National Park Service Redesign
Overview
An efficient trip planning experience through pre-made itineraries and consolidated insights from fellow national park visitors, aiming to streamline the process, reduce time consumption, and enable visitors to focus on enjoying their trip.
*Not affiliated with National Park Service
Team
Haipei C.
Chloe C.
Winghi L.
Gerri Z.
Duration
5 weeks
My Role
UX/UI Designer
Iconography
Microanimation
PROBLEM
National park visitors spend significant time planning trips as they need to gather information from multiple sources to align with their preferences and trip conditions.
PROPOSED DESIGN
All-in-One National Park Planner
A single destination for planning, exploring, and experiencing national parks with ease.
FLOW 1
Finding the right park
Browse a curated selection of categories tailored to your interests, and make your decision based on authentic reviews and ratings from others.
Discover by Category
Unfold the Highlights
Tap for the Full Picture
FLOW 2
Plan for your next adventure!
The all-in-one itinerary maker helps you create the perfect plan, or choose from top-rated itineraries shared by the community!
Choose from top rated itiniraries by park
make your own itinirary
Add it to your plan
FLOW 3
Ready prepped personalized plan
Review your prepared plan on the day of your trip for details on your route, weather conditions, and more!
Once your trip begins, easily track your progress from your lock screen so you can stay focused on nature.
Design Brief
Reimagine a visitor experience by creating an engaging and informative app that enhances the experience for visitors exploring national parks.
The app should seamlessly integrate technology with nature, providing users with valuable information, interactive features, and fostering a deeper connection to the environment.
Target Audience
The primary audience for the app includes park visitors of all ages, from families to solo adventurers. The app should cater to both tech-savvy users and those less familiar with mobile technology.
competitive analysis
We first conducted a teardown of the original NPS app to gain a solid understanding of its functions. Then, we researched similar apps on the market and analyzed their strengths and weaknesses.
Primary research
We first conducted a teardown of the original NPS app to gain a solid understanding of its functions. Then, we researched similar apps on the market and analyzed their strengths and weaknesses.
Field Research
We first conducted a teardown of the original NPS app to gain a solid understanding of its functions. Then, we researched similar apps on the market and analyzed their strengths and weaknesses.
insights
It takes too much research and time to find resources that cater to personal preferences.
It’s challenging to obtain up-to-date information, potentially leading to difficulties in making informed decisions or adjustments to plans.
Official park information lacks personalized insights that could enhance trip planning, such as reviews and recommendations from like-minded visitors.
The problem
National park visitors spend significant time planning trips as they need to gather information from multiple sources to align with their preferences and trip conditions.
How might we craft an inviting, streamlined, and stress-free trip planning experience for national park visitors?
Design foundation
We used a UX Pyramid and Goal Priority Circle framework to define the app experience on both macro and micro levels. This approach helped us establish priorities and build a solid foundation for our design work.
Initial concepts
Based on our established experience pillars, we first quickly sketched out what that experience might look like and our core concepts.
Discover Parks
Itinirary Maker
My Itinirary
App Structure
To figure out the overal structure of the in app experience, we created an information architecutre, dividing the experience into 3 main sectors: Discover Parks, Itinirary Maker, and My NPS Profile.
What would the expereince
look like?
Our moodboard aimed to capture the earthy vibe and joy of exploring nature through the NPS. We envisioned the app as a supplementary tool for the nature exploration experience and sought to create a visual style that excites users about venturing into the wild.
Wireframing
With a solidified app structure and moodboard, we wireframed what the overall experience would look like.
Coloring the app with nature
Once we solidified the main user flows and concepts, we started to prototype the look and animations in the app. Here are some snapshots form wireframe to initial prototype.
Discover Parks
Itinirary Maker
My Itinirary
building time!
We spent 2 weeks iterating and tweaking the app design, with that time, we made countless iterations and imrpovements that is too much to put them all here at the moment, but here are some selected parts to get the gist of it!
I made some icons!
The most fun I had on this project was creating these little icons. We wanted the app to feel inviting, and designing these custom icons really brought the experience together.
This was my first time creating a cohesive icon set, and I learned a lot about ensuring consistency and harmony across the designs. Here’s a screenshot of my Figma components.
Key Takeaways
Visual Coherency
One of our biggest challenges in designing the app was achieving a consistent visual style. We started with the idea of using luggage tags for the itinerary maker but struggled to extend that theme across the entire app. Eventually, we incorporated the tags into all major itinerary titles, creating a unified and cohesive look.
Micro-Animations
Designing the app's micro-animations was one of my favorite parts of the process. This experience highlighted how small animations can significantly enhance user experience, adding delightful details that make interactions more engaging.
One of my favorite moments was designing the luggage tag to pull down slightly and the menu to shift to the right, providing intuitive visual cues for users to interact.
