Week 8 - Mini app project

DM7903 Marwell Zoo app

THE BRIEF: Your proposed App could focus on categorising the animals and where to find them. It could focus on the supporting facilities to make visitors comfortable that the zoo will offer a full family experience. The brief should go through the stages: empathy, definition and ideation. Establish what is important to your potential audience and the aspect of the App you want (or need) to concentrate on. Create a wireframe of your proposed App, including all the elements that we have discussed in class. Show how a user would navigate through your App.

Spend the equivalent of 3 or 4 hours is to produce a set of wireframes for an App for Marwell Zoo. The website address for reference is: https://www.marwell.org.uk/

I worked on this project with my colleague Chris Helcoop, we wanted to make a better user experience by rethinking the app in line with the brief and the aims of making the zoo connect with the visitor in a new way.

First impressions:

The existing app is very busy, the use-ability was not great, the buttons in the App were not clear.

Our idea focussed on the connection with people and nature, our thoughts went to a Safari. The map lead us to ideas of how we could gamify the app and introduce other elements to the User Experience.

Page 2 image above illustrates our ideas after the existing onboarding process, we decided to keep the instructions and the legal process of the existing app.

We come up with a story/theme of Safari. The app user could collect safari items along the trail of visiting animal, for example: a hat, a med kit for the animals, binoculars or a science kit. The collection of the items could be by an avatar designed by the user.

The safari avatar character...

Low res image from iStockphoto

For speed of time we sourced a stock image for the children's avatar characters, we really liked the idea that children could identify an avatar with cultural heritage or become gender neutral. Different hats from different cultures could also be selected, young people love to dress up and make images their own.

iStockphoto has an amazing collection of kid friendly images

We started to think of imagery and I looked the MGM lion image as a cue to illustrate a logo - this is a low resolution mock up with istock images, that would need to be purchased.

Low Res mock up of the LOGO project design

With the brand element in place, we turned our thoughts to the haptics. The tab/navigation bar would be located at the bottom of the phone screen, so those with limited hand movement can access the information and pages they need.

proposed title and leaf bitten font?

We developed the idea through storyboards:

This is our first low fidelity wire frame of the pages we require for the redesign:

Our initial ideas - written by Chris Helcoop

Our initial ideas worked up into a mid fidelity wireframe -by Tina Scahill

Our creepy crawly LOADING caterpillar....

The Map

This Map belongs to Marwell Zoo and is here for education purposes only

The Map could be adapted to work like a google location map or snapchat location map so the avatar can sit ontop of the location and the collectable safari items to be discovered. We would just need a layer over the top of this existing map version... but discussions with a programmer would need to confirm this.

FUTURE THOUGHTS: We need to run a usability testing of the workings of the app, and how the user feels about the safari game.

Here is our high fidelity wireframe of the look and feel of the App as a potential enhancement to the visitor experience, utilising the existing sound recording trails, and the addition of the interactive map would become a great 'find and discover' game.

Proof of concept:

Let us hear your ROAR!

Chris and I would appreciate any feedback on our concept that you can supply and would be happy to discuss our ideas further. We used the Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype (Test) workflow, and if we could test and prototype a few more iterations we think this would be a great addition to the visitor experience.

Thank you.

Footnote: In April 2022 - Chris Helcoop and I spoke with the marketing team at Marwell Zoo, they had subsequently updated their app in January 2022 ready for the new season of opening at Easter 2022. It was really great to discuss with hem their process of enabling greater usability and accessibility in the app and around the park. They liked our gamification of the app and the engagement it could have with people but raised concerns about kids using their phones and not seen for themselves. The meeting was positive and useful for us as digital media masters to gain an insight into a real world experience. Thank you to the Marwell Team.