Service Research & Product Design | Texas State Parks

A service and UX research project for improving the digital experience of the service.

8 Weeks | March - May 2023

Inspiration

Texas State Parks is a service I use often!

My Role

Sole Researcher and Designer

Tools & Skills

Service Research

Synthesis

  • Service Slices

  • Journey Maps

Competitive & Comparative analysis

LOFI and digital Prototype Testing

Usability Testing

Maze

Mural

Figma design and prototypes

Objectives

  • Encourage and support the increased interest in the outdoors and our public lands.

  • Reduce friction in the user experience for the Texas State Parks online website & reservations.

  • Make the experience of booking a campsite on Texas public lands as effortless and pleasant as booking an Airbnb.

Background

In 2021, 10 million people visited Texas state parks, a 33 percent increase from 2012.

The Pandemic triggered some changes in society’s work-life balance, with more people valuing their time outside of work, picking up new activities and making them a part of their lifestyle. One of the activities that saw a surge of participation: Hiking and Camping.

Parks and protected public lands help to improve water quality, protect groundwater, prevent flooding, improve the quality of the air we breathe, provide vegetative buffers to development, produce habitat for wildlife, and provide a place for children and families to connect with nature and recreate outdoors together.


Parks are a tangible reflection of the quality of life in a community. - Texas Parks and Wildlife research

Phase 1: Service Research

What are the breakdowns?

What are some opportunities?

What’s the value vs cost (do this now or later)?

Problems Found:

People new to the outdoors face 2 barriers

  • It is intimidating and the state parks online experience doesn’t address that

  • The amount of information on the website and reservation is complete but overwhelming. There is poor organization and redundancy. There are also multiple paths that don’t resolve correctly. People give up.

Phase 2: Near Future Improvements

What are the low hanging fruits?

What are the industry standards for an online reservation system?

Phase 3: Ideal Future Vision 

What are some things we heard from testers and service users?

What can we do to meet objective number 1 (a more lofty goal than the other 2 objectives)?

Design Principles

The wilderness is chaotic and unpredictable, as it should be. The website should be simple.

Not just a reservation system but… also a way to repair people's relationship with nature.

Always be looking for ways to engage the future custodians of the great outdoors.

Value Promise

At Texas State Parks we help you connect with nature and your loved ones, and disconnect from the rest of the world.

You're 5 minutes away from planning your next exploration.

Constraints & Challenges

The proposed redesign has to take into account what the current tech stack is and how to utilize it instead of building things from scratch.

The prototypes are meant to be implemented with the existing backend system so only the user facing webapp will be changed and will be compatible with the existing data structure of the backend.

Outcome

A digital prototype was created and validated through usability testing  for the reservation system redesign and near term features to improve the user experience.

Storyboards and Scenarios were created  for long term feature vision aiming to -

  • Reduce barriers for to people new to outdoors and wilderness

  • Reduce workload for the state parks employees

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