Droughty LA
Story: As more people keep moving to los angeles, the land of palm trees and silver screens, our community has become more fixated on the leisurely vibes of our city and less so on our physical environment. In other words, we are turning our attention to the latest trends, while turning cold shoulders to the very land we walk on. But what is the point of entertaining trends and sharing images of our food, our hiking adventures, and the like, if the Los Angeles we have come to intimately know and loves dries out and ceases to exist? Just picture yourself trekking up Runyon Canyon to catch a panoramic view of the city and you see absolutely no trace of nature, only greys and browns. sounds like the opening of an apocalyptic film, no?
We can "go green" and keep our air “smoke free” all we want, but have we really addressed the issue of los angeles’s water or lack thereof? or have we become jaded by information overload, thus clouding the harsh reality of how severe our drought issue truly is?
Problem: Los Angelenos do not know enough about the drought to consider it a dire issue and act to combat the damage. And the culprit behind the lack of awareness is that there is no open platform engaging enough to entice the community to help out with the cause, to save even a droplet of water that our parched city so desperately thirsts for.
Role: User Experience Designer & User Experience Researcher
Team: Leon Baham & Bianca Byfield
Time Frame: 2 weeks
Tools Used: pen, paper, pencil, white-board, markers, gliffy, sketch, slack, and marvel.
Process: In this project, I set out with a team of three to create software that would help average citizens in Los Angeles better educate themselves on the water crisis. What we found out through research made us quickly pivot and create an out-of-the-box solution for the problem of lack of awareness.
We asked a set of questions to varying demographics in los angeles. Some were cynics, some were optimists and some had no idea there was a drought. From there, we narrowed our "MVP" down to a forum, where users could upload a solution to the drought that would live update on the LA County Twitter. we operated on the belief that local politics is personal. the environment in question is one the inhabitants actively live in.
We created a medium fidelity wireframe to test the movement through the application and then, we simplified further. However, when we tested our wireframes on the public, the response was lackluster and people indicated that they would not use such software. So, instead of building digital junk, we thought outside of the app. People were most affected by the data visualizations we had created so we moved those front and center.
Solution: Sometimes, an app may not be sufficient enough to resolve an issue and thus, the interactive wall was created. The concept started as a media kit that would be projected on public walls in the densest neighborhoods at night. This felt a little authoritarian and so we added the democratic component of choice: we would create an interactive wall that supplied data on the drought in a playful yet impactful way.
Each rectangle represents a touchable point on the wall where a person can place their hand and activate one of thirty four pieces of data.
If we could not reach the public on their screens, we would meet them in their space. The final concept was a 15x6 foot wall, where people would be curious to interact and learn- the psa of the future.
V1 - V3 ITERATIONS
