Case study: Building ux design into citizen science applications

Abstract

Citizen science is the engagement of the public in science or monitoring to address real world problems. Citizen science programs have the ability to provide excellent data for researchers at large spatial and temporal scales. Advancements in technology has resulted in a proliferation of citizen science programs and many are dependent on website and smartphone applications to facilitate data collection, data usability and communication of results. Citizen science applications need to be developed so that they are easy to use and any interface issues identified and resolved before release. Usability reports during the development cycle provide evidenced-based prioritization recommendations. In this paper, two case studies are presented. The Call of the Wild application involved the testing of a high fidelity prototype to collect data on work flow and ease of use. The Wild Watch application provided data on task success and SUS scores that supported release readiness. Both projects continue to have improvements identified based on usability testing.