End-to-end app for planning multi night backpacking trips
About:
Trail Space is an app that helps people find backpacking trails and plan multi night backpacking excursions.
“Overall outdoor recreation participation has been on the rise for years, and in 2022, 3.8 million more people participated in the outdoors compared to 2021.” Source -Kelly Davis, Director of Research at the Outdoor Industry Association
The Problem:
Discovering the perfect backpacking trail for your trip can pose its own challenges, influenced by factors like your experience level, time it takes to get to the trail itself, and preferred scenery. To make things more complicated, backpacking rules and regulations can vary widely depending on land ownership. Plus going backpacking with others can add further complexity with coordination and planning.
How might we create a backpacking app for both beginner and seasoned backpackers so they can easily and responsibly plan backpacking trips?
Tools
Figma
Miro
Timeline
4 weeks
25/hrs per week
My Role
UX research, Information Architecture, Wireframes,
UX copy, Branding, Visual Design
Goals
Design a comprehensive app that enables users to find backpacking trails that displays correct, relevant information for backpacking, such as permitting requirements
Allows users to plan trips with multiple people
The Solution
Key Features
Trail Finder
The most common pain point users expressed was finding good backpacking trails.
I designed this page so users could easily filter for exactly what invision for their next excursion.
Centralized Organization
After users have selected their trail, it's time to start planning the remaining details.
This screen aids users in maintaining organization and staying on track throughout their planning process.
Digestible Information
The trail description page is organized by sections so all information is scannable at first glance.
To address the need for current trail conditions in backpacking, I intend to collaborate with AllTrails and integrate their reviews
How we Got There
Research
Competitive Analysis
It's clear that many current backpacking apps are complex and challenging to navigate. This presents an opportunity to create a user-friendly app suitable for both seasoned and new backpackers, streamlining trip planning.
My vision involves adding social features like collaborative trip planning while also offering personalized recommendations and customization options tailored to users' preferences, interests, and skill levels.
Survey
To start off I wanted to get preliminary data on our target users, backpackers. Through the survey I discovered
69% of people have been backpacking before
58% of those people reported themselves as beginners
54% report to use All-Trails for planning
75% of people prefer group trips
User Interviews
To discover the best way to solve users needs I interviewed target users from the survey group to gain insight on how users approach planning for backpacking trips. I learned users most common pain points are:
Finding good backpacking trails
Researching permitting regulations
Knowing current trail conditions such as water availability
Affinity Map
Research Synthesis
Combining what I learned from my survey and user interviews into an affinity map I started to see the larger picture and began to define the problem I wanted to solve even further.
With so many people who prefer group trips I knew I wanted to design a feature where multiple users could collaborate on trip planning.
Through user interviews I realized while All-Trails is great for their community engagement, a vast majority of essential information for backpacking trips is missing from their app.
Logistical Information such as, water availability, permitting, and where to camp along the trail.
2. Building Empathy
User Persona
I realized there was no clear discrepancy between the target users, so I created one user persona who encompass the majority of my target users
3. Prioritization
Feature Roadmap
Given my time and resource restraints I created this feature roadmap to guide what features to focus on initially and provide a framework for expanding and refining those features in the future.
4. Information Architecture
Trail Space Application Map
I decided to structure the app so users can decide after viewing the trail description page if they would like to save, share or start planning a trip with that trail.
Task Flow
I focused on the task flow of users finding a backpacking trip through filtering, viewing the trail description page and then begin building a trip because this flow encmpasses all of the primary features of the application.
5. Designing a Solution
Lo-fi Wireframes
I designed the first version of my wireframes modeled after my task flow. At this stage I showed a software developer my wireframes and task flow. Getting on the same page with a developer helped me decrease the number of later iterations to my high-fi frames.
Branding
I wanted to ensure the Trail Space felt warm, natural and inviting so I developed a color palette inspired by nature and icons with a light line weight to keep everything feeling light and airy.
High Fi-Wireframes
6. Prototype & Test
Usability Testing
I conducted usability tests with my prototype on Zoom to see users first impressions of Trail Space.
Research Goal
I wanted to gain more insight into whether users are excited to use Trail Space and how easily they complete my user flow and their preferences on advertisements in a free app
Results
All users said they would be interested and excited to try this product and completed the flow successfully.
All users said they would try the free version of the app first and only consider the pro version if they began backpacking more.
Users responded well to ad banners and having an in-app shop with gear and food recommendations.
3 out of 5 users said they specifically wanted a place to store their permits in the app.
7. Iterations
60% of users I interviewed mentioned they would like to be able to store permits of files relevant to their trip in app.
To solve this I added a document section to the ‘Planned Trips’ page where users will be able to upload and organize any necessary files.
Original Design
No place to upload extra documents of photos.
Iteration
Adding a document section allows users to consolidate all their trip planning information in one convenient location.
Conclusion
Key Takeaways
While working on this project I learned the importance of creating feature prioritization. in the beginning I was slightly intimidated because when it comes to planning a backpacking trip there are many dynamic challenges users need to consider. That is why after the initial research phase was over I created a feature prioritization list where I decided what features were essential to the core purpose of the app and what could come later. This was tremendously helpful in focussing my ideas.
Next Steps
Given more time and resources for their project I would design the packing list pages and itinerary screens. I would design the packing separated into group and personal items so users can be on the same page on who is brining what items.
My next steps would be to continue designing, iterating and testing.
