THE PROBLEM
The National Parks are currently experiencing visitors in record high volumes. While some are implementing lottery systems, closing certain trailheads at specific times, trails and viewpoints are still over crowded and the trash issues on trails is still getting out of hand.
Park users need to be able to know they are not overcrowding trails when parking at trailheads, and keep them clean and clear so they can enjoy the National Park System for years to come.
As a personal project to show my design process, I wanted to explore creating an app to help streamline parking at trailheads while letting visitors know about trash at specific trails would be an effective solution to streamlining the visitors on trails and help keep our parks clean for visitors.
Research
USER INTERVIEWS
Goal:
I wanted to get an idea of people who visited the park systems and how they visited it.
Participants:
All participants have visited or frequently visited the parks in the past year. These participants were hikers, climbers, people who enjoy and appreciate nature/views.
Research Questions:
I structured the interview around 3 main questions below, and then would branch off depending on their park habits.
“How often do you visit the National Parks?”
“What kind of activities do you do within in the National Parks?”
“What is an average distance to and from the a National Park for you?”
KEY FINDINGS
Motivations
Will continue to visit park once a month for the views and hiking. Wants to continue to go to the national parks a few times a year with spouse in retirement.
Will continue to go to the National Parks if crowds go down.
Works at the park system. Wants to see the parks thrive with history and wildlife.
Needs
Trash clean up on trails.
Appreciates the scenery with crowds that is popular but would rather not hike with people.
Trash in the NP system has increased in the past few years. People need to be responsible to remove it.
Prefers to stay active in retirement and continue to visit the NP system with less crowds.
Needs place to park at trail they want to hike.
Would be nice to see how the trails thrive when spreading out people at each trailhead.
