R.E.I Camping 101
Wow, I am writing the last retrospective for my UXDI, and I can’t believe it has been two months since I start the class at General Assembly. This time I was back working in a group again. I was happy to see who I had to work together. Anyway to learn a difference working style between us was a challenge to me. In the end, we rocked this project and wanted to continue polishing this project in the future. In this project, we had to come with our proposal, and believe me to get an approval was a pain.
Problem Statement
Two days later we had our problem, and it was ready to get solved. We decided to create a mobile application for a beginner camper. Here is our problem statement:
“Millennial urban dwellers are becoming more interested in camping and going outdoors, but aren’t’ informed about camping and survival techniques in the wilderness.”
From our research, the result of the 2017 North American Camping report said “An estimated 13 million U.S households plan to camp more in 2017 than they did in 2016, and more than 1 million new households have started camping each year since 2014. Millennial are driving this growth as they take to the outdoors in greater numbers.”
We started with screen survey questions and received 12 responses. Each of the exposure to varying camping and outdoor life. We conducted studies surveys and interviewed persons who have expressed interest in camping or who have camped in the past year.
However, how we were to solve the problem was not clear. The same afternoon we visited REI and the brand competitors. We gained many insights from field research and contextual inquiry. However, I think we used almost every method of the four types of observations we learned earlier that week. We talked to a REI’s camping department manager and store employees at the North Face, Snow Peak, and Patagonia.
We also downloaded the most popular camping and hiking apps from Apple’s app store and Google Play store for analyzing.
In this analysis, we conducted company highlights, market information, product information, and SWOTT. R.E.I reported record sales, of 2.4 billion for 2015 and had same-store sales increased 7%. The company is thriving because the products are contributing to an experience, products are high quality, and R.E.I prides itself on its active community. The company has a co-op program which offers hiking and camping classes, various outing and trips and event for its adventure-seeking consumers. While REI has its individual education platform, they did not have a particular application that will benefit a beginner camper. This is why we are coming up with the “Camping 101 app with REI”.
Why we choose Native App?
Our research suggests that millennial will camping with their mobile devices. This app will provide the user with online education resource and offline map that they can download while they are out in nature when phone network is limited. Using Google Map and YouTube API will be a solution for these tasks. Our primary user will use the app to learn how to build a tent and download it offline for his trip.
Here is a link to a prototype:
https://projects.invisionapp.com//share/AQD19EV6E
Annotated Iterations
After several user testing, we scraped multiple screens like onboarding process because users were confused and believed the app was self-explanatory. Also, the primary research suggested that users wanted to sync their plans to their calendars, but infrequent campers would most likely just take note a special trip on their preferred calendar apps.
Next Step.
We received helpful feedback from our presentation. Before process with the original next step plan, we would like to redesign and off line contents and give it own tap on the bottom navigation as it deserved. Redesign a to-do and share to-do list from friends.
Final, but not least I would like to thanks, instructors and instructor assistants who gave us good support through out this course. A help desk who have to deal with so many printing on the 3rd floor. My friends in this cohort who are like my second family. I did not realize until you asked me “So Nan what are we eating tonight? Chinese?”. For the last few weeks, I had meals with you guys more than I eat with my family! To whoever read my blog wish me luck with my latest project and job hunting.
