Designing a Digital Platform for measuring Urban Biodiversity
Overview
This project was developed during an internship at Humblebee, a digital service design agency, in collaboration with their client, Stadskupan. Stadskupan, a Swedish company leasing beehives to businesses, aims to enhance urban biodiversity. While urban beekeping is key to their business, their broader mission is to promote greener cities and biodiversity awareness. However, excessive managed bees can compete with native pollinators. To create more value from their hives while supporting ecosystems, Stadskupan looked into new possabilities with pollen analysis technology. By partnering with a lab, they began analyzing pollen collected by their bees, generating valuable environmental data on local flora, insect populations, and pollution.
Client
Stadskupan
Collaborators
HIVE14 × Humblebee
Context
Autumn 2024
16 weeks
Internship
Role
User Research
UX Design
The Challenge
The challenge was to transform pollen data into a valuable and scalable digital service
To achieve this, Stadskupan needed a strategic approach to:
•Identify key stakeholders who would benefit from biodiversity insights
•Develop a viable business model to effectively monetize the data
•Design an MVP that clearly visualizes and communicates ecological insights
The objective was to create a user-centric solution that not only enhances urban beekeeping’s impact but also bridges gaps in biodiversity measurement tools.
Research
Our research began with the recognition that urban biodiversity is a highly interconnected system
Before shaping what Bloom would become, we carried out extensive research to grasp Stadskupan’s existing structure, as well as the broader environmental context. We started by benchmarking relevant competitors and research labs, taking note of industry standards, existing services, and distinct market positions.
A Business Model Canvas helped us identify how pollen analysis could extend Stadskupan’s offerings, while System Mapping illuminated the interplay among stakeholders—like property developers, local governments, scientists, and concerned citizens. Interviews with experts and stakeholders proved especially important. Speaking with biodiversity specialists and potential platform users underscored the difficulties they faced in interpreting and comparing ecological data.
A sketch of our system map and Business Model Canvas.
findings
We organized our interview notes and observations through Insight Clustering
From these interviews, system maps, and desk research, three recurring challenges emerged.
1. Many people and organizations were collecting ecological data but a lack of standardization and long term data collection makes biodiversity data hard to compare.
2. The idea of collaboration whether between businesses, city officials, or the general public was underdeveloped because there were few shared digital spaces to facilitate it.
3. Companies in particular needed ROI metrics or legislated incentives to justify significant investments in ecological projects. Without accessible data and clear benefits, they would hesitate.
We distilled these insights into a framework of “How Might We” questions, serving as a lens for future ideation. In essence, we asked how we might make ecological data both comprehensible and actionable, while also fostering meaningful partnerships around biodiversity.
Quotes from the people we interviewed.
Defining Motivations Through Archetypes
Given the complexity of biodiversity efforts and the diverse range of stakeholders, we replaced traditional personas with three archetypes. These archetypes helped us capture different priorities and constraints, ensuring Bloom’s features remained adaptable to various needs.
Our three archetypes, representing key stakeholder needs.
Exploring User Stories to Uncover Needs
We explored problems and opportunities through User Stories, told from the perspective of our archetypes. For example, a city official might need to track pollution trends over time to inform policy decisions, while a local business owner might want to compare their rooftop beehive’s impact to citywide data. By framing these needs in a structured way—"As a [user], I want to [goal], so that [benefit]."—we gained deeper insight into the frustrations, uncertainties, and motivations driving user behaviour.
Archetype user stories and "How Might We" questions.
Designing Bloom meant navigating the distinct priorities of multiple stakeholders
- Scientists and policymakers needed accurate, standardized biodiversity data to inform research and urban planning.
- Businesses and community members required an intuitive, visually engaging platform that made complex data accessible and actionable.
Striking this balance would involve ongoing collaboration, iterative design, and real-world testing. By refining data visualization and user experience through stakeholder feedback, we ensured Bloom was both scientifically rigorous and user-friendly, empowering diverse groups to engage with urban biodiversity in meaningful ways.
Ideation
We explored diverse perspectives and creative methodologies to shape innovative solutions
We experimented with several structured creative approaches to ensure we covered every possibility. The 6 Thinking Hats method had us adopt perspectives from different user groups, spotlighting the delicate balance between individual goals and broader ecological interests.
Meanwhile, Futures Thinking allowed us to imagine a scenario in 2050 where biodiversity is woven into the fabric of urban planning, highlighting how data transparency and citizen involvement would be critical drivers. To generate a wide range of ideas quickly, we held Crazy 8 sessions, where participants rapidly sketched and refined potential concepts. This fast-paced ideation process resulted in a diverse set of ideas, ultimately narrowing down to three key concepts.
