Erica McCoy

Interaction Design Report

View the Final Report

Purpose

In order for the Bird Banding Laboratory (BBL) to successfully continue its conservation support and management of North American birds, users need an intuitive and efficient way to report banded bird encounters while staff need reduced error rates and enhanced quality in the information received. In addition to reporting data, some user groups need easy access to data reports for continued research relevant to BBL’s mission.

Objective

A review of the existing Bird Banding form was reviewed and suggestions for enhanced usability were made in accordance with the needs of BBL staff and user groups. Additionally, a revised taxonomy architecture and metadata schema were proposed to align with the UI recommendations.

UX Process

Stakeholder interviews on existing pain points in data collection and user feedback lead to a competitive analysis and exploration into form best practices. The ideation process was heavily collaborative, with think aloud brainstorming sessions and continued research into ways to leverage technology and device capabilities. Collaborative wireframing was done in Balsamiq with multiple iterations of adding and removing existing form elements and devising creative ways of simplifying the process. Based on the wireframes, a full taxonomy and metadata analysis were created for each stored data element that would need to be collected, displayed, or returned in search results. Interactive wireframes were presented to the stakeholder group for discussion, and annotated wireframes were packaged into a final report deliverable.

Deliverable Samples

Wireframes

Metadata Analysis

For complete deliverables, view the Final Report.

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Developed in collaboration with Jaime Dalbke & Suzanne Royer | https://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl/