Seattle Audubon's Neighborhood Bird Project website & UX/UI design
Summary
This project was two years in the making. I worked with the Seattle Audubon Science Manager and other volunteers to put together a website for the Neighborhood Bird Project. It’s the longest running citizen science project in Seattle and it aims to observe and record local bird sightings through an army of volunteers. They gather their data by going on walking routes at local parks monthly.
For 20 years, all of the data was collected via paper forms and this project included digitizing all of these records in the hopes of making better use of the data and to share it more widely. The Seattle Audubon wanted it easier for volunteers to submit their data and to be able to access their records too.
Solution
I was responsible for the front-end design of the Neighborhood Bird Project website. Through meetings and many discussions the group narrowed down on the type of website they wanted, what the goal of the website was, and what kind of user-experience they wanted for their volunteers I got to work.
My process started with a sketch pad and paper, then moved into Illustrator, and utilized the Sketch app for some of the mockups. I created wireframes for each page of the website, which ended up being far more than anticipated. After the wireframes were approved I created a full website mock-up with images, the color palette, and font system in place.
With a project this large and so many stakeholders at the table, the refinement process took longer than an average project. All parties were happy with the final results and now volunteers have an online platform to log their observation data.