Scientific traces of a hobby: co-designing a platform to repurpose wildlife photography into conservation

Abstract

Wildlife photography has long served not only as a hobby, but also as a medium for storytelling and a source of commercial value. But its potential as a source of scientific data remains largely unexplored. Meanwhile, thousands of photographs captured by wildlife photographers are stored on personal devices, shared selectively on social media, or sold commercially without fully tapping their potential for research. This project explores how participatory design can be used to find ways to utilize such untapped wildlife photography data for wildlife research. Through co-design activities, wildlife photographers and researchers were directly involved in finding a solution that benefited both parties. Collaborative activities such as data extraction exercises, journey mapping, prioritization mapping, and sketching were used to inform the development of prototypes, which were later tested with actual users and refined through iteration. The participatory design process resulted in an online platform that allows photographers to easily upload and get an analysis of their sightings, while researchers gain access to broader, richer datasets collected through many photographers across broader locations and time. This study showed that no single method could capture the full spectrum of the problem; deploying multiple techniques was necessary to progressively build a holistic understanding of user needs.