Native Woodland Trust

The Native Woodland Trust is an organization dedicated to the preservation and restoration of Ireland's native woodlands. Their mission is to protect existing forests, plant new woodlands, and raise awareness about biodiversity and environmental sustainability.

Challenges

The Trust needed to strengthen its digital presence to communicate its mission, engage users and build trust. Their existing branding and platforms lacked a cohesive identity, intuitive navigation and user-friendly interactions.

A complete rebranding and redesign were required — starting with a new logo and brand style guide, extending to a design system and a seamless iOS app.

Strategy & process

This was my final semester project at Noroff School of Technology. I designed a complete digital experience for a real organization that does not currently have a mobile app.

The goal was to imagine and create a meaningful solution reflecting their mission, applying everything from research and wireframing to high-fidelity design and usability testing.

Project plan

An end-to-end project on a short deadline, so structure did the heavy lifting.

Brand style guide & design system

The style guide defined logo usage, typography, colour palette, imagery and tone of voice, creating a cohesive visual identity.

The design system provided reusable components and UI patterns for a scalable experience across web and iOS — intuitive navigation, accessibility and a visually engaging interface aligned to the Trust's mission.

Low fidelity designs

Wireframes mapped the user journey and structure first — layout, content hierarchy and navigation flow — so functionality could be iterated quickly on feedback.

High fidelity prototype

Wireframes became an interactive prototype with the finalised brand elements, typography, colours and UI components — realistic enough for user testing and validation.

Usability testing & improvement

Three iterations of usability testing using the Concurrent Think-Aloud method, where participants verbalised their thoughts while completing tasks. Each 15-minute session included:

• Task execution on the prototype, with users thinking aloud.
• Ratings on usability aspects: ease of identifying a tree, intuitiveness, overall experience.
• Verbal feedback and improvement suggestions at the end.

Recommended changes implemented

• A cross (X) button so users understand they can leave the camera and return to the previous screen.
• Left/right navigation buttons on picture galleries, greyed out at the first and last image.
• A back button on trails, so users return to the site page without re-navigating from the start.