Marine Metre²
Client
Marine Metre²
Year
2024
Role
Lead Designer
Project scope
Visual Identity, Design System, Information Design, UX/UI Design
PROJECT INTRO
Marine Metre² is a citizen science initiative that enables communities, schools, and environmental groups across Aotearoa to monitor coastal biodiversity.
I led a full rebrand and website redesign to transform an outdated and difficult-to-navigate platform into a clear, engaging digital experience for a broad audience – from educators and students to environmental practitioners.
A core focus of the project was making complex ecological information more approachable for non-scientific audiences, particularly younger users engaging with the programme through schools and community initiatives. The goal was to better communicate the value of the programme while making biodiversity data easier to understand, explore, and contribute to.
Challenge
Despite the strength of the underlying scientific programme, the existing platform struggled to support engagement and participation across its diverse audience groups.
The experience was fragmented and difficult to navigate, with unclear user pathways, inconsistent structure, and minimal guidance around how to contribute or interpret ecological data.
Beyond improving usability, the challenge was to make scientific content feel engaging and understandable for users without specialist knowledge. The platform needed to translate a complex, data-heavy system into an intuitive educational experience that could support learning, participation, and long-term community engagement.
approach
We mapped user flows around core audience groups – from students uploading survey results to teachers planning classroom activities – restructuring the information architecture to create clearer pathways through the platform.
A major focus of the redesign was improving how ecological information was communicated to non-scientific audiences. Content structures, interface patterns, and visual storytelling techniques were designed to make complex environmental data feel approachable, engaging, and easy to understand without compromising scientific credibility.
Visually, the rebrand intentionally embraced a more illustrative and accessible aesthetic to better connect with younger audiences and support educational use cases. The identity system featured clean sans-serif typography, a modular logo referencing the square metre survey methodology at the core of the initiative, and a playful illustration style inspired by Aotearoa’s coastal ecosystems.
These visual elements helped simplify abstract scientific concepts and create stronger emotional engagement with the content, particularly for students and first-time participants unfamiliar with ecological terminology or data collection processes.
OUtcome
The redesigned platform was positively received by clients, educators, and stakeholders, with particular recognition for its improved clarity and engagement. The new experience better communicates the purpose of the initiative and makes participation more intuitive across all user groups.
Improved information architecture and task-based user flows made participation more intuitive, while the refreshed visual system helped make biodiversity data more accessible, engaging, and easier to interpret for non-scientific audiences.
Since launch, the initiative has continued evolving through the integration of emerging photogrammetry technology, allowing students to create interactive 3D models of coastal environments using smartphones and tablets. These tools have the potential to significantly expand how Marine Metre² is experienced in classrooms – shifting learning from static observation toward more immersive and interactive environmental exploration. It’s exciting to see how the platform continues to evolve alongside new technologies that make citizen science increasingly accessible for younger audiences.
