Aiming for A Better Mushroom Foraging Experience

Contributors: Omar Ibrahim, Thanhnhu Tran, Betty Sun

Problem and Solution Overview

Mushroom foraging has become an increasingly popular hobby, particularly in the Pacific Northwest where there is a lot of forested area for people to explore. As a hobby, there’s a lot of background and resources that people need to be able to engage safely, considering that they’re going out into the wild and often off trails to find mushrooms, and many mushrooms are toxic or even deadly. The goal of our project is developing a single resource that could be used to aid people going foraging to be able to do so safely and reduce the barrier of entry. We especially wanted to ensure that we pay special attention to facets of the hobby that could be dangerous if a forager doesn’t properly prepare or have enough experience; things like identifying safe/dangerous mushrooms, getting lost, and having access to offline navigation in areas with no internet connectivity.

Design Research on Targeted Groups

Once the topic was determined, we used a “Why-How-What” model to guide our future steps. Figuring out why the problem matters, we started to consider how we could seek a solution to it. We decided to target our research around PSMS (Puget Sound Mycological Society) members, the largest mycological society in the Puget Sound. The first step we took was determining a suitable way to collect data from our targeted groups. As the time we were given for the research was limited, we chose not to conduct valuable but long-term methods, such as Diary Studies. In addition, it took time for people like us who lacked experience of getting into mountains to prepare well enough to safely observe mushroom hunters’ activities in place in this rainy season. Taking both time limitation and personal safety into account, we chose to conduct virtual interviews of some volunteers as the main way of collecting information. To ensure the data was representative, we elaborately connected people with diverse backgrounds.

Their age ranged from 20 to 50, and each of them had different jobs. The way they started mushroom foraging also varied from their environments. Some of them were inspired by families, but others were in some mushroom societies so that they could go with some experts. People’s different experiences formed their unique views of how an ideal mushroom foraging could be, and conducting interviews with them allowed us to have a deeper understanding of the challenges they were facing and what they expected to exist as a tool to make their experience smoother.

Research Results and Themes

Spending time talking with each interviewee, we discovered that mushroom identification is a key part of the foraging experience. As it is, identification mainly consists of sifting through books and searching or posting on online forums. This still usually isn’t enough to identify a mushroom, as there are often many dangerous lookalikes. In addition to visually identifying a mushroom, foragers sometimes need to smell, cut, and take spore prints of the mushroom. We realized that we had to integrate these aspects of identification into our design if we were to succeed in designing a useful and accurate product.

Another key part of mushroom foraging, confirmed by our research, is finding macro areas (the exact forest, trail, or mountain) to visit. Often, if a mushroom hunter lives near the woods, they can simply search there. However, there are plenty of areas farther away where mushrooms grow abundantly. Mushroom growth is affected by a variety of factors such as season, temperature, and humidity, and it’s not always easy to find the places where these factors are at their best points.

Proposed Design

With these insights in mind, we began to form product design ideas. Ultimately, we decided on a device with the following functionality:

• Able to search for places to forage based on: proximity to user, types of mushrooms
• Provide users tips on: areas to search within the destination, how to prepare for foraging trips, etc.
• A Quick Scan feature for when users don’t have access to advanced identification tools, such as those needed for spore prints, but want to see what types the mushroom might possibly be. This feature would warn the user if there is any chance of the mushroom being a deadly type. This feature is intended more for use in the field, while actively foraging.
• A Full Scan feature for thorough identification. If needed, the feature would walk the user through the steps of processes like spore printing mushrooms. At the end, the feature would scan the result (the cut or spore print) in order to finally come to a conclusion. This feature would be intended more for post-trip uses.

Although our design has not yet been refined, we were able to draw storyboards to illustrate how the product could be used in practice.

As shown above, users can identify mushrooms by using the Quick Scan feature while still in the wild, then using the Full Scan feature once they return. They can also use the Search feature to find a place to go, then use the Tips feature to give them ideas on where to look within the area.

Summary

Up to now, we have collected enough information from our potential users and finalized the problems we would like to solve from it. The design is our first step to crystalize the solutions onto paper. We will continue refining it, and hopefully, we will be able to work out a great design based on this.

Let’s see.