Insights and Key Takeaways

• Information tailored to motivation level (your pace and trail difficulty) is important in finding the right trail for an occasional yet enthusiastic hiker

• Planning a hike is often delayed or left to someone else because finding complete and up to date resources are difficult to access or find

• Knowing trail features helps hikers narrow down possible trail choices and find the right hike for their needs

Defining the Problem

Based on findings from my user research, I crafted the following problem statement:

As an occasional but enthusiastic hiker, I need one resource to find the right trail for my needs, which includes up to date and complete information because I often have to use multiple resources that are conflicting, out of date and uninformative.

Based on the findings from my user research, I began designing a trail searching mobile application called Odyssey. 

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Discovering the Solution

Odyssey is an app that allows hikers to quickly search for trails in their area, tailored to their needs, based on features they would like to experience and includes crowdsourcing to add and confirm current trail information. 

User flow

Initially I thought the user should choose whether they wanted to “explore” for a trail or rate a trail at the landing page, but through user research and initial sketching, discovered that this wasn’t the best user flow. I was concerned the rating page was going to get buried too deep into the user flow, and because crowdsourcing is a major feature of my app, I thought putting a rating “front and center” was the right decision. Eventually I realized that this was confusing to many users, and by simplifying the user flow and integrating the rating page into the main trail page it improved the user experience.

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Iterating

During the usability testing phase, I gave users a scenario to try out on the app. They were to browse for a trail near their current location, that was moderately difficult, and had waterfalls. They also were encouraged to choose their hiking experience level, and preferred hiking time. Throughout the testing I prompted them to see how they felt about each screen and observed them closely to determine if they became confused or frustrated. 

I discovered users were confused as to why I was prompting them for their experience level at the trail search page. It became clear that asking for the users desired pace, rather than experience, coupled with the trail difficulty was more effective in determining what their average hike time would be. This was also an important change in contributing to the crowdsourcing portion of the app. When users rate a trail, entering elapsed hike time, the pace they hiked, and trail difficulty, it will provide future hikers with accurate real life informed average hike time data. ​

Users also commented that they would rather have the trail photos be visible at the main trail page, which led me to move the photos under the trail map in a side scrolling gallery. 

The final changes I made before my interactive prototype, were clarifying some search criteria terminology, and moving the “add photos” and “add reviews” to the trail rating page, since multiple users suggested putting all areas where user could input data in the same location. 

Users thought the search process was easy to navigate and liked the fact that all the provided information on the app was being updated and confirmed using other hiker’s data.