Tide Life Capstone Project
Type: Branding, Creative Direction, UX/UI, Research
About: “Tide Life,” is a mobile app I designed to identify intertidal sea organisms along the North American Pacific Coast. This is a capstone project from SuperHi’s Visual Design and Branding Course. Within a short time frame of a week, we were asked to turn a print publication into a digital experience of our choice.
Topic Decision: The publication I chose is: “Pacific Intertidal Life: a guide to organisms of rocky reefs and tide pools of the Pacific coast,” by Ron Russo and Pam Olhausen, from the Internet Archive (1981). Having recently relocated to a coastal region with minimal sea knowledge, I found myself intrigued by this unique environment. I wanted to increase awareness of the ecology while educating others through bite size information on the go.
Research:
In my own experience seeing these pools, I wanted a place to track and share previous locations and species I’ve visited. After confining in some friends, additional points followed:
Tide Pool seeking is exciting but not something they actively think of (increased education would be useful).
Majority of people who grow up on the Island learn about tide pool ecology via word of mouth.
Many would be eager to use the camera function to ID critters.
There are currently no mobile apps specific to Tide Pools and identifying intertidal organisms. Similar concepts include: iNaturalist (identifying organisms and biodiversity anywhere around the world) and Planta (informs and also identifies plant species via camera).
Disclaimer: Photos are screenshots taken from the publication.
Visual Design:
I wanted to maintain the vintage feel of the original publication with a vibrant and friendly twist. I hope to attract users in their teens and early 20s.
Colours: I was inspired by variations of orange and blue. Orange representing warmth and fun. Blue shades representing the water. Ultimately, the combination having a beachy vibe.
Typography: Nighty Empty was chosen as the header for a retro and bright vibe. I used Heebo for the body to keep things simple and clean.
Logo & Images: I used a combination of the original illustrations with modern stock photos as both can be helpful for differentiating animals. Logo drawn my me.
Sketching User Flows:
The project asked us to think of digital interactions that would elevate the topic. I narrowed my ideas down to 3 functions for the mobile app:
Identify Species (camera AI to detect species or advanced filter)
Tide Pool Gallery (upload, share, save photos & locations)
Education (include small summary on ecology to promote biodiversity)
I chose to focus on mobile as I wanted the experience to be used while exploring. Mobile is much more flexible and functional when outside. I wanted the Home page to include all 3 options with Identify Species as the major call to action. That is also why I included “upload” in the center of the bottom toolbar.
Identify Species User Flow:
For time sake, we will focus on Identify Species User Flow.
Users have the option of identifying critters through their camera or through a detailed search filter. It is meant to be quick, fun, yet informative. Detailed illustrations are used in the last phase to distinguish distinctive features clearly. At the end, users are presented a fun fact about their organism and have the option of adding to gallery or searching for more, bringing them back to the main menu.
Challenges & Future Versions
An obvious challenge was completing the project within a short time frame. If I had more time, I would look into building out the features for:
Creating a profile page and discovering other users through clicking the pool of fame/community gallery.
Building out the user flow for how the camera identifier works
Creating a media section to include helpful resources and articles to promote education and biodiversity of the area