Minjun Byun

How to save Whales?

Project Overview

I developed a project to raise awareness about sonic pollution’s impact on marine life in the Gulf of Mexico. Through research, prototyping, and physical models, I created a citizen science app that enables everyday people to contribute data, helping scientists protect marine life in the region.

B2C Product

System Thinking

Business Strategy

My Role

Product Designer

user Research

Visual Design

Prototyping

3D Modeling

Product Designer

user Research

Visual Design

Prototyping

3D Modeling

Tool

Figma & plugin

Adobe CC

Blender

Figma & plugin

Adobe CC

Blender

Time line

2025/03 -

2025/04

2025/03 -

2025/04

Problem Statement

Ship noise in the Gulf of Mexico is drowning out how whales communicate, feed, and migrate — but it's invisible, so almost nobody acts on it. How might everyday people sense this hidden crisis and feed real data to scientists?

Solutions

Nollution Detector: Citizen Science app that collects data to help Whale life in Gulf of Mexico.

Sourced by Discovery

“incidentally, but not

intentionally, harass

marine mammals.”

“incidentally, but not

intentionally, harass

marine mammals.”

0:00/1:34

This diagram serves as understand usage of sensor in

our daily life as we use our phone without us knowing.

This diagram serves as understand usage of sensor in

our daily life as we use our phone without us knowing.

Questions

What is this Project about?

Why help whales in the

Gulf of Mexico?

Why help whales in the

Gulf of Mexico?

Why help whales in the

Gulf of Mexico?

Prototyping

Open Ai

Resume

Reflections

During reviews, people kept poking at the same blind spot: this is a physical buoy in the real ocean, not just a screen. Here's what they asked — and what I changed because of it.

Critique

"How are people going to drop these Nollution detectors into the ocean?"

What I changed

I stopped treating deployment as a user's problem. The buoy is placed and maintained by partner orgs (the Marine Mammal Center network); the app's job is to let everyday people adopt and monitor an existing buoy, not launch their own. I added an "adopt a Nollution" entry point to reflect that.

Critique

"How can people go out to sea if they don't have a boat or ship?"

What I changed

This pushed me to separate who collects data from who reads it. You don't need a boat — the buoy streams remotely, so anyone can follow a Nollution from shore. I reframed the core loop around remote citizen monitoring, which is what the Map and Graph screens now serve.

Critique

"What if the Nollution detector drifts out to the Atlantic or somewhere unintended?"

What I changed

I added a geofence + drift alert to the map view and reframed the buoy as community-anchored, not free-floating. If a unit leaves its zone, both the owner and the partner org get notified — turning a failure case into a trust feature.

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