Project scope
Environmental factors are an important issue for those across the globe as these issues if not taken action against will become an extremely significant problem in the future. My team looked to try to help solve some of these environmental problems at the local level. From preliminary research we found Long Island’s drinking water supply to be a very important important topic to focus on. Through the course of our project the world went into a state of emergency due to the Covid-19 pandemic and with this we began shifting our project to still meet our original focus, but look toward the future.
Our Community Partner
We choose our community partner, Nassau County Soil & Water Conservation District for their simplistic dedication to protecting and preserving Long Island’s environment. Their website focused directly on methods of improving Long Island’s water quality, and preserving its only aquifer by managing storm water runoff. They were extremely knowledgable in the everything about the island’s drinking water and were able to give us insights about the aquifer and municipalities on the island.
Scope of All Data
A major focus of our research came from our preliminary research on the topic of drinking water, the island’s aquifer, and water runoff. NCSWCD was extremely helpful in clarifying anything we didn’t fully understand and even sat down with us to help educate us on their mission. We completed several interviews and sent out a survey to get some data on the importance of design for engagement. Lastly we created a SWOT analysis for the district which served to be the most useful tool from our research.
“Although Long Island is surrounded by water, one of its most fragile resources is its drinking water supplied by an underground aquifer.”
— "Murray: State Takes Steps to Address 1, 4-Dioxane Pollution." Long Island Business News, 2019.
Data Collected
After meeting with the organization and creating our SWOT analysis of the organization. Using the SWOT Analysis and data collected we were able to determine that their main challenge was in creating more awareness on LI.
68 Responses
68 Responses
“Now it’s about risk management, we know there will be a problem.”
-Municipality
Our Solution
From all the data collected, we originally had in mind to create an awareness program out at parks on the island, however due to the pandemic we knew that the issues we wanted to create awareness for were not something people would focus on right now. Instead looking back at our SWOT analysis we decided to help the conservation district to reach a wider audience on the island by helping to work on their eye for design and social media presence. In doing this we hoped that the conservation district would be able to spread their messages and reach more homeowner’s digitally, something that would be very important with the way things were going in the world.
Social media presence
A major weakness we found was due to the lack of use of an Instagram page, a social media platform that has seen constant rapid growth over the years and also hits a younger demographic, something Facebook fails to do. Over 70% of Instagram user’s are under the age of 35 and with both of our user archetypes being in their early 30’s this was a very key piece of information we focused on.
Taking a very old and dusty Instagram page the district once had we cleaned it off and began posting photos, and water conservation tips. Anything the district wanted to post on Facebook we recreated a mobile version that woul dbe able to reach more younger users, a group that found the issues that NCSWCD to be very important.
The photo seen adjacent was taken on what happened to be the 50th anniversary of Earth day. With the pandemic in full effect, and many Earth day gatherings cancelled, to still honor of the day my family and I planted a tree; which I later posted on the NCSWCD Instagram page.
Photo Gallery
Another major problem that our community partner had to worry about was using images from other sources, as using other images was a liability and purchasing constant images would be too expensive. The district would often simply take the photos themselves, being the smartest and easiest solution, however not being photographers these photos were not always of the highest quality. To try and help with this we went out and took tons of photos that we then edited, and gave them over to NCSWCD in order to give them a backlog of high quality photos they could use whenever they needed.
Future Work
I continued on working with our community parter, Nassau County Soil & Water Conservation District as a content manager and focused on creating a mobile app that they could use to help get their message across easily to homeowners as well as help generate a greater presence online. Both furthering the original work I had done with my team earlier on in the project.
Interaction mOdels
Before beginning to create my comps and prototype, first I created interaction models which helped with me to clearly identify everything I planned to have on the screens in order to show NCSWCD and receive feedback on other functions or assets they wanted to have within the prototype.
Logo Redesign
A common problem I ran into throughout working with the district was their logo, the largest file they had of it was 831 x 742 and was a .jpg file. I first tried on many occasions to create a png version of the file but due to all the various clip-arts and grimy edges this only made the logo look worse. While not the focus of my work when working for the conservation district, it was something I felt was necessary for a better digital presence. A logo can often be the first impression someone has of an organization, and it is never bad to create a good first impression.
From looking at the original logo I was able to determine that the font looked fairly similar if not identical to Copperplate. I took out the clipart within the logo and instead took the colors from the clipart and created a background for the text to be placed on. These colors also represented soil and water and gave off the feel of water washing up against the land, all topics NCSWCD focused on. Further I made an illustration of the bird which appeared to be Long Island’s Northern Gannet, in doing so I feel it kept continuity with the old logo. Lastly I close the circle as I thought it gave a greater sense of togetherness a value that greatly represents NCSWCD.
Final Prototype
Using Adobe XD I created a prototype that served to help inform homeowners about water use and rain gardens, helping the conservation district to save time and resources for the many other projects they work on.