This was the product of my graduate capstone project during my time at MHCI+D. . The problem space that my group and I decided to embark on concerned the University of Washington (UW) Farm and its student volunteer base. Over the course of 5 months, my group and I researched, designed, and prototyped an end-to-end viable product for the Farm that was presented to the industry guests, instructors, and peers during a final showcase.

The UW Farm is a 1.5 acre student-powered urban farm & educational facility located on the University of Washington’s Seattle Campus. The Farm is mostly student-run, attracting over 200 volunteers every year. Each quarter, the UW Farm receives an influx of student volunteers coming to the farm to meet a class requirement (also known as service learners). These volunteers are inexperienced and can cause strain on the farm production ecosystem.

We wanted to find a way to better engage service learners and inexperienced student volunteers with the UW Farm community in order to increase volunteer retention, longevity, and autonomy. Through our research, we found that volunteers who tend to stick around for longer found something personal or meaningful through the farm. This led to our design challenge:

I was responsible for the visual identity, branding, illustrations, and UI design of the mobile app. As part of the design process, I was heavily involved in ideation, wireframing, storyboarding, and information architecture as well. During the research phase, I led four semi-structured user interviews and conducted ethnographic research on the farm.

Rooted is an educational and social application that provides volunteers the tools to build confidence, meaning, and a sense of connectedness in their role on the farm. Volunteers can learn how each task plays an important role in the growth of a crop and collaboratively contribute to the story of the farm. Through Rooted, volunteers can develop a strong personal connection to the farm.

To better answer our research question, we volunteered during several open shifts on the Farm. While volunteering, we took note of any volunteer or staff pain points, breakdowns in workflows, and had informal conversations with staff and volunteers.

During our volunteer shifts, we were able to recruit interview participants. In total, we conducted 11 semi-structured interviews to understand staff and volunteer perspectives on the volunteer program. I led four out of those 11 interviews.