Designing Terraformation’s Plants Dashboard

Role: Researcher, Designer

Duration: 2 months

Tools: Figma, Chart.js, Confluence

Problem

Foresters find it difficult to understand how their planting sites are doing because their data is so complex and the available analysis software, ArcGIS, has a steep learning curve and requires a lot of manual work.

Solution

Create a user-friendly dashboard meant for easy planting site data analysis by leveraging clear data presentation and strong visual language.

Research

Goals

  • Understand planting site data and its importance for reforestation projects

Methods

  • User interviews

  • ArcGIS demos

Findings

Pain Points

  • Existing analysis software like ArcGIS is inaccessible for our non-tech-savvy users in terms of not only building the dashboard but also understanding the content.

General Context

  • Planting sites are broken up into zones.

  • Understanding data like density, mortality, quantity, and species helps measure progress.

  • There is a planned/target, reported, and observed value for each data point.

Affinity Mapping

  • Site level data is most important but it’s dense so splitting that data into sections is best.

  • General overview of zone level data could be useful since sites are planted by zone.

Design & Feedback

1) Data Prioritization

The first part of simplifying planting site data for easy comprehension was to categorize and prioritize the data in a way that would make the most sense for analysis.

Iteration 1

  • Site level data at top for high-level overview and zone level data at bottom because it’s more granular.

  • Include planned, reported, and observed data because we thought comparisons to the goal might better show a site’s progress.

Feedback on Iteration 1

  • Planting density more accurately measures progress and success than mortality.

  • Create better hierarchy of information for easier and quicker scanning.

  • Data that represents the site’s current state helps foresters understand their planting site the most.

Iteration 2

  • Place planting density section at top.

  • Reword/contextualize the terms observed, planned, and reported to avoid confusion.

  • Highlight latest data (previously known as observed data) and de-emphasize planned and reported data.

Feedback on Iteration 2

  • Graphs only show significant data years later it might be better to leave it out for now.

  • Live/dead count per species better aligns with mortality than total plants and species.

Iteration 3

  • Remove graphs showing data over time.

  • Move data card for live/dead count per species to the mortality section.

  • Add site area coverage card and progress bars for more planting density context.

Error Discovered

  • Planting density was calculated as “total number of plants divided by total area”, which represents planting progress.

  • Site planting density is actually a measure of “space between plants” and cannot be calculated until the entire site has been planted.

After discussing with the carbon science, engineering, and product teams, we clarified the error and I updated the designs accordingly.

Iteration 4

  • Show planting progress at the site and zone levels until the entire site has been planted, in which case, planting density cards will replace planting progress cards.

2) Visual Exploration

The second part of simplifying planting site data for easy comprehension was to visualize and contextualize the data in a way that would aid and speed up understanding.

Card Layout & Typography

  • Horizontal and vertical layouts

  • Grouping numbers in one card

  • Tables in cards

  • Different title, number, and copy ordering

Contextualization

  • Card title length

  • Questions for card title

  • Tooltips

  • Copy

Data Visualizations

  • Bar Graphs

  • Line graphs

  • Pie charts

  • Progress bars

Data Viz. Color Palette

  • Created a categorical, sequential, diverging, and miscellaneous color palette.

  • Mainly needed to use the categorical color palette for this dashboard but the rest are useful for other dashboards we have/will have.

Impact

This dashboard appealed to international organizations like Eden Reforestation Projects, the largest non-profit forest restoration organization in the world, and Tanzania via Saving Africa’s Nature (SANA), who are now using Terraware for all their data collection.

The reasons being it enables early course correction which saves projects thousands of dollars, otherwise spent on unnecessary labor and resources, and it helps projects get verified for carbon credits which increases the probability of funding and success.

What’s next?

Working on the data visualization color palette during this project made me realize how visual detail and consistency can elevate a design. As a result, for my next project, I wanted to refine and standardize one of the most important and utilized components in our design system, the table and filters component.