Hike·n·Seek is a mobile app that allows users to search for hiking trails and plan individual and group hikes. The app also features a digital field guide that helps users identify wildlife while hiking.
This case study is from a group project in my UX Design master's program where I worked with three other designers to plan and execute this project.
We started this project by investigating current problems that people routinely encounter while hiking and strove to discover how we might make the experience better. We ended up deciding to investigate the idea of combining the features from conventional hiking apps and digital field guide apps into a singular experience.
We put together a research-based approach to understand hiking preferences and field guide usage, and to gain insight into what users would expect or want in a mobile app that allows them to manage their hike, as well as identify flora or fauna along the way.
Outdoor enthusiasts want to understand the local plants and animals on their hikes. Because their hiking apps don’t have a field guide and their citizen science database apps don’t let them record their information, they’re not able to properly track what they’ve seen. This is a problem because they can’t remember what they’ve seen and where they saw it.
While we all contributed to the project as a whole, we each specialized and owned a part of this project. I was in charge of prototyping.
We conducted 10 remote moderated user interviews with users with the following demographics:
We asked the participants about their hiking experiences, their familiarity with field guides, and what they look for in a hiking excursion. This exploratory user research allowed us to gain important insights from our potential target audience for this app and to better understand people’s needs and wants from a hiking app with field guide capabilities.
We chose to do qualitative user research because we wanted to gain a broad understanding of the needs of our users. We wanted to better understand their current hiking habits, whether they have used a field guide, how they currently identify features on a hike, as well as other experiences that they may have while hiking and preparing for a hike.
We stayed organized by creating a Notion database to keep track of our interviews.
“I mean, just keep it simple, right? Don't make it convoluted. I mean, if people wanna nerd out on stuff, that's fine. But like if it's somebody who's just an average hiker going in there – which a lot of people are – it doesn't need that.”
We created two personas that captured two separate user types for people who may use this app.
We created three scenarios to convey three separate potential features of the app. These stories were the foundation for the prototypes we were about to build.
Based on what we learned in our user interviews, we created a design system that was practical, as well as aesthetic. We chose to have this app be dark mode- and mobile-first to conserve battery life and be available on the go.
We conducted 5 virtual moderated usability tests where we presented the participants with 3 scenarios that pertained to our apps functionality.
“It doesn’t really have any guidelines or instructions with a skip option ... when using a website, I will automatically use the search filter to find what I need.”
“This is more what I’d be likely to do – make it faster.”
“How do I know if they accepted or not?”
“I would want to see an RSVP option ... Also, if I go back into edit my hike, do I have to re-invite everyone?”
Overall, the layout and design is well received. Users like the clean interface and darker background, and are able to easily navigate throughout the app.
By taking the feedback from our first round of usability testing, we made updates to the user flow of creating a group hike, and the identification feature. We then conducted a second usability test to determine if the updates were beneficial to the user.
During this project we learned an enormous amount about how people hike and what they're looking for in a digital field guide.
