CLIENT
Cadasta
Land rights cover
Case Study:
Protecting Ancestral Land and Forest Rights for Indigenous Communities
Cadasta is the world’s leading global land technology and services Platform. Their tools empower vulnerable communities to affordably and easily document, map, and secure inclusive land and resource rights at scale for a more sustainable and equitable planet.
PROBLEM
Vulnerable communities need help claiming their land rights
What would you do if you had no record of owning your house, leasing your apartment, or possessing your forty acres of farmland? How would your life be different? Would you ever leave your home for fear of it not being yours when you returned?
Most of the world's poor do not have any official record of their land rights. This lack of documentation facilitates mass encroachments on their land and illegal evictions. It also impedes development by preventing the vulnerable from obtaining bank loans and government subsidies. Many attempts by communities to claim land rights are based on data collection using paper maps and questionnaires, poor workflow processes, and disorganized record keeping.
VISION
A "fit-for-purpose" solution
Cadasta Foundation, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., was founded to empower people to claim their land rights by providing a free cloud-based platform that communities can use to collect, store, and manage land ownership data. 
Since its founding in 2015, Cadasta has focused on implementing a "fit-for-purpose" suite of tools and services to assist partners in formalizing land and resource rights.
CHALLENGE
Introducing technology to a new audience
Although many of Cadasta's partners have very different scenarios, they share many of the same challenges. Among those is the use of outdated tech devices with low connectivity. Other issues include communities with high illiteracy rates and low technical skills. Additionally, much of the field data collection occurs offline in harsh, sometimes dangerous, working conditions. Add in the use of obscure languages, and even simple day-to-day communication can be difficult.
MY ROLE
Lead Product Designer and Front-End Developer
I led the design of the user experience of this ambitious project between September 2015 and February 2020. As an original engineering team member, I worked alongside a team of full-stack developers and a product manager. I was involved in all phases of our platform, from ideation through implementation.
Design Process
01 Understanding the Problem / The kickoff
At the outset of this ambitious project, we needed to rely on the insights of our stakeholders to help understand the landscape and to set a clear mission with specific goals. Due to the challenges of our partners and end users' locations in remote areas and difficult to reach, we relied on the stakeholders' many years of experience in the land governance field to help understand the challenges facing our partners and end-users.
. . . . .
02 User Research / Understanding the target audience
After initial stakeholder interviews, the next step was to research our end-users to create empathy and gain an understanding of their problems. We interviewed active partner field teams and identified team structures in similar data collection environments. In addition to the user's needs, experiences, behaviors, and goals, it was also important to understand their use of technology, the working conditions, and the most common workflows.
Our steps
• Conducted interviews with partners, focusing on needs and current team structure
• Researched the goals and behaviors of each user
• Examined the use of technology, working environments, and common workflows of each user
• Created user roles in the system and assigned permissions, developing custom roles when applicable
• Documented user role structure to include in partner onboarding materials
The results
Our research resulted in a set of detailed user personas. The roles represented are Project User, Data Collector, Project Manager, Org Admin, and Super User. Beyond platform inception, these are reference tools to enhance the user experience with each new feature.
These user roles became the basis for the platform's detailed permissions system. Due to the amount of personal information housed in the platform, partner privacy was a constant consideration throughout development.
User Personas

. . . . .
03 Site Map and User Flows / Establishing user interactions
As the next step, we defined the information architecture and created site maps to dictate the page architecture and navigation. User flows help mold the pattern for how users interact with the platform.
Our steps
• Researched partner's goals and found commonality
• Introduced information architecture and site map
• Created page flow patterns based on content needs
• Developed basic wireframes for content recommendations, navigation structure, and patterns
• Used Adobe Illustrator and Balsamiq to create the visual assets and InVision to share among team members and solicit feedback
The results
Creating an information architecture structure and a site map helped dictate the navigation as an extension of the requirements. Introducing a main dashboard map provided a new entry point for users. The Projects area houses the central data collection assets. The Organizations area contains information about the sponsoring partners. The Members area is for managing team members. The Activity Feed is a log of platform activity. The Accounts area is for managing the profiles of registered users.
Establishing user patterns as part of a more extensive design system early in the project helps speed the development time. The development team does not have to revisit the design phase for each new feature; the footprint is already in place. By formalizing the site map and user flows, the project could continue to the next stage of wireframes.
Site map with page architecture
Site Map with Page Architecture

