere and to be able to connect and share their experiences with other park visitors.
Constraints
The goal of the project was to add a feature to the existing app, helping users better plan their trips to the National Parks. Given this, the feature I created had to be seamlessly integrated into the existing product. This meant I had the constraints of style and mood, in addition to time because it was a 4-week project.
Problem
The National Park Service app isn’t reaching its full potential when it comes to helping users plan their trips to the national parks. The app has a lot of information to sort through and users are confused when trying to plan trips to the national parks because they don’t know what they need to know.
Solution
Simplify user flows and information layout in the app
Personalize the trip planning experience so the process is less overwhelming for users
Process
Research
Research Goals
User Interviews
Survey
Affinity Map
Competitive Analysis
Ideation
POVs and HMWs
Personas
Wireframe. Test. Iterate.
Low-Fi Wireframes
Mid-Fi Wireframes
Usability Test
Iterate
Visual Identity
Brand Research
Style Tile
Prototype.
High-Fi Wireframes
Prototype
Research
The project started with research to better understand what pain points arise for national park goers when planning their visits.
Research Goals
Learn how national park visitors plan their trips
Determine the resources people use when planning national park trips
Understand what information is critical to know before heading to the parks
Discover pain points associated with planning national park visits
Methods
User interviews
Survey
Competitive Analysis
User Interviews
I interviewed 4 national park visitors to better understand why and how they plan their visits. Users seemed most frustrated with a lack of consistent information about the national parks - parks require different day passes, advance tickets, campsite reservations, etc. This inconsistency makes it difficult to understand what you need to have a smooth park experience.
About the participants:
4 national park visitors between 20-65 years old
Visited at least 2 national parks in the last year
Some questions that were asked:
Can you walk me through your process for planning a trip to a national park?
What information is most important when looking into national parks?
How do you gather information about the park before visiting?
What are your main goals when visiting national parks?
Survey
The survey was conducted with Google Forms with 11 participants. The goal was to reach more national park-goers while sticking to the time constraint provided. The survey provided insight as to what resources people are using to plan their visits, what activities they prioritize, and their frustrations. I analyzed the results, along with the user interview results in an affinity map.
About the participants:
11 participants between the ages of 18-64
Most participants go to national parks at least once a year
Sample of Questions and Results
Affinity Map
An affinity map helped identify patterns in how people research information about national parks and the pain points of doing this research.
"Sometimes the info is not clear for things that should be easy. For example, if I wanted to know where the best place to park my car is, I wouldn't know where to find that online on the NPS site. I would rely on blogs or reddit.”
User Quotes
"I hate not knowing how to pick a trail or what i’m able to see in a day"
Key Takeaways
Most frustrations come from a lack of knowledge or difficulty finding the information they’re looking for
People do look at the government websites for information while trip planning, but in general, don’t have the NPS app downloaded
Participants prioritized knowing information about parking, camping, crowds, weather, and safety
Competitive Analysis
There are a lot of apps that are designed to help people learn more about the National Parks, recommend things to do, show trail options, etc. The leg up that the NPS app has is that it’s the official app, thus, has more credibility.
The apps that seem more useful are the ones that have a sense of community built into them. For example, the ability to comment on hiking trails on the AllTrails app. In addition, the apps that have recommendations based on specific qualities appear to be more useful. An example is the “family-friendly” section within the National Park Trail Guide app.
Ideation
After completing the research phase, I moved on to ideating solutions to the problems presented. This involved writing POV statements, posing HMW questions, and creating personas. These provided clarity on what to focus on before starting to design.
Methods
POVs and HMWs
Personas
POVs and HMWs
The Point of View statements and How Might We questions were created to narrow down the most important user problems and create a basis for how to solve them.
POV Statements
I’d like to explore ways to help people interested in going to national parks plan a trip because they’re confused by the inconsistent information.
I’d like to explore ways to help national park goers gather information quickly because updated information is challenging to find.
I’d like to explore ways to help national park goers find recommended activities because they’re overwhelmed with the number of options.
HMW Questions
How might we make learning information necessary to planning trips to national parks fun and engaging?
How might we communicate time-sensitive information (about road closures) to national parkgoers?
