Ongoing Project
Connecting communities with real-time environmental data to protect manoomin (wild rice).
PROBLEM SPACE AND CONTEXT
Manoomin (Wild Rice) which grows in the Great Lakes plays a major ecological and cultural role to Tribal Nations, is currently on the decline.
"When Manoomin (wildrice) is threatened, Tribal Nations' resilience is threatened."
— Megan Fellman, Northwestern News
Georgia Tech’s Ka Moamoa Lab and Partners Secure $2M NSF Grant to Support Tribal Resilience and understand Manoomin health.
With funding from the NSF, our team—collaborating with tribal nations and top universities—has deployed:
Environmental Sensors: Tracking real-time health and ecological conditions of Manoomin.
Agenda Alerts: Identifying and notifying tribes about city and county laws affecting Manoomin
DESIGN CHALLENGE
How do we integrate sensing and alerts data into one front facing platform that empowers tribal nations? What should it look like, how should it function, and how can it best serve the communities that rely on it?
SOLUTION OVERVIEW
I am currently actively working on my case study, here are are few snap shots of the efforts that I led.
Co-Design and Scoping
Owing to the vastness of this project multiple stakeholders such as policy makers, researchers and ethnographers and each had different features and ideas to integrate into the dashboard. I analyzed Co-design session and prioritized them through an MVP matrix to bring clarity.
UX audits of GIS Environmental Dashboards to understand common navigation and design patterns.
Wireframing and understanding the vision by presenting to multiple key stakeholders.
Adaptively scaling back based on constraints and bridging data to design while balancing ease of use.
Culturally relevant colors and icons to communicate scientific information in an contextual way.
