Timeline

- May - Aug 2020

Project Context

- Creating an interaction feature for a UX Design course in Simon Fraser University
- Tools Used : Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop

My Role

- UX User Researcher
- UX Designer
- Prototyping

THE IDEA

How To Make Hike Planning Easier  

One of the most important goals for our concept was how to make hike planning easier. So what does planning ahead of hikers usually involve? It is usually done to make the hike enjoyable, time efficient, know where to go, and avoid potential dangers and hazards that may occur by checking the forecast. And usually to involve these procedures, hikers would have to use multiple apps and browse the web in hopes of finding the information they need. But what if you don't need to? What if there's an app or a feature inside an app that incorporates all these features, so you could browse all the information you need by simply clicking or searching the mountain or hill that you want to go to? Introducing Peaks: A Strava App Add On Feature.

Peaks is a new feature that promotes green exercise and hiking for athletes that enjoy scenic routes and sharing their memories on social media. These features include Safety Information Points to promote safe exploration, Education Points for wild-life enthusiasts that want to learn more about their route, and Memories, which are photo collages of users who’ve explored the hike with you to build character and community through these routes.

User Persona & Interaction Scenario

Our user is an avid outdoor athlete whose favorite activity is hiking, she wants to explore Vancouver’s mountains to admire its beauty and sharing it over social media. She search for hikes in Segments but discovers that the app doesn’t have fully completed routes.

Research Survey Insights

We gathered 13 responses from a 10 question survey and these are the results.

- 66% state that Park Bulletin Boards are difficult to read
- 76% state that finding location and natural beauty as a core value to hiking
- 77% stated that they prefer outdoor exercises over indoor exercises

Idea Implementation

During Idea Implementation, our team referred back to our research insights, and recognized that hikers do much more than just hiking and tracking their locations & hiked distances. We wanted to expand upon those research results, and through brainstorming and group discussions, we came up with 3 final concepts to proceed with for this project.

Pre Hike Checklist is a feature that will pop up and prompt the users to go through a set of checklist to ensure that the user has everything they require before they start hiking. This checklist is modifiable and can add custom checklists via Settings.

Important Notices is a feature that notifies users of upcoming safety signs or newly posted Bulletin Announcements from Parks such as Heat Warning Advisory or Wildlife Nearby warnings. These notifications will come up according to the users tracked locations.

Want to be informed on the go? With Educational Steps, this feature will pin and highlight unique areas and special landmarks for the trails the users are hiking in. It will provide a brief yet precise information panel to educate users on the area. In an effort to stay updated on current & potential upcoming areas of interest, Strava will track and analyze users' hiking patterns and frequent stop locations to determine if new Educational Stops need to be added to the map. (Note users' information will only be gathered if users opt-in to Strava's Data Gathering Agreement)

If users reach the end of the hike, 'Sharing Memories' will be notify users that they have reached the end of the trail, and be encouraged to take a picture or video to capture the view and share it onto the Strava Community Platform or for themselves by saving the activity onto the app. Users also have the ability to share the photo or video to any social media platforms they desire.

The Final Product

Conclusion & Reflection

Overall, Peaks was a great first UX Design Project. I had learnt how to extract and implement useful features from other apps, and incorporate them with our own version of the feature to allow Peak to stand out from other potential competitors, as it provides all the essential functions a hiker needs, all in one app. Another point to consider is that despite how we might think a feature would be a good fit for the app, it is important to do background research or survey to backup and justify why this feature would be an applicable development, and why developers on the team should invest into creating it.