Reducing biodiversity loss through birdwatching
SERVICE DESIGN / USER CO-CREATION / BRANDING / VIDEO EDITING
I chose biodiversity loss as the theme of my final project at RCA during the lockdown in 2020. It all began with the happy memories of hiking with my father in the mountains, for me nature is just fascinating. Sadly, Earth’s species are disappearing at an alarming rate and yet, biodiversity loss seems to be jargon and lacking in people's awareness. I was ignited to explore a solution to help with this issue with service design. Birds are everywhere, they can be seen easily even when you are home, this is why I chose bird as the start of the project.
CHALLENGE
Nurture children to appreciate nature and help creating wildlife friendly green spaces in neighbourhoods.
SOLUTION
Birddy, a subscription based service provides continuous engaging bird related activities for children & families.
Globally, 60% of wildlife has disappeared since the 1970s. The UK has been named as one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world – in 189th place out of 218 countries under the WWF Living Planet Report in 2018. The Earth is the only home that humans have. Biodiversity is important to us, all species including humans depend on each other to survive.
My role
This was my solo final project during the lockdown in 2020. I led the project from research and insight generation to design concept and business model. Although I was working on my own, I got tremendous help from my tutor, neighbours, birders and friends.
Research
Diving into the world of birds
To dive into the world of birds, I got my first binoculars and became a birder. Before the lockdown, I went to talks and bird watching events. I had the chance to speak with birders, listened to their stories and found out what about birds that fascinated them the most.
From my observations and conversations with birders, I found that
• Bird watching seems like an elderly activity
• Their connections with birds have been mostly deeply formed when they were little
• There’s a social element in the bird watching event
• Parks in the cities doesn’t attract birds to land and breed
Sending out surveys to birders and neighbours
When meeting in-person was not possible, I sent out tailored surveys to birders and neighbours to collect their thoughts, that included their experiences with birds, nature and their neighbourhood.
Two different surveys for birders & my neighbours
Results from the survey
From the survey for the birders, I found
• The delight of building a relationship with a bird that visits often
• Birdwatching can be the gateway of appreciating wider ecosystems
• Birdwatching brings excitements and sparks curiosity to keep learning
From the survey for my neighbours, I found that I should
• Keeping things local makes it more accessible and relatable
• Some activities should be purely observational and reflective
• Empowering people to make a difference in local community
Competitor audit
I also conducted competitor audit to better understand the existing offerings in the market. They tend to be one-off activities, the worksheets are usually in paper forms. Also, they are more adult orientated and too wordy for children to engage.
Design Directions
After gathering all the insights I have got from research, I translated them into design direction:
• Design for children and families to engage in birdwatching and appreciate wider ecosystems at their doorstep
• Keep children engaged to explore the world of birds with continuous activities
• Through birdwatching to empower individuals and establish a local network to conserve local habitats
• Build local wildlife database and communities for future green initiatives
• Make birdwatching cool again
How might we help children and families to appreciate the beauty of nature in neighbourhoods and connect with like minded locals for future local green initiatives through a series of continuous bird related and engaging activities?
Design Concept
My initial idea is to help children to start building relationship with a bird that has similar personality with them and learn more about nature in the neighbourhood.
I drafted my concepts on paper before building the prototype on computer. I imagined how the families would be aware of the service and be engaged with the service, how they experience the service through digital and physical touch points. I then created a testing kit to send out to the invited families to test the feasibility and desirability of the concept.
Concept Validation
I sent out the testing kit to 5 families. I learned from the feedback what works well and what does not. Here are my learnings:
1. Design is clean and appealing, but too grey for children
2. Service should be a combination of App/AR and traditional crafts
3. A mix of indoor/outdoor and active/reflective activities can keep the entire family engaged
4. Assist children with simple language and prompts to keep parents at ease
5. Collaborative mapping would help to joining up resources locally
The Service
Birddy is a subscription based service for children and families. It encourages people to appreciate nature locally through bird and nature related activities. Part of Birddy’s profit will be donated to bird conservation charities to support their work. Let’s meet Grace and her 8 year old daughter Elsa to guide you through finer details of the service.
The Impact
By the theory of change, Birddy wants to achieve the goal of reducing biodiversity loss in neighbourhoods, the below diagrams show how the changes happen in the short, medium and long term. Stakeholders would benefit from the services by Birddy in different scales from individual to nationwide. Birddy would also donate part of the profit and transfer scientific data records to RSPB and BTO to support their ongoing conservation work.
Special Thanks
Andrew Peel, Marylebone Birdwatching Society
Georgie Bradbury, Stampede International
Jane Pritchard, Royal College of Art
Jenny Ho
Neil Gridley, Royal College of Art
Robert Phillips, Royal College of Art
My final project tutor Marta Ferreira de Sá, Royal College of Art
My mentor Megan Anderson, STBY
The whole STBY team
And all the families and friends who have participated in the prototype testing during lockdown, the project would not be successful without your tremendous help.