How might we personalize recommendations for national park goers based on what type of explorer they are?
Personas
The following personas were created to build empathy, remind me who I am designing for, and ensure the design doesn’t become self-referential.
Even though Logan and Barb are both passionate about exploring national parks, their motivations, goals, and pain points are very different.
Putting together the personas helped me keep this in the forefront of my mind while designing, ensuring I don’t focus on one persona too much.
Wireframe. Test. Iterate.
After ideating, I moved on to creating low and mid-fi wireframes. The low-fi wireframes allowed me to get feedback on the screens before spending too much time making them digital. From there, I moved on to mid-fi wireframing. I tested at this stage to see how the user flows would be used practically.
Low-Fi Wireframes
The low-fidelity wireframes were a helpful way to explore a lot of different ideas and layouts for the screens without committing anything to digital.
The idea was for users to take the quiz, and discover “what kind of adventurer” they are. For example, the Casual Hiker, the Long Distance Backpacker, etc.
However, after analyzing the low-fidelity wireframes I determined these questions seemed more fun rather than helpful in figuring out how the app could make their trip planning less stressful.
Thus I moved forward with this layout but with a different mindset about the quiz.
I determined there needed to be divisions separating types of information into categories - otherwise, users would need to scroll a lot to see all cards
This is the version I moved forward with because the categories allowed the information to be presented in a digestible manner
Mid-Fi Wireframes
The mid-fidelity wireframes were done as a way to see how the app will function, before spending time implementing UI elements.
User testing was done at this stage to get users’ first reactions before moving forward.
Adventurer Onboarding
Test
Moderated usability testing with a small group of users was helpful to understand where improvements could be made before moving forward with UI choices. User testing was done with 3 users.
Users were asked to complete the following task:
Please plan a trip and purchase a private vehicle pass
Some questions users were asked after the tasks:
Was there anything confusing about this task?
What could have made these tasks easier?
What did you think of the app overall?
Key Findings
Users found the quiz fun but said the information offered at the end was redundant to what could be found on the first screen
1 of 3 participants said a question during onboarding asking what dates they’re planning on visiting would eliminate the need for all the text and options on the fees & passes page
About the participants:
3 participants between the ages of 20-40
Go to national parks at least once a year
Based on the findings:
Decided to adjust the questions offered in the adventurer onboarding
Personalize the results more, based on the user’s answers
Iterate
The onboarding questions underwent the following iterations after the feedback from users:
V1
There were only three questions, not allowing the app to learn enough to personalize their trip planning
Question 1 didn’t have enough options for all of the activities offered at national parks
V2
Question 1 asks which dates they’re planning the trip for, allowing the passes and fees to be specific to the dates they’ve chosen
Question 2 gives insight into which permits and reservations will be applicable to their visit
Question 3 provides insight as to the additional information the users might be seeking out of their personalized results
Questions 4 and 5 provide insight as to which type of pass they will need in order to get into the park
Visual Identity
I performed a site audit of the National Park Service app to collect color samples and font styles that the brand is currently using. This was done to ensure consistency was maintained across the platform.
Style Tile
The app uses a tan background color with lots of greens as the icons, navigation, and buttons. I wanted to maintain the integrity of the app to ensure my added feature was seamless. The style tile was created as a way to collect these fonts, colors, and button choices to allow for easy implementation into the app.
Prototype.
The high-fi wireframes were created after the insights gained during user testing at the mid-fi stage. Then, the style guide, colors, and UI elements were implemented before creating a prototype.
High-Fi Screens
In addition to the screens seen above in the iterations section, here are other high-fidelity screens that were created.
The End Result
Reflection
Through this project, I got to practice pivoting when things aren’t going to plan - like when your solution of creating a “what type of adventurer are you” quiz turns out to feel more buzzfeed-y than a proper UX solution. However, this was a great thing to discover because I learned the benefit of testing early and was able to course correct and create a product that actually solved the users’ needs, without having wasted time implementing UI components first.
Next Steps
Given the time, I would love to do a complete rebrand of the NPS app’s UX and UI to give it a better chance at becoming the go-to app when people are planning their trips to the national parks.