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iNaturalist Identifiers Survey

What was the survey about?

The December 2025 iNaturalist Identifiers Survey collected feedback from nearly 2,500 prolific identifiers (users with at least 2,000 identifications) to understand their motivations and challenges. For your interest WA Naturalist Club members, Em Lamond (19,598) and a close second with Daniel Heald (8308) are our Club’s prolific observers.

Key findings from the survey included:

• Motivations and Identity
• Primary motivation: The top reason people identify observations is “To learn and become a better naturalist” (1,522 votes), followed by ensuring data accuracy and giving back to the community.
• Self-perception: Most respondents identify as “Nature lovers” (1,850) or “Naturalists” (1,804).
• Experience: Most respondents joined iNaturalist before 2020 and have performed between 2,000 and 4,999 identifications.

Who answered? See categories in chart below.

Major “Pain Points”

• Quality of evidence: The most significant difficulty cited is that many observations have poor quality evidence (e.g., blurry photos) that makes identification impossible.
• Volume: Identifiers feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of observations and the lack of enough active identifiers to handle the load.
• Platform limitations: Users expressed frustration with the mobile app’s limited identification features and the time required to correct inaccurate Computer Vision suggestions.

Overall Sentiment

Despite the frustrations, the survey revealed that respondents greatly enjoy identifying. When asked to rate their enjoyment on a scale of 0-10, the most common rating was an 8.

Future Outlook

iNaturalist plans to address these findings in 2026 by:

• Updating their product roadmap to improve the identification experience.
• Improving induction for new users to explain concepts like “Research Grade” and “cultivated” organisms.
• Creating more help documentation and conducting further community surveys.

Posted on 22 January 2026 21:41  iNaturalist.org Blog

Article provided for WA Naturalists’ Club Members, August 2026