Project Noah

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The first social platform for studying and documenting nature in the wild. The project is supported and sponsored by National Geographic. When people out in the wild take photos of plant and animal life with iPhone or Android apps, they can add their photos to the site and describe the natural setting they're in.

Uniform environment

We started working on a redesign for Project Noah by creating a uniform information structure that could connect mobile applications with the website. Then we carefully went over the details of the applications and the site until we came up with a common language for a revamped interface and the right visual style.

Mobile applications

Project Noah is accessible to both iPhone and Android. Employing the two makes the project available to a greater user audience. Both applications actually carry out identical functions and differ only in their platform details.

We did the user interfaces by using a style popular in the old field guides of Darwin's time. The main function of the application is to capture an object in nature just as it appears in its natural surroundings, add the location and then post it into the site.

Site

Basically, the site serves as a way to arrange natural objects in their natural settings and make them look as if they belonged there. The homepage explains the benefits of the website and shows recent activities and new spottings.

The spottings that users add can be listed in the grid or be overlaid on the map whenever convenient.

Every profile displays the user’s spottings along with any patches awarded and other missions they’ve been involved in. Under the auspices of National Geographic, Project Noah backs missions devoted to a myriad of natural themes.

Visual style

The style identifying Project Noah is evident in each interface element, icon and logo of the application. Enthusiastic users are encouraged with awards resembling Boy Scout patches, of which we’ve produced over 20 different originals.

Although we thought up the icon-patches specifically for this project, we also came up with a novel technique to be used for designing similar images for other projects.

Development

Our crew designed the iPhone and Android applications and developed the website’s front end. Everything was implemented with pixel precision since the distinctiveness of this project consists of a complex dynamic interface with lots of custom items.

Since the standard iOS and Android components wouldn't let us implement a custom user interface, our team created a library of customized UI elements. We then designed a library for Android which lets users sign in through the most well-known social networks.