DURATION
2 months
TEAM
Brandon Mach
Lauren Albanese
Tyler Shechtman
Kyley Anne Ching-Hsu
Jiahui Su
MY ROLE
UX Researcher
UX Designer
Why did we design this product?
According to a 2019 study of hikers, the average (mean) age of hikers in the survey was 36 years old, plus or minus 15 years, with a median age of 30 years old. Hikers ranged in age from 13 to 70 years old. 59.4 percent of hikers were biologically male and 40.6 percent were female. From the results, we can see that middle-aged women are a large group among hikers. However, there currently is no platform that matches women hikers up in a safe and reliable way specifically for the purpose of staying active. We want to create a product that lets them can make new friends, get in touch with buddies, schedule hiking tours, and hike with buddies safely.
Knowing Users (User Personas)
The target users are mid-age women who love hiking. After researching and interviewing the target user, I create two user personas. I used personas to sort out different needs and concerns of our target users.
Pain Points and Solutions
Pain Points
Staying active while staying safe is something that many women struggle with.
If a woman is looking for a hiking buddy online currently, her options would be to join some kind of social media group and hope that there is someone nearby who also wants to hike. These options leave much to be desired as there is no way to know the information of the person she will meet up with.
Solutions
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Similar to dating apps by using location to match users up.
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Require license verification so users can know whom they are hiking with.
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Offer a robust report system so that the community can help us to remove users who are not contributing positively.
Product Summary
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Hiking community app
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Learn about local trails
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Meet up with others
Key Features
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User verification for safety.
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Safety/buddy system feature.
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For all tour locations - including introduction, pictures taken by users, and users' rating/reviews.
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Alerts system - including weather and crime alerts.
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Typography - easy to use, large size of texts.
User Flow
Storyboard
App Mockup
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Login
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Find a Friend
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Find a Tour
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Other Features
Menu
Safety Notifications
App Settings
What can we improve? (Next Steps)
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The loading screen could provide general travel tips.
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Group events are set up by the community, users can join the hiking event quickly.
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A community to share tour photos and tour tips (can include like button and social media connections).