Designing for Julia's Journey
When we look at Julia's problems through this lens, we can design something to remove those barriers and make sure Julia has access to knowledge and connection, and that she's able to practice skillbuilding to build confidence. That gave us a few directions:
1. Taking microlessons and mini-courses on birding and bird photography. 2. Viewing a community photo feed that shows other users' EXIF data so she can see how they got the shot. 3. Keeping a private bird photo log and tracking her progress with birding and photography milestones. And somehow...4. making something that could give real-time guidance on what which camera settings to use in the moment, in the field.
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Competitive Analysis
What's going on with Birding apps, any bird photography apps out there?Bird ID apps are commonplace - the market is pretty saturated.
General photography apps exist but aren't built for birding.
Bird photograpy courses cover technique, but they tend to be long-form and one-time learning, not something you could pull up as a quick reference in the field.
The bird app + website market mainly focuses on bird identification, not photography technique.
What if there was a tool that helps birders get better at the technical, camera side of things? Especially in the field, for when they need it most.
No product combines bird identification with photography skill-building. Existing courses teach technique but they're long-form — not something you pull up mid-hike. There's room for bite-sized, field-ready lessons that meet birders where they already are: outside, camera in hand. Pair that with a community photo feed sharing real camera settings and EXIF data, and users start learning from each other through actual shots from the field.