Photos from our ideation sessions.
We hosted a Co-Creation Workshop with stakeholders and Humblebee colleagues to expand and refine new ideas.
This resulted in four additional concept posters exploring gamification, citizen science, and data visualization. To ensure we were moving forward with viable ideas, we evaluated each of the seven concepts based on three core criteria: feasibility, scalability, and alignment with Stadskupan’s long-term goals, and narrowed the selection to five strong concepts
A snapshot from our co-creation workshop.
With five strong contenders, we created concept posters outlining each idea’s impact and functionality.
Through rapid feedback sessions with stakeholders and Humblebee designers, we identified gaps, refined ideas, and merged elements, ultimately narrowing down to two well-defined solutions.
Our concept posters capturing different directions.
We refined the two concepts with more detailed feature sketches to gather more precise feedback from stakeholders.
This process included in-depth interviews and quick feedback sessions with 22 key stakeholders and designers at Humblebee, focusing on both overall concept viability and specific functionalities. Through these discussions, we identified key stakeholder requirements and refined the features accordingly. Focusing on viability, usability, and long-term implementation, we iterated based on the insights, ultimately selecting one final concept, integrating the strongest elements into a well-rounded solution.
Feature sketches of one selected concept.
Prototyping
From Concept to Early Validation
As we developed Bloom, we knew that presenting biodiversity data in a clear and engaging way would be crucial. Through workshops and feedback sessions,, we explored different approaches to structuring and visualizing the insights. Our goal was to ensure that stakeholders, from researchers to businesses, could easily interpret and act on the data.
With Bloom's core idea finalized, we designed a low-fidelity prototype to test the core functionality and navigation, ensuring users could seamlessly switch between a citywide overview and hive-specific insights. This approach allowed stakeholders to not just view biodiversity data, but actively explore patterns, compare trends, and uncover meaningful connections.
An early wireframe prototype in development.
Final concept
Our final concept Bloom - A Platform for Urban Biodiversity
Bloom is a centralized platform that collects and visualizes biodiversity data from beehives across Gothenburg, offering tailored insights for researchers, municipalities, businesses, and environmental advocates. By standardizing and contextualizing biodiversity data, Bloom helps stakeholders make data-driven decisions that drive sustainable urban development.
At the core of Bloom are two primary views—the Citywide Overview and the Hive-Specific Insights—each designed to serve different stakeholder needs while maintaining a seamless, intuitive experience. By offering a standardized baseline, Bloom ensures that individual biodiversity initiatives are no longer isolated efforts but part of a coordinated strategy for urban sustainability.
Citywide Overview
The Citywide Overview provides a comprehensive, long-term baseline of Gothenburg’s biodiversity, pollution levels, and flora/fauna distributions. This view serves as a macro-level dashboard, giving stakeholders a broad perspective on ecological health and enabling them to track trends over time.
Hive-specific view
While the Citywide Overview provides a macro-level perspective, the Hive-Specific Insights view allows users to zoom into individual beehives, offering hyper-localized data on pollination patterns, biodiversity levels, and environmental quality within each hive’s foraging radius. By combining localized intelligence with citywide context, the Hive-Specific Insights view ensures that every stakeholder—whether a business owner, policymaker, or researcher—can translate biodiversity data into tangible, impactful decisions.
Outcome
Our final concept, Bloom, was presented to Stadskupan and Humblebee stakeholders at the end of our 16-week project.
The platform was well received for its potential to standardize biodiversity data, engage diverse stakeholders, and create tangible environmental and business value. While the future roadmap depends on further validation and potential partnerships, the groundwork has been laid for Stadskupan to expand from beekeeping into broader ecological data services. Bloom represents a major step forward in transforming urban biodiversity from an abstract environmental concern into actionable, data-driven initiatives.
What I learned
The development of Bloom underscored the interconnected nature of environmental issues.
Holistic Thinking: Biodiversity is a systemic issue. Designing a solution meant addressing data, engagement, policy, and commercial constraints all at once.
Stakeholder Co-Creation: Early and continuous input from various stakeholders helped us refine concepts quickly and ensure real-world viability.
Balancing Depth & Accessibility: It’s challenging yet crucial to cater to specialized data needs while keeping information engaging and understandable for a broad audience.
Iterative Prototyping: Testing low-fidelity prototypes with actual users and partners was key to validating assumptions and ensuring buy-in from diverse groups.
