In December 2023 I was   asked by my manager at Dynamo if I had additional bandwidth to take on a new design project. They explained to me that this one is not like the ones I have been working on and it would be good to get more experience outside of the US Forest Service. I agreed to the project and in retrospect I am so grateful that I did as the lessons it taught me were invaluable. 

​

In the beginning I had no idea what USGS even was or what they did, so that is where my work began. I educated myself on the general work they did to at least get a feel for what to expect. The team consisted of Dynamo contractors and the USGS stakeholders. The contractors were 3 developers, one scrum master, and myself as the UX designer. There were two USGS stakeholders which they were incredible in more ways than one.

​

The first meeting with the stakeholders was perfect. They took all the time we needed to explain the purpose of the project, which was to take multiple outdated applications that the hydrologists use and combine them into one "UFA" (Unified Field Application). The first iteration of the UFA was to import the functionality of SVMAC, an old program that hydrologists use in the field to do various tests. There was additional requirements on top of that, which included a need for profile functionality, handling and tracking ongoing activities/tasks, and managing ongoing/upcoming trips to different field stations.

​

It was overwhelming the amount of functionality that was required to reach the end goal of where the UFA needed to be. This was the first time that I was working on an application and not a website in my contracting career. This  also meant I was not able to easily leverage all the components I used in BusOps and R&D, so I needed to pivot and rethink my strategy.

​

A design system I was familiar with but haven't fully designed in with is Material Design which is very well known for it's use in android applications. I did some research on Material Design and the kits that they offer for Figma users and it was a no-brainer. The Material Design library offered a plethora of components, typefaces, color schemes, layout options, and more I mean you name it - they had it. This discovery eased my anxiety on how I was going to tackle this big task since I had all the tools at my hands once again.

​

The work started with getting from the stakeholders any branding that USGS currently uses, which they were able to point me to  so I did not have to create any branding other than deciding what font to use. This gave me a jump start in creating the low fidelity mockups, which I made using components from the Material Design library  with little to no color that just focused on layout. I spent about a week just brainstorming and developing new layouts with the Material Design library to see what fits and what does not. Once I felt ready, I met with the stakeholders to do a design presentation.

​

Throughout the presentation I learned that the stakeholders were actually users as well at one point in their career having to use SVMAC so they knew what the painpoints were  which was amazing insight. They also were incredibly tech savvy, which made explaining design decisions so easy. We took an approach to the application that once a user was logged in, they were immediately  able to complete their activities/tasks. Users in this case could be in the middle of the forest or even on a boat doing tests, so an application that was to-the-point was critical in creating user satisfaction. The combination of insights from the design presentation and the technical competence  from the stakeholders made me 10x more excited to see where this project will go.

​

After landing on a solid foundation in the lo-fi mockups of the landing page, I pivoted to creating the first set of activities that the user would need to complete in the field. The activities including taking readings with specifically selected equipment, inspecting sensors, and doing readings with these sensors. It all sounded simple but for the sensor inspection and readings there ended up being 9 different types of sensors that required separate workflows for each sensor. The stakeholder pointed out which types of sensors will be needed for the first iteration of the application, so we focused on building out those workflows. The stakeholders were amazing yet again in this process as they walked me through doing the same tasks within SVMAC and provided me screenshots of each step for me to replicate/iterate on in the UFA lo-fi mockups. They also provided me with their painpoints in SVMAC which inspired me to come up with design solutions for a better application. Over the next month and a half I worked directly with the stakeholders to go through the reading/inspection workflow for each sensor, built lo-fi mockups, and reviewed them with the stakeholders and iterated as needed.

​

There was another portion of the UFA that was needed for launch, the Groundwater Levels activity. This was a task/activity similar to the sensor reading/inspections, but it contained sub-activities that had their own purpose. On SVMAC this activity was just one long activity that was untracked and it was unclear when the user was done. In this UFA we reworked the activity to be split up  in sub-activities that shows visual indications for what step the user is in and when those steps are in-progress, complete, or even if there is an error. Once all the sub-activities were marked as completed, the whole activity visually changed to indicate the user finished this activity. The stakeholders and I went through about another month of working together to finalize this workflow in lo-fi mockups.

