The current solutions on the market for helping unfamiliar volunteers find solutions to help preserve red pandas life and habitat, lack relevant information to make informed decisions. This leads to a lack of trust in the platform and requires the user to spend more time finding trusted information.
The Red Panda website is a dedicated and easy-to-use platform to help first-time volunteer find trusted and affordable solutions. My goal is to bring an interactive and well thought through experience for those who feel concerned, to find the way to help our cute and furry friends.
First thing was to have a grasp of what already works, and what the users were thinking of the already existing websites. I conducted a competitive audit, along with users interviews, to identify two pain points I could address during this challenge:
The lack of knowledge on endangered species (who/what, where and why) is the first frustration
Besides donation, there is a lack of communication on how one can positively impact those endangered species
After identifying my primary target users, which include concerned college students and adults, I had to brainstorm in order to find solutions to their pain points. I decided on building a modern, interactive website, to offer playful education on the situation and the solutions:
Improve knowledge on red pandas and their importance, in a modern and fun way
Share the small habits changes the users can make to save red pandas and their habitat
Create a community to encourage users to share information, encourage each other and stay accountable
I first conducted an audit of a few direct and indirect competitor’s websites. This research provided direction on gaps and opportunities to address with my design.
I needed to build empathy and learn about the others frustration on the matter. I conducted a few user interviews to join their pain points to mine.
The feedback received through research made it very clear that users would be open and willing to work towards protecting red pandas. But they lack access to a clear, transparent and trustworthy guide.
I first planned out a user flow to answer the identified pain points, and came up with a complete sitemap. I then did a quick ideation exercise to come up with design ideas. Due to a lack of time, I had to prioritIze and designed a page presenting the community with a CTA to join, instead of designing the whole space.
After drafting the paper wireframes, I created the initial designs for the app. These designs focused on delivering informations and guidance to users to help them better understand the situation and their impact. Finally, to prepare for usability testing, I created a low-fidelity prototype that connected a basic user flow.
Based on the insights from the usability studies, I discerned new pain points and applied design changes.
My first design was too heavy on both text and images, and I was faced with a new issue: convey the information in a clear, attractive way without loosing the users focus.
I sketched again a few ideas and had them tested before applying them to the mock-ups. This challenge turned out to be actually an opportunity to try out new interactions and elevate my designs.
I created an interactive carousel to swipe through the informations which cleared the page and make the users the actors on the website
In order to give informations while attracting the users in a fun and modern way, I designed interactive cards on some pages
I replaced the pictures by icons on some pages, allowing a smoother reading and lighten the design
With the app design completed, I started working on cohesive and consistent experience across devices. I used the sitemap to guide the organizational structure of each screen’s design, optimizing the design to fit the specific user needs of each screen sizes. The designs for screen size variation include mobile, tablet, and desktop.
Even though I was faced with unexpected challenges, I was glad to have this ooportunity. I learned how to make a bad feedback into a great solution, and was able to explore more design possibilities. This project was a real motivation to do something purposeful, and inspire users with new interactive designs!
I have some ideas to go further with this project:
Develop the community space by adding a reward feature to motivate accontability and help the website grow organically
Adding a share button to each page will help the website and its purpose. It would be useful on all devices too
Sharing testimonials of users on the homepage and community pages would sensitive the users, make the website more user-centered and make a greater impact
