TRAIL TEAM 2023 Timeline / 5 WeeksTools / Figma, Protopie, Premiere ProTeam / Naomi Pleasure-Park,Natalie O’RourkeVolunteering in the National Parks is possible, but not accessible. Trail Team helps frequent park-goers who want to give back to their community by connecting them with opportunities in the National Parks and offering rewards in return. The app aims to enrich visitors' park experience and offer a more straight forward introduction to volunteering in the parks.
Opportunities at your fingertips
Discover and bookmark upcoming work parties in parks near you. Plus, find approachable ways to explore new parks while you travel.
A beginner-friendly feed
Stay up to date on weather, traffic, assignments, schedules, and more with custom notifications. We keep all the info you’ll need for your adventure in one place so even first-time park visitors will feel welcome by knowing what to expect.
Simple team coordination
Receive tasks directly from your National Parks staff and track your progress along the way. Info from your orientation meeting is stored conveniently in the to-do list to guide your work.
A rewarding experience
Collect points for every task you complete and check in with a ranger to redeem them for prizes. Enhance your parks experience with rewards like camping passes, merchandise, and more.
How might we create an app for the National Parks that increases engagement without distracting from users’ surroundings?
Beginning with an investigation of the National Parks’ current touchpoints, we decided that the best way to prevent our app from becoming a distraction was to focus on what happens before and after you visit the parks rather than your in-park experience. We identified a key problem space: that while volunteer opportunities do exist in the National Parks, they are hard to find, lack information, and don’t support less experienced park-goers.
We took inspiration from vintage stationary and park documents, for a fun paper-like feel that strives for accessibility of information without sacrificing style.
Our final project takes the form of a video which showcases a selection of task flows while telling the story of a user’s park experience from start to finish. Watch the full video here