​

Transitioning to high fidelity mockups took a lot of time as the UFA was only showing data that was specific to the activities. At this point we were without that specific data and I just had to put in as much as I could get from the screenshots sent over from the various walkthroughs in SVMAC with the stakeholders. I added in the branding which was made easy from the branding that was sent to me from the stakeholders and the Material Design system was built to be mass-edited without  having to navigate to every single component. The hi-fi mockups came out beautiful. The stakeholders were thrilled to see how far the app has come in just a few months of work. In this situation I did not have to build a prototype as the hi-fi mockups were laid out in Figma in an order than walked the stakeholders through each action the user would take. So at this point I got approval on the mockups and sent those over to the developers to begin work.

​

While working with the dev team to verify the UI of the application, I was also working with the stakeholders to build out additional functionality that was required for the first iteration of the UFA. This included pages that shows information on a specific field station and the user's profile. The stakeholders and I found a good rhythm at this point in the project. They  started to utilize Mural to share their feedback with screenshots and a sticky note component which they could flag what needed my attention and what was them brainstorming internally. We got to a point where we rarely had to have design meetings to go over new requests because we were able to work so much more efficiently through Mural. There were times where we had to meet to discuss  functionality that was too complex for screenshots, but they were always great to work with so I had no problem doing so.

​

After the developers had finished their work I was able to feed them fully-approved hi-fi mockups for the user profile and the station information pages. My scrum master was happy with my effort to keep the developers busy and not asking for more work. 

​

The stakeholders  would continue to work along with me  on post-launch activities. Which included extreme sensor readings, verification of extreme readings, and collimation tests. These were all to be implemented after the first launch of the UFA was complete, so we were ahead of the game. 

​

First launch of the UFA went off without an issue and we had a launch party with the stakeholders to celebrate all the effort that went into it. We received fantastic reviews from the userbase  and stakeholders alike. They were so happy to use a product that was built for them and didn't look prehistoric. 

 

When it came time to renew the contract for another year, the stakeholders were adamant that they kept working with my team going forward due to how well it went the first year.

 

The contract was granted another year which takes us up to today, where we are faced with government reorganization and a potential contract cancellation come May 31st. This project ended up being my favorite while working at Dynamo due to the ease of collaboration with the stakeholders and the application was so interesting to learn about especially since I was going in not even knowing this agency existed. I wish all projects could go how this one went even to the smallest degree.
 

​

TLDR: 

In December 2023, I joined a new project with USGS to design a Unified Field Application (UFA) that consolidated multiple outdated hydrologist tools into one modern app. It was my first full application (not website) design project, requiring deep user workflow mapping and complex task structures, including sensor readings, inspections, trip tracking, and more. I used Material Design to build out the UI, creating lo-fi and hi-fi mockups in close collaboration with incredibly helpful and tech-savvy USGS stakeholders—many of whom were past users of the legacy tools. Their feedback, detailed walkthroughs, and use of Mural for async collaboration made the process smooth and productive. We launched the first version of the UFA successfully, with glowing feedback from users and stakeholders. The partnership was so effective that USGS extended the contract for another year. As of now, the project faces potential cancellation due to government reorganization, but it remains my favorite project to date due to the strong collaboration, meaningful impact, and the exciting challenge of designing a real-world field application.

Lessons Learned

• This was my first application design project, and it pushed me to rethink my process. Reusable components and layouts from past web projects weren’t enough I had to get granular with workflows and task-driven UX.

• Discovering the Material Design Figma kit saved the day. It gave me structure, components, and scalability in a space where I had none at the start.

• Having stakeholders who understood the tech and were also past users of the legacy app (SVMAC) was a game-changer. Their insight made it easy to identify pain points and craft smart, efficient solutions.

• Knowing that users could be on boats or deep in forests emphasized the need for minimal, focused interfaces. Context-driven design choices were crucial.

• I learned to prioritize clear, intuitive workflows - especially when handling tasks like sensor readings, which had multiple layers of complexity.

• Moving async collaboration into Mural made everything smoother. Stakeholders could provide feedback visually and at their convenience, which reduced meeting overhead and sped up iteration.

• We transformed clunky, confusing workflows into structured, progress-driven tasks with visual indicators. That shift increased user confidence and task completion rates.

• The strong rapport with stakeholders built trust, smoothed out challenges, and ultimately led to a contract renewal. A positive working relationship made everything easier.

• This was hands-down the most collaborative, respectful, and rewarding project I’ve worked on. It showed me what’s possible when everyone’s aligned, open, and invested in great outcomes.