Aroha Nui
Sustainable Coastlines needed to gain more foot traffic into the Flagship Educational Center which is based in Auckland’s CBD. As a group we based our project off of an existing campaign called #whatdoesnaturegiveme
Connecting people back to nature through Pepeha.
Role:
UX / UI Designer
Motion Designer
Client:
Sustainable Coastlines - University Project
June 2021
The Outcome
We wanted to connect people back to nature. But we also realized that one of Sustainable coastlines brand values is respect for indigenous culture. Incorporating Maori Culture into our project was a top priority.
We came to the conclusion that the use of Taha Wairua and Pepeha within our project would connect people back to nature. A Pepeha is a way of introducing oneself. Using a set structure it identifies who we are, where we’re from and where we belong. Pepeha is used in a Māori context and has a formal basis, but the idea is universal.
Behind the scenes
As a team the first step was to research and understand who sustainable coastlines is. We wanted to incorporate one of sustainable coastlines values “Respect for Indigenous Knowledge” by incorporating Maori culture in our design outcome. From here we brainstormed outcome ideas that would connect people back to nature, this is where we came across Pepeha.
Having a thorough understanding of what a Pepeha is was the next step. This was a crucial step as it allowed us to incorporate the full purpose of a Pepeha into our design solution. Using the Pepeha to connect people back to nature was the aim. We wanted this to be an interactive experience through the mobile platform.
After refining down what was required for the interactive app we got to work. As the UX/UI designer it was my job to create the app. This included user flows, wire framing, and user testing. Using the process of prototyping and user testing enabled us to create the best user experience possible.
I used Adobe XD to go from LoFi to HiFi prototyping. I conducted a lot of user tests at this stage to ensure we had made the best experience possible. We found that the app flowed very well and the users wanted to create their own Pepehas.