Aqua App Mockup
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Introduction
Brief: Design a lightweight app to help fishermen track real-time quotas, tides, weather, and fishing zones.
Challenge: EU fishing rules mean lots of fish get wasted—app needs to help users avoid overfishing and wasted time.
Goals: Simple, real-time dashboard for smarter, more sustainable fishing.
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Discovery Phase
Stakeholder interviews: Talked to fisheries reps, dock managers, and local fishermen.
Business requirements: Must sync with official quota data, display live weather/tide info, and run on older smartphones.
User needs: Quick glance data, easy customization, and reliable alerts while at sea.
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Problem Framing
Problem: Fishermen risk breaking quota rules or wasting catch due to lack of real-time info.
Success: Users can see quota status, tides, and weather at a glance—no more wasted catch.
Constraints: Must work offline, update quickly, and be super lightweight.
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User Research
User interviews: Fishermen shared pain points—slow updates, hard-to-read data, and too many steps.
Competitive analysis: Existing apps were clunky or overloaded with features.
Market research: Real-time, widget-friendly apps are a must for this audience.
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Synthesis
Personas: “The Veteran Skipper,” “The Weekend Fisher,” and “The Dock Manager.”
Journey mapping: From prepping for a trip to tracking quotas and finding the best fishing spots.
Key insights: Customizable dashboard and clear, bold data are non-negotiable.
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Solution Development
Info architecture: Main dashboard with customizable widgets for tides, weather, quotas, and fishing zones.
Wireframes & prototypes: Focused on single-tap access and big, readable numbers.
Visual design: Bright, glanceable UI, with strong contrast for sun glare at sea.
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Testing
Usability testing: Ran with fishermen and dock staff—flagged slow updates and confusing widget setup.
User feedback: Improved widget customization and added offline support.
Iterations: Tweaked data display, added alerts, and made the dashboard even lighter.
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Implementation
Handoff: Shared annotated wireframes and widget specs with devs.
Dev collab: Synced often to optimize for speed and battery life.
Go-to-market: Rolled out at docks, promoted via fishing unions and local shops.
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Results & Impact
Metrics: Faster quota checks, fewer wasted catches, and positive user feedback.
User adoption: High download rates among local fishermen and skippers.
Business impact: Helped reduce overfishing and improved compliance with EU rules.
Lessons learned: For field apps, speed and clarity always win—keep the UI as lean as possible.
In March 2011 the EU’s fisheries chief proposed scrapping a rule that requires fishermen to throw good fish back into the sea after they exceed their catch quotas. The rule designed to promote sustainable fishing. EU Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki said that discarding fish is the biggest management problem facing the industry since 50 percent of whitefish and up to 70 percent of flatfish are thrown overboard dead, even though they are edible.
This is the issue that the Aqua App wishes to address by giving users real-time data synced with the docks fishing quotas that have been handed down from the EU’s fisheries chief.
The Aqua App also displays real-time information on sea tide pattern displayed at hourly intervals. Along with weather and suggested fishing zones, allowing the user to get real-time information as to the best positions and times where to fish. The Aqua app will fix current issues with current fishing boats that arise from strict EU quotas that have been filled, where certain fish can no longer be landed in port for sale and thus are thrown overboard again.
The Aqua App will be a small, quick application that allows users to track real-time fish quota stocks, allowing for live feeds for weather, tides and suggested fishing zones allowing for better use of the boats time at sea. It should be lightweight, easy to use, and engaging. The main features of the app should be as follows;
Dashboard Users will have the ability to customize the relevant data needed for the time they spent at sea. The selected options on the Dashboard will also be viable as a widget within the Notification Center in iOS 8.
Sea Tides: Real-time data of wave patterns and major/minor times will be displayed.
Weather: Weather information will be displayed in realtime with key information while at sea including wind direction, speed and gust all displayed with quick glance UI elements utilized.
Fishing Quota: Dynamic live date displaying outstanding fish quotas for the day.
Fishing Zones: Displaying the best zones within the day as to when the user has the best chance of getting the most catch.