User Flow for Organizations

. . . . .
04 Wireframes / Designing the platform
Wireframes are integral to communicating between the stakeholders and the development team. Good wireframes answer tough questions, define content and functionality, and save development time by providing a visual understanding of the web pages.
Our goals
• To enhance the requirements by providing a visual definition
• To assist the development team with solid definitions of content and functionality
• To design the website at a structural level
Our steps
• Conducted research with users, across partner groups, and with product owners to define needs
• Developed preliminary "broad stroke" wireframes to establish beginning stages
• Refined further functionality, structure, and future scalability and maintainability options
• Created clickable prototypes to test interaction patterns with users
• Used an iterative user feedback loop to further define features and to create more detailed annotated wireframes
• Worked in Balsamiq to create wireframes and used InVision to share company-wide and solicit feedback
The results
As an early team member, I drove the user experience for the entire Cadasta platform. Many discussions centered around fully-formed wireframes for efficient development time. The wireframes also became a way to communicate ideas to our end users, partners, and stakeholders. These wireframes became a touchstone during the development process and served to convey the platform vision company-wide.
Beginning Wireframe Concepts

Annotated Wireframes

. . . . .
05 Design Thinking / Designing with intent
As I became more familiar with our user's needs, some essential principles steered my design thinking.
• Limit icons and symbology
Many of our users do not recognize web symbology. If an icon is used, its meaning must be supported by a label or tooltip.
• Page speed is king
Most load time is dedicated to mapping imagery to support low-connectivity environments best. Anything within our control needs to be as light as possible.
• Accommodate localization
All text areas need to allow spacing for all the languages and font families used by our partners. This involves leaving extra height and width when possible and providing ellipsis when not.
• Cater to new users
In the platform workflow, most users would only set up one project. We discovered during research that the users preferred a more hand-holding approach with lots of instruction over a quicker, less-instructive approach.
. . . . .
06 Front-End Development / Bringing designs to life
I contributed to front-end development as part of a small distributed team using an agile methodology. I focus on best practices for HTML5, CSS3/SASS, and Javascript. The code base used Django, Postgres & PostGIS, React, Ansible, and Leaflet.
Final Version of Project Dashboard

. . . . .
07 Usability Testing / Continuous learning and iteration
We conducted multiple usability sessions to understand whether the platform meets our user's needs. In both live and remote sessions, I created test plans, facilitated sessions, analyzed the data, created summary and in-depth reports, and recommended implementable changes. These sessions helped Cadasta iteratively improve the user experience.
Testing Session One: Project Creation Wizard and Data Designer
To evaluate a proposed project wizard interface, we relied on a combination of partner usage metrics and a focused usability session. This allowed us to gain a deeper understanding by combining qualitative and quantitative information.
Although users could initiate a project, the smaller pieces, such as creating a survey and adding team members, were challenging for new users. The proposed project wizard provided step-by-step guidance explaining each part of the workflow. Another critical piece was the addition of starter text to nudge the user in the right direction.
The survey creation process was another area where we wanted to test proposed changes. Initially, surveys are created with Excel forms. Based on the feedback received, I proposed eliminating Excel forms and creating a WYSIWYG approach for a more intuitive way to create surveys.
The project wizard and new data designer were well-received by users. View the final recommendations from the usability session.
Recommendations based on Project Wizard and Data Design Usability Session


Testing Session Two: Map Interactions
We relied on focused usability sessions to evaluate proposed changes to the map interactions. Although users could successfully navigate their data on the map, some had difficulty viewing and editing multiple records simultaneously. The users preferred the proposed split view showing a map combined with a data table.
View the final recommendations from the map interactions usability session.
Recommendations based on Map Interactions Usability Session

The Impact
Partnership spotlight — KESAN
Much of my work focused on our partner Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN) in Myanmar. "Bridging the Digital Gap for Indigenous Land and Forest Rights," includes a captivating video showcasing Cadasta's impactful partnership with KESAN. This video emphasizes the indispensable role of Indigenous Peoples in safeguarding our planet’s natural resources. Using the collaboration in Southeast Myanmar as an example, Cadasta showcases how the fusion of traditional wisdom with cutting-edge technology creates a pioneering model for natural resource management. The outcome of this partnership speaks volumes—more than 3.5 million hectares of land mapped, 107 forest reserves, 18 wildlife sanctuaries, and 204 community forests formally designated and cooperatively managed by Indigenous communities.
Positive results and continued progress
Creating a new platform is challenging enough, but inserting technology into a field where there isn't any brings an entirely different set of hurdles. It has been challenging but rewarding, with lots of learning in international development, land rights, and working in vulnerable communities.
This Cadasta Platform 1.0 served as a successful proof-of-concept. In 2018, Cadasta partnered with Esri to utilize their ArcGIS tool suite to expand the available offerings for our partner. I was involved in the evaluation of these new tools to create a full project workflow using Esri tools for Cadasta's partners.
View the Project Rose sample in my Behance portfolio for more details.
Impact as of September, 2023

The Cadasta Platform 2.0 continues to make progress in the area of land rights successfully. Read about the projects and partners that the Cadasta Foundation supports in some of these impact stories:

Cadasta Impact Dashboard as of September, 2023 (www.cadasta.org)
↑Back to Top