UX Design Case Study: CamperMate
Project 1: Creating a rapid prototype solution for camping enthusiasts
Time: 4 days
Post-its: 40 (ish)
Guiding Principles: To help camping enthusiasts organise camping trips with a committed team of likeminded people while keeping costs down and decision-making away from the campsite.
The Resulting Prototype (On paper): The final product was a camping app, presented in a low fidelity prototype, that allows camping enthusiasts to manage a team of friends, manage budgets, tasks and payments.
Here is that whole gloriously messy rapid prototype on POP.
From confusion to conclusion
From day 1 we followed what is known as the “double diamond” design process.
I’m going to compare the process of design to a hike up a mountain.
It starts off exciting, and then it gets rather painful for a while. Somewhere in the middle there are some flat bits that give you time to appreciate your surroundings, maybe have a snack or two.
Then you start going up again and questioning whether this was such a good idea. Maybe this whole hiking malarkey isn’t for you after all? At some point the summit becomes clearer, the hike gets harder, but you push through to the end until the view makes it all worthwhile.
Luckily, I love hiking.
User Research: What’s your problem?
My user was Kyle. He loves camping and I was tasked with finding a solution for him that would improve his experience of camping.
A little mind mapping, first on paper and then, thanks to my partner’s quick Googling, on coggle, resulted in a colourful collection of thoughts.
The map allowed me to explore possible themes that could steer the interview in various directions, and formed the basis of my initial user interview questions.
Tell me about it
When planning the interview questions I wanted to make sure I could draw out specific details on his camping habits and the process of planning a trip while also being broad and open enough to enable him to go off tangent and give me some insight into what his problems might be.
After testing them out and refining them I outlined a selection of questions to ask:
- How often did you go camping last year?
- What do you love about camping?
- Tell me about a recent camping trip you’ve loved
- How do you plan a trip?
- What are some of the challenges you’ve faced when planning a camping trip?
- Walk me through how you would pack for a trip?
- Who do you go with?
- How do you get there?
- What do you do while you are out there?
- What tools do you use when planning a trip?
Kyle turned out to be a great interviewee, a natural storyteller if you let him go with it. The questions I wrote were guidelines, and a lot of them were answered in the stories he told, with the odd little prod to “tell me about that.”
I tried to avoid leading him in a particular direction or making any comment on the answers, all the while trying to keep the tone conversational and natural (which is harder than it sounds).
The interview threw out plenty of stories, of camping trips that were amazing, road blocks that got in the way and some of the pain points that made both the planning and the camping trip more difficult.
Synthesising the research: post-its everywhere
The first task with the interview was trying to find patterns that could reveal insights. The sheer amount of quotes and observations could lead the project in various different directions so I worked on producing an affinity map to find those themes.
After throwing quotes on post-it notes all over another giant post it, some themes started to reveal themselves.
I had a conclusion and started rolling with it. Great, right?
Wrong.
It wasn’t it. It was a wrong turn and there was no way out. I had to go back to the start.
After talking it through, I realised that while I may be addressing what he wanted and possibly needed, I wasn’t addressing the emotions behind it.
Also, what he said wasn’t always the issue. He said scheduling could be tricky, but it never actually impacted his trip. He said he wasn’t fussy but it was clear that he really knew what he wanted from a camping trip.
Back to the drawing board
Rearranging the affinity maps with more of a focus on the emotional aspects and what motivated the camping trips started revealing more of what was actually going to be the impetus for the solution.
What he really cared about was getting on with the real back-to-basics camping, and not letting logistics and indecision get in the way. Plus, judging by the fact he brought it up several times, chasing payment and spiralling budgets got in the way of the enjoyment of the camping trip too.
My insights started to become clearer and gave me a way to find my design direction.
Clarity and defining the direction
Insights:
- Campers like Kyle have conflicting ideas with others about the style of camping they prefer.
- Campers like Kyle find it difficult to keep group costs down to a minimum.
- Campers like Kyle get frustrated by non-committed people dropping out without paying.
- Campers like Kyle prefer to have activities and responsibilities planned and decided before they get to the campsite.
Problem statement:
User wants to organise camping trips with a committed team of likeminded people who are interested in getting back to basics and keeping costs down.
Design direction:
“Solution should enable cambers to organise a camping trip with a group of likeminded friends while stipulating costs, responsibilities and activities.”
Iterating the design: stick figures and more post-its
With the direction clear, now I just need to figure out what on earth the solution was going to be.
This is the point where things get fuzzy and steep again.
I started by storyboarding the process of planning a camping trip to try and find the areas where I could address those pain points throughout the journey.
I saw the group of people on the trip as a team but I wasn’t sure how people came to be a part of this team, which led me in an interesting direction.
Swipe right?
Swipe left. Tinder for Campers died shortly after it was born.
A little user feedback revealed that my user had no desire to go camping with strangers. Friends of friends? Sure. Possible axe murderers? No thanks.
Sketch it, rip it up, sketch more
The key here was that the team would have to be invited to a trip. So I sketched that process out.
I tried to figure out how they would confirm their place on the camping trip, how they would pay, how they would organise different tasks. I sketched that out too.
The more I sketched the more I saw areas for improvement; what worked, what didn’t, how the user might flow through the app. Some actions made no sense. Some generated new ideas — how about an email to prompt users to pay? How about a checklists of activities?
The process continued until I had the whole flow sketched out and uploaded as a low-fidelity prototype on POP.
The next step would be to use that prototype for testing, but for now, this is where this project ends.
