Outcomes: facilitating a Design Sprint, overall UX and UI style guide creation. Throughout this project, I worked alongside the MSC Designer to create a cohesive look and feel that passes WCAG 2.1 Govt Accessibility Standards.
Best Design Awards
Finalist 2022: Value of Design Award
Finalist 2022: Value of Design Award
The Problem
The Mountain Safety Council had an existing tool on their website that aimed to get their users thinking about their own safety when in the outdoors. It was not hard to see that the existing tool was outdated and cumbersome, but with the additional user research we created we were able to gather insights on specific pain points. As part of the user research we gathered feedback from existing users, we facilitated discussion focus groups with our target audience, and we created an heuristic evaluation.
Five-Day Design Sprint
With our research in hand we conducted a Design Sprint with the Key Stake Holders at MSC.
A design sprint is a time-constrained, design thinking method (created by Google) that uses a five-phase process to solve complex problems throughout co-creation, rapid prototyping, and qualitative testing with targeted users. This process aims to reducing the risk when bringing a new product, service or a feature to the market.
The five days cover: map the research, sketch, decide and storyboard, prototype, and test.
After testing our prototype with the target audience for Plan My Walk we were able to confidently continue with the creation of our app.
After testing our prototype with the target audience for Plan My Walk we were able to confidently continue with the creation of our app.
The Solution
Plan My Walk is split into five top-level destinations. As an app it common practice to access these through the use of bottom navigate.
These five key areas are: Track, Alerts, Weather, Gear, and Plan.
Plan My Walk provides its' users with a comprehensive database of walking/tramping tracks across New Zealand, you can plan your adventure with confidence. Select a track and enter your trip dates to receive specific alerts, weather warnings and watches, a track-specific weather forecast, and an interactive gear list. You can build a trip plan by adding contacts who are joining you, designate an emergency contact, upload trip notes or documents. Once your trip plan is complete you can share it with your contacts, and off you go!
High Engagement
The Plan My Walk app has exceeded its target, now with over 200,000 users, which is 50% more than expected. The average user engagement time is 4 minutes and 45 seconds, indicating that users are finding value in the app and using it to plan their walks and tramps in New Zealand. Most importantly, the app is providing users with the information they need to stay safe outdoors.
Planning a trip on a desktop
Checking the weather on the mobile app
Work completed whilst at Somar Digital.