Nature’s Classroom

Creating a new experience for national parks education.

Project Overview

  • Role

    Product Designer

  • Timeline

    6-weeks

  • Team

    Brittany Jain, Liz Delaney

  • Product

    The National Park Service website (NPS.gov) allows individuals to plan a trips to any of America’s national parks. The website also has a significant portion dedicated to educators encouraging them teach students about national parks.

  • Problem

    Part of the NPS’ mission is to spread awareness of and cherish the history of the parks. In order to do so, they provide educators resources to teach students about our parks. However the experience of finding that educational content is cumbersome.

  • Goal

    Create a new experience for educators to find & compare resources to teach about our national parks; encouraging education of our parks.

User Research

Proto-Persona

Meet, Amelia. A dedicated teacher who needs an easy way to find lesson plans on national parks because she is passionate about the environment and determined to teach her students about our National Parks.

User Journey

The Scenario: As a middle school science teacher in Portland, Oregon & advocate for environmental education, Amelia is interested finding resources that highlight the importance of national parks and conservation efforts. She goes to the National Parks website to find educational resources, ends up searching for a Lewis & Clark lesson plan and nearby hiking trail information.

Competitive Analysis

My analysis of competitor websites revealed common challenges: difficulties with search, navigation, and content organization. While it showed the NPS website wasn’t alone in struggling with these challenges, it highlighted the need for an improved user experience across the industry.

Pain Points

Finally, my project partner & I conducted six usability tests on the National Parks Service website. We again found that users struggled with inaccurate search results, navigation challenges, and a lack of content organization. With all of our research pointing to the same pain points, we knew it was important for the designs we created to really improve the experience in these key areas.

Problem Statement

How might we establish an effective system that easily allows & promotes educators to teach about National Parks?

Strategy

Desktop Wireframes

With this design, Amelia can easily navigate to & find the content she is looking for. With reviews & a compare feature, the decision making process is easier. By simplifying the user experience, Amelia may be more likely to return the NPS to find educational content about parks.

Sitemap

After card sorting I re-imagined how content could be organized through a sitemap. While I learned search is the main way users sought out lesson plans, I also wanted to provide users with a way to passively explore content to get inspired by resources they might see since that was previously very challenging to do.

Wireframes on mobile

I felt it was important to make the website responsive because I imagined teachers browsing content while on the go, perhaps at night before bed or on their commutes home.

Clearly communicates various options of navigating the educators microsite

A closer look

Redesigned search with updated filters 

Outlines process for educators to get published by sharing their National Parks lesson plans

Key content above the fold

Reviews to help users determine if the content is right for their classroom

Ability to compare lesson plans to alleviate decision making fatigue

Content organization and grouping to make it easier for users to scan content and expand when needing more details

Prototype & Test

Usability Test Results

I conducted a three usability tests of my desktop low-fidelity prototypes, in addition to three five-second homepage tests. With feedback, I iterated on my designs.

Final Designs

The desktop prototype

The mobile experience

Retrospect

Impact

“I found the redesigned national park service website to be easy to use, simple to navigate and well-organized. I like that I can see other teacher’s reviews and imagine that comparing lesson plans might be very helpful.” - User Tester

Lessons Learned

I learned that I always want to iterate! Iteration really helps to evolve and improved the design through gathering feedback. Also, the visual design choices you make greatly impact the overall design.

Next Steps

I would like to do research on what the process for educators to share lesson plans should look like and how users might use the compare feature. I’d also like to continue exploring color palettes that are accessible and best represent the national parks service.