Hikescape
Introduction
Hikescape is a native app that facilitates community for minority groups to break down barriers of access, promote safety, and foster belonging in hiking spaces.
I’m one of the few minorities every time I’ve been on a hike. This has always bothered me, feeling as if I don’t belong. I wondered why there were few People of Color (PoC) on trails and assumed they weren’t interested in the outdoors; however, upon investigation, I share their same experience. I wanted to take the opportunity to explore and understand PoC’s motivation to create a space that offers diversity and inclusion.
My Role
UX Designer
Client
Springboard UX Bootcamp Concept Project
Mentored by: Andrew Montgomery
Tools
Adobe XD, Photoshop, Illustrator, Google Docs, Google Survey, Miro, Otter.ai, Marvel mirror app
The Problem
Many PoC have felt unsafe, isolated, like they don’t belong when they’re hiking.
According to the USA 2020 census the populations for each race is as follows*
There are 419 national parks in the USA. The visitors are as follows*
The discrepancy lies in PoC making roughly 40% of the US population, but only 22% are hiking. Why is this?
* There’s a margin of error in the percentages due to race reporting. Please look at the links below for a better understanding.
Sources:
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/POP010220
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/7/heres-why-americas-national-parks-are-so-white.html
Target User
The purpose of this app is to reach PoC and facilitate hiking opportunities.
These people are:
Identify with African and/or Black roots
Latinx
Asians
American-Indian
Any other group identifying as non-Caucasian
The Goal
To create a safe, inclusive space that foster community and belonging for minority groups in hiking spaces.
Image source: joinoutsiders.com/past-adventures-ny
Discovery
Competitive Analysis
The majority of hiking apps focus on metrics and tracking. I looked at the top 2 hiking apps and meeting people app. Collectively the pros and cons of these apps are:
Strengths
Filtering results by city, park or trail works well
Trails are shown on the homepage
Weaknesses
Search results need improvement for AllTrails but specifically the hiking project apps
Areas of Opportunities
Issue: No way to contact others directly or meet others, this is only available on the meetup app.
Potential Solution: Add this for community purposes.Issue: Transporting hikers to trails is not an option.
Potential Solution: Create a way to bring people without vehicles to hikes.
User Interviews
5 participants had moderated interviews lasting approximately 30 minutes each.
The participants are:
25-55 years old
Moderate fitness level (3+ physical activities in a month)
Has hiking experience or is interested in hiking more
Moderate-heavy mobile user (uses devices for 5+ hours)
* Non-minorities were interviewed due to recruiting constraints
Secondary Research
3 Main Findings
Motivation
The quiet (not hearing loud disruptive city dwelling noise)
Being with others
Clean fresh air
Goals
Seeing greenery
Nature sounds
Mental health benefits
Pains
Feeling unsafe.
Unpleasant feelings of not belonging in a majority white space.
PoC don't think it's something they are welcome to do.
Many trails are remote and hard to get.
Many PoC's socio-economic status are below average. When discomfort is a daily struggle, uncomfortable experience in the woods may not be an attractive prospect.
Affinity Mapping
Learnings and patterns derived from user interviews.
User Personas
Two groups emerged from the affinity mapping learnings.
How Might We (HMW)
Motivate minority groups to hike?
Make hiking more accessible?
Make hiking feel safe for minority groups?
Image source: joinoutsiders.com/past-adventures-ny
Develop
User Flows
From the uncovered themes, 3 user flows of the most important goals for Alex and Sabrina to accomplish.
Sabrina
Goal: Peace & Quiet
User Flow: Look for a (solo) hike
Alex
Goal: Transportation
User Flow: Find and use carpooling service
Alex & Sabrina
Goal: Company
User Flow: Find a group hike and join
Site-Mapping
To understand the navigation and content hierarchy of the user flow, and the information needed for each screen, a site-map was created.
Based on the tasks, the focus were on:
Discovering solo and/or group hikes
Meeting a diverse group of people
Communities to join
Sketches
Understanding the journey for searching a trail was the most crucial aspect of the app. Sketching the first ideas on paper is the most efficient and least time-consuming in case changes need to be made.
Moodboard
For Alex and Sabrina to feel connected and drawn to use the app, the following elements were incorporated:
1
Nature elements
2
Escapism, freedom, & peace
3
Diversity via imagery & patterns
Inspiration
Styleguide
Wireframes
The onboarding screen hints the app is about the outdoors and hiking.
Research showed people won't hike if it’s too inconvenient for them. The home/main screen shows the shortest and easiest trails by location.
Data showed people wanted to hike with others that are similar in physical fitness. The profile pages has age, type of personality and fitness level.
One of the biggest obstacles for Alex is to get to trails. Providing carpooling services for those without cars would solve this.
Usability Tests
Goal
To understand if users would like to hike with others similar to them, and what users think about carpooling.
Tasks
A total of 3 iterations were performed. Tasks were vague on the first iteration, but became simpler and more direct after each iteration.
Task 1
Go on a hike and record your activity.
Task 2
Look for someone you think you would enjoy hiking with.
Task 3
You don’t have a car, but you want to go on a hike that is only accessible by car. How could you go on this hike?
Conducted 3 rounds of Usability Tests
Total usability tests: 15 participants
In person: 11 participants
Remote: 4 participants
Questions I wanted answered:
Can users find trails easily?
Can users identify group hikes vs trails?
Do users feel and think hiking with others similar to them is important?
Main Issues
Changes were made on each iteration per user feedback, it helped with understanding which issues were most critical for changes.
Issue #1
Participants didn’t understand the difference between “Trails“ and “Group hikes”
Issue #2
Participants didn’t understand finding others like themselves through a quiz.
Issue #3
Participants without a car didn’t want to get into a strangers car to go on a hike.
Deliver
Final Designs
Click through the app — Find a trail and hike with others. Check it out.
Measuring Success
The app’s goal is to provide community and inclusion. The following would make it a successful:
1
Users joining a “Group hike” and having a positive experience
2
Users returning to the app, joining many other “Group hikes“
3
Users using carpooling to alleviate their transportation pain.
Learnings
Word choice is crucial
I thought "group hikes" would be understood being an activity that is done with others vs "trails" an activity you do by yourself. Majority of participants didn't understand why these two things were separated.
Participants didn’t want to hike with strangers
This feature may work better after a user has been exposed to hiking group(s) and some trust has been established first.
Provide rides to others if they’ve hiked before
Participants don't want to get into cars with strangers, perhaps only offer after they’ve hiked together or have the host of a group hike be the sole carpool provider.
Many of my user interview questions were leading
I could’ve also probed more on some answers, but because the interviews were starting to become long I moved quickly to the next question.
Next Steps
There were many new things that emerged on the third iteration.
Each consideration to be changed is listed in order of importance.
1
Place filtering questions to determine what type of hiker a user is anywhere else but before entering the app. This can be on the home screen after user has used the app
2
Rephrasing "Group hikes" to maybe “Organized hikes” and leave "Trails" as is. Both of these two categories will be under an “All Trails“ label and this will have a more pronounced design to display this
3
I will test ONLY minorities. Each iteration had one non-minority
4
Only the host of a “Group hike” can provide carpooling service
5
Only allow to meet other hikers through joining a “Group hike“
