Formica
Making wildlife conservation easy: Replacing an outdated legacy system with a modern, accessible application for monitoring protected forest ants.
Initial Situation
The client, an association focused on the protection of forest ants, relied on an outdated system to track ant nests in the forests and mountains of Lucerne. Forest ants are a protected species, vital to maintaining ecosystem balance.
The legacy system was cumbersome to use, difficult to maintain, and not available during excursions in the forest, limiting the volunteers' (called wardens) ability to collect accurate data and doubling the effort to collect said data. A modern, user-friendly solution was urgently needed to streamline their efforts and support conservation goals effectively.
Project Goal
Our team sought to create an accessible and efficient application to replace the obsolete system. As most of the wardens are pensioners, who use their free time to protect such an important part of our ecosystem, the solution needed to be tailored to them. Furthermore, the solution aimed to improve data accuracy, usability, and offer offline support while supporting conservation efforts.
Map Screen
On the map screen, the wardens can view all nests, filter them and add new ones. The map responds to the user actions by focusing on the location of the nest which the user hovers over.
Filters
The nest list can be filtered with various parameters which enables the wardens to find the nests they are looking for.
Create Screen
The location of a new nest is loaded automatically via the device's geo location and from those coordinates the canton, municipality and meters above sea level are calculated. All other data is added in two additional steps, which prevent the form from becoming overwhelming.
Developed Solution and its Benefit
To ensure our product will actually solve the current problems, we spent a day in the hiking boots of the forest ant wardens. During this day we were able to confirm the usability of parts of our application. At the same time some issues appeared, which we were not aware of before.
Inform and Educate
René Felder, our client and president of the association, taught us about the importance of the forest ants.
Nest Location
Most nests are somewhere in the forest, not visible from the paths and roads. To ensure the wardens can find them again, our map had to be accessible even if the reception is bad.
Team Spirit
Building our team spirit and the relationship with our client was really important to us and helped us achieve our goals while having fun.
The Formica application allows the wardens to collect and store data while in the field. No more unnecessary work needed!
- Offline Mode: A warden's nests are downloaded and therefore accessible in places where there is only bad or no reception. The creation of nests and the map are also available offline.
- UX: The creation of a nest is separated into steps to make the process easier and more manageable. The whole app is designed with the user demographic in mind, e.g. larger buttons and clear flows.
- Data Export: The LAWA (Landwirtschaft und Wald Luzern / Agriculture and Forest Lucerne) relies on the association for their knowledge concerning the forest ants. As the construction of any building in the proximity of a nest is prohibited, the LAWA uses data from the association to make sure no ant nests are harmed during any constructions. To facilitate the protection of the forest ants, Formica provides the functionality of a CSV-export, which the LAWA then uses to ensure any nests are resettled before construction.
- Map: Nests are displayed as markers on the map. Scrolling through the list focuses on the respective area and markers.
- Customization: Users can customize their view of the application by adjusting the text size and default language.
- Permission Concept: Permissions allow different users to experience the application differently. The permissions can be easily expanded and therefore new types of users can be created.
- Prefilled Data: During the creation of a nest, location data is prefilled to reduce unnecessary and error-prone work. This data includes coordinates, altitude, canton & the municipality.
The Formica application streamlines ant nest monitoring with features like offline functionality, a user-friendly interface, and customizable settings tailored to its diverse user group. It also enhances data management through robust permission controls, map integration, and export capabilities to support conservation and compliance efforts effectively.
Testimonial
«In my opinion, the Formica group works very well together and I am delighted to be able to put the product we have developed into operation. Meredit and Robin's guidance were informative for me and we were able to exchange ideas perfectly. This also enabled us to achieve our goal. I always felt comfortable and accepted and am delighted to have travelled this path together. It is now up to me/us to continue shaping the product in the future. The forest ant wardens will enjoy all the features that have been implemented. »
René Felder
Key terms
- UI / UXFigma
- Programming languagesTypeScript, HTML, SCSS, Java
- Frontend StackReact.js with Vite, TanStack, TypeScript, PWA & Tailwind
- Backend StackJava Spring Boot
- DatabasePostgreSQL
Client
René Felder
6048 Horw
Luzerner Waldameisenschutz
(Association for the Protection of Forest Ants Lucerne)
Team
Team (from left to right)
sitting
Andrin Martig
Livio Brunner
standing
Meredit Sommer
Robin Asprion
Zacharia Ghammar
Silvan Zurbrügg (Coach)
Ryan Hillhouse
Dominik Luder