NPS
Project
2026
Establishing the National Park's Presence in Urban Populations
The National Park Service (NPS) manages over 85 million acres of protected land across the United States. However, due to rising travel costs, marginalized communities find it difficult to visit National Parks. We created an extension in the NPS ecosystem called Canopy, which provides immersive audio visual experiences in Urban Spaces, bringing the National Parks closer to home.
45% increase
In interest towards NPS
<2 min
Core task completion times
86.5
Base avg. System Usability Score
My roles
Systems Designer, UX Designer
Tools
Figma, Gemini, Rhino
Team
Product Owner, Scrum Master, Product & Brand Designers
Duration
10 weeks
Gallery
गॅलेरी
Slide to see the difference!
Canopy booking flow
Discovery
सौंशोधन
Since we were a team of hiker heads (more on that later), we chose the National Park Service (NPS) as our brand.
400+
National Parks, Monuments, and Historical Sites managed
85 million
Acres of protected land under the National Parks System
332 million
National Park visits in 2024
NPS problems
Climate Change
Many parks are directly endangered due to extreme weather changes
Staffing Shortage
There aren't enough staff members to manage and improve all the parks
Turbulance
The NPS is subject to budget and policy changes every 4 years
Visitor Problems
Planning Fatigue
Traveling, activities, and stay are all different services visitors manage
Overcrowding
Popular destinations take away from the 'nature escape' experience
Service Disparity
Some parks offer more & better services than others, unknown to users
We were able to form our how might we based on all of this information.
How might we engage Urban populations into the NPS ecosystem?
Concept
कॉन्सेप्ट
Since we had a clear idea of our problem space, we validated our findings using the following methods:
Survey
Environmental Scan
Concept Reactions
With these, we were able to triangulate our data and form key user insights.
Current Customer Journey Map
From all of these, we were able to narrow down our deliverable requirements:
Ideation
A system to emulate nature & educate users
A system for accessing and customizing this experience
Since this space were quite different than how the National Park Service, we created Canopy - an extension of the NPS focusing on providing immersive experiences for Urban populations.
Testing
टेस्टिंग
Since this was a new process, we tested the entire flow:
Booking a Canopy
Experiencing Canopy
After Visit
Our KPIs
System Usability Score
Task Completion Times
Interest in NPS ecosystem
Test Results
86.5
Average System Usability Score
104.82s
Time to book a Canopy from NPS app
45% increase
In interest towards NPS ecosystem
Although these results seemed promising at first, we uncovered some underlying issues:
Confusing Information Architecture
The booking process for Canopy was really confusing -customizing options gave no context, and special of the month activities were poorly highlighted, if at all.
Disengaging Recap Experience
Recap screens, which were supposed to be fun,
didn’t feel engaging especially when they were a crucial touch point if shared on social media and to friends/families.
Design
डिझाईन
It we clear that we needed to make some major changes for the Canopy booking as well as the recap experience. We went back to the drawing board (literally) to remap our flows and redesigning key components.
Changes
Flows
Book a Session
Easily book a session from the NPS app - select a mode and the exact activities inside, alongside accessibility settings.
Be immersed under the Canopy
Displays inside the Canopy are interactive, and subtly prompt to engaging experiences as well as educate users about National Parks.
Relive your Canopy memories
The next time you open the NPS app, you will be greeted with
Other Changes
Apart from adding a new feature to the NPS app, we also made some changes to improve the feature set and user experience.
What I learned
मी काय शिकलो
Freeflowing vs Structured thinking
Being a designer who loves systems and logic, I quickly learnt that there need to be moments where the process is intentionally messy to incorporate new ideas and experiment. This was the first project where I was challenged this way, and I'm deeply fascinated by how it applies in other areas.
Great team = Great projects
Having a team that was so capable and specialized definitely elevated our final product. It also helped that all of us LOVE to be outside and in nature, transforming this project from just another studio to a fully-fledged passion project. Everyone on the team inspired me to keep refining my own work as well as learn new skills. I LOVE YOU TEAM SMOKIES!!!!
