eBird App Redesign

A personal project to make a popular citizen science app more engaging and welcoming to beginners.

This is a personal portfolio project exploring how eBird (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) could feel more welcoming, motivating, and socially connected—especially for newer and mid-experience birders—without compromising the scientific rigor that makes it valuable.

This case study documents the limited, shippable slice I’ve completed to date: a working Lifer Map web app that visualizes where each life bird was first seen, and lets you experience your life list as a story over time.

Date: Spring 2026

Background

I love birding, and I’m also fascinated by products that help people build skills over time. In birding, there’s a common pattern:

Beginner-friendly ID apps like Merlin make it easy to get started (identify a bird, learn quickly, feel rewarded).
More rigorous citizen science apps like eBird are incredibly powerful for logging and record-keeping—but can feel intimidating until you learn their mental model.

This project (working name: Flock) started from a simple question: How might eBird better support the journey from “I just identified a bird” to “I’m a confident contributor who returns often”?

What is eBird?

eBird is a birding and citizen-science platform from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Birders submit checklists of what they saw, where, and when—data that becomes part of a global biodiversity dataset used by researchers and conservationists.

For birders, eBird also functions as:

A personal logbook (your sightings history)
A life list tracker (and other personal records)
A discovery tool (what’s being seen nearby, what’s rare, seasonal patterns)

Its strength is rigor and scale. The trade-off is that the experience can feel dense—especially early on.

Problem

eBird is the gold standard for serious birders, but for newcomers it can feel intimidating, and the experience does little to keep them engaged after their first sighting. The opportunity is to make eBird more welcoming and rewarding — through a sense of progress, social connection, and effortless field use — without compromising the scientific rigor that makes it valuable.

Research

Method

I ran an online survey aimed at birders across a range of experience levels, with a particular focus on newer and mid-experience users — the audience this redesign is built for. The survey blended Likert-scale agreement statements about eBird, multi-select questions on what people most want from a birding app, and open-ended prompts on frustrations and feature wishes.

Key findings

Merlin is the gateway. eBird is the destination many people never reach.

Every respondent uses Merlin, and most use it more often than eBird — in some cases dramatically so. Newer birders in particular described eBird as confusing and unfamiliar; one daily Merlin user had never opened eBird at all.

eBird is noticeably thin on community.

When asked where eBird is most lacking, they converged on three social areas: connecting with friends who share the hobby, finding a new community of birders, and connecting with other birders nearby.

The onboarding curve is real, even for people who eventually love the app.

One respondent explicitly described feeling intimidated by eBird. The product earns loyalty once users push through the learning curve, but the curve itself is a leak point.

Birders use these apps as a field companion first, not as a stat dashboard.

In-the-field use cases — IDing birds, real-time tracking, exploring species in an area — outranked tracking past sightings and checking personal stats. Whatever the redesign adds, it has to respect the realities of one-handed use, spotty service, and a bird that won’t wait.

In their words

“Don’t have the app / confusing web UI.” — On why a daily Merlin user has never used eBird
“I would enjoy more functionality around hotspot management, such as being able to suggest hotspots on the app and seeing where my tracts are generally.” — On where eBird falls short
“Sometimes I will use eBird to look for species sightings in a new area, especially target species.” — On how eBird earns its place in the field

Design implications

Smooth the path between Merlin and eBird, and make the app rewarding earlier

If newer birders bounce off eBird because it feels intimidating, the redesign needs to give them payoff faster — visible signs of progress, less app-switching, and recognition for the small wins.

Press-and-hold on list view for species detail/photos
Personal records page for best list, day, month, and year
Goals and monthly/yearly wrap-ups
Seasonal and regional photo mode

Build a meaningful social layer

Community was the biggest gap respondents named. The redesign should treat it as a first-class part of the experience.

Strava-style social feed with friends and following
Interactive lifer map with a timeline slider

Respect the realities of in-the-field use

Field use was the most common job people hire these apps for, and where eBird’s logging flow has the least room for friction.

Offline hotspots saving
Quick add numeric shortcuts
Automatic weather note in checklist comments

What I built (completed to date): Lifer Map web app

I built the Lifer Map first because it’s:

Emotionally legible: it turns “my list got bigger” into a visible journey
Naturally shareable: a personal artifact that can become social later
Demoable without a backend: it can run on mocked data while still communicating the product idea clearly

Tech stack (prototype):

Next.js (App Router) + TypeScript
Tailwind CSS + shadcn/ui
Radix Colors wired via CSS variables

What’s coming next

This lifer map prototype is one piece of a broader “Flock” redesign. Planned next steps include:

Species detail sheet (press-and-hold) to reduce Merlin app-switching
Explore map for hotspots and nearby birds
Logging/checklist flow improvements (including quick add)
My Birding dashboard: goals, stats, wrap-ups
Social feed: friends/following, milestones, shareable artifacts
Notifications for lifers, rare alerts, and goal progress

For birders:

A more motivating sense of progress early (especially after the first few lifers)
A “story” view of the life list that’s easier to share and revisit than a stats table
Lightweight social fuel (conversation starters, pride, friendly comparison) without adding pressure to log perfectly

For eBird:

Higher retention from newer and mid-experience birders as the product feels rewarding sooner
More frequent return visits driven by reflection + sharing loops (not just rare-bird chasing)
A clearer bridge from Merlin moments to eBird identity (“I’m an eBird user”) over time

Summary

The research made the core gap clear: eBird earns loyalty after users learn it, but it doesn’t reward users enough early, and it doesn’t provide much community scaffolding. The Lifer Map is my first working response—a feature that makes progress visible and meaningful, and a foundation for social sharing later.