Terraformation Survival Rate Calculations

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Summary

Mission

Monitoring live and dead plants is one of the biggest challenges to understanding the health of a planting site. This project shifted the platform's terminology from mortality rate to survival rate — a change that required complex backend calculations and a carefully designed data entry interface to support accurate scientific monitoring.

My contributions

I worked with the science team, PM, and engineering to understand the complexity of plot-based data entry across 25+ configurations, explored multiple interface approaches through iteration, and landed on a consolidated solution using smart defaults and simplified workflows.

Timeline

Q3–Q4 2024

Team

Science team, product manager, engineering team

Role

Product Designer — UX Design & Research

Terraformation Survival Rate Calculations introduction
Problem statement and requirements

The Challenge

The project involved shifting terminology from mortality rate to survival rate for plant health monitoring. This wasn't a simple mathematical inversion — it required complex backend calculations, making the interface design critical for ensuring data accuracy across diverse planting configurations.

System overview showing complexity of data entry

Understanding Complexity

The science team needed to input initial plant density data (t0 baseline) across potentially 25+ differently configured plots with three input types. This complexity made it challenging to design an interface that was both comprehensive and usable in the field.

First iteration with separated interface
Second iteration with single edit focus
Final consolidated interface solution

Design Exploration

The first iteration separated observation-level data from species-specific densities — but failed because users needed to see observation dates paired with densities for accuracy. The second iteration used a focused, single-edit paradigm that proved too tedious for comparing plot-level data simultaneously. The final solution consolidated functionality using smart defaults and merged add/delete operations into simplified workflows requiring minimal user clicks.

Observation management interface

Observation Management

The design displays all relevant data while allowing selective editing through streamlined interactions. Users can view observation history and make targeted updates efficiently without losing context across plots.

Edit workflow interface

Edit Workflow

The edit interface balances comprehensiveness with usability — providing all necessary fields while using sensible defaults to reduce cognitive load and prevent accidental data changes.

Survival rate metrics and visualization
Data view with survival rates

Metrics & Visualization

Survival rate metrics are visualized clearly, helping teams understand plant health trends across different plots and species over time.