NightUp is a scientific experiment driven by ICFO (Institute of Photonic Sciences), a research centre devoted to the science and technology of light. The aim of NightUp is to help scientists though crowdsourcing to generate a map of the color of artificial light. This map will help to draw conclusions about the effects of artificial light on living beings and ecosystems. The pilot project is running in Castelldefels. It’s a multi-platform progressive web application that works in Android devices.
Problem
We want to validate the method of data collection though citizens and their smartphones. If we demonstrate that the information gathered has the necessary scientific rigor, NightUp will be extended to the rest of the world, in order to create a global map of the color of artificial light.
Team
Scifabric was commissioned to develop the platform. As a head of UX at Scifabric, I worked closely with the software engineer. A smooth collaborative team approach with the stakeholders at ICFO was essential for the project success.
My Role
I was asked to gather and translate the project requirements into an intuitive interface. I led the platform conceptualisation, stakeholders interviews and mentored user validation. Information Architecture, prototyping and final UI design.
Together with stakeholders and a light pollution expert , we started by defining the outcome of the crowdsourcing tasks that we were looking for. Why are we doing this? Which information do we need from the participants? What do we want participants to submit?
To create the color map, participants are asked to take pictures of the various elements with artificial light found in Castelldefels though the web application and their smartphones.
All images will be analysed later by experts. The map will help other scientists to draw conclusions about the effects of the color of artificial light on living beings and ecosystems.
After discussions around tech requirements, challenges and other hypotheses, I started to build rapid prototypes to discuss several approaches.
We put special effort on the onboarding layout and video tutorials to guide the tasks. We organised some activities to validate the first release. I guided the research and I mentored a task-based usability test that was run by the ICFO team in Castelldefels. The participants’ feedback was really positive. Overall the people understood the exercise and its purpose. They were able to finish the tasks successfully. The big challenge now resides on how to engage participants and keep them motivated to keep contributing.
Result
NightUp was live from November 2019.
By mid-January 2020 more than 290 photos have been registered in the database.
The results will be published by summer 2020.
Link to participate (Android devices only): nightup.icfo.eu
More about the project: outreach.icfo.eu/nightup-project
