Whale Entanglement User Research

Web Application Prototype 1 - effort map

Fishing effort by year

Traps, price and landings trends over time per zone

Reporting period trends for vessel tracks, landings and volume

Client: The Nature Conservancy - California

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Entanglement in fishing gear is a leading cause of whale mortality world-wide, and this problem has recently intensified along the coast of California. TNC California is working with fisherman and other partners to reduce whale entanglements in fishing gear. TNC engaged GreenInfo Network to conduct user research, design, and web development work to support TNC's ongoing work to improve the ways that data are presented and used in the management California's dungeness crab fishery, particularly related to whale entanglement.

Working closely with our partners at TNC, we conducted design research, user interviews, interaction design, visual design, and web development to plan, design, and build two prototype data visualization applications to support TNC's whale entanglement work with fisherman and other partners.

An important technical challenge was the fact that the user interviews would be conducted by phone, due to COVID 19 restrictions, and that many of the interviewees would be interacting with the prototypes on their phones while we spoke with them. As a result, some common methods of testing, including Zoom and screensharing prototypes or other mock-ups would not work. The prototypes had to be fully-fledged, responsive web applications that people could use while we talked to them.

Results: In addition to the two website prototypes, we produced a written assessment of the challenges, needs, and opportunities to integrate key information sources and improve the accessibility of data used to support the adaptive management of entanglement risk.

Focus: Conservation, Economic Development, Environment

Services: Interactive Solutions, Applications Development, Web Mapping, Website Design, Design Research

Tags: California, fishing, Marine, Whales

Project Years: 2021