The National Parks Service (NPS) is a federal agency that preserves and promotes our national parks. However, its current site has no clear information architecture and fails to capture the excitement of visiting these parks. As a solution, my team and I reimagined and translated the platform into a mobile app by highlighting essential content, adding incentives for users to explore, and creating a visual identity that would inspire adventures.
After initial research and ideation, we decided on the job, target audience, and main tasks of our app. We then explored three different directions that our app could potentially evolve into. After several rounds of feedback, we narrowed down to one refined concept and pushed it further.
We used badge-collecting as the main incentive for our users because of the nostalgia and excitement associated with it. After researching about the 60 national parks and determining the look & feel of our badges, we then each created 7 colored and 13 outlined badges. Each illustration is inspired by the corresponding national park’s most iconic landscape.
The PARCA team has been meeting biweekly to further unify our badges as a set, as well as to finish coloring the outlined badges. We hope to have them printed as vinyl stickers once print shops are open. Stay tuned!
