Our natural environment is complex and sensitive, and is home to a number of species on the verge of extinction. Surveying is one approach to their preservation, and can be supported by technology. This paper presents the deployment of a smartphone-based citizen science biodiversity application. Our findings from interviews with members of the biodiversity community revealed a tension between the technology and their established working practices. From our experience, we present a series of general guidelines for those designing citizen science apps.

This paper presents some initial findings, which form a set of design implications from a study that relates to the increasingly popular activity of people setting up moth traps in private gardens. Moth trapping can either be done by an individual or a small group and involves setting a trap that will safely catch moths overnight. The trap is opened in the morning and the contents identified and recorded. This information is usually reported to the local records centre (LRC). This research is based on a rapid ethnographic study and interviews, which demonstrate a series of intervention points that would augment this branch of citizen science, (also known as crowd-sourced science) where mobile ubiquitous technology could both support the fore-mentioned activity and enhance the user's experience. These points relate to: the identification of species; habitat; flight season; verification; learning; reporting; and associated social information sharing.