Strava lets you track your rides and runs via iPhone, Android or dedicated GPS device and helps you analyze and quantify your performance.
With this new feature Strava users will be able to record their rock climbing routes and track their performance in a similar fashion.
Currently Strava uses the same interaction to record a bike ride and a run. I wanted to push myself in creating a new interaction and designing a new habit for Strava users. I chose rock climbing because in order to record it you have to capture your route in elevation.
PERSONA: To try and understand the person you are designing for you want to create a persona. Below is the persona that I created this climbing feature for. It helped me to focus my project and not add unnecessary features.
USER FLOW: Currently in climbing books routes are drawn on the rock face. The solution for mapping your route on a phone doesn’t have to be much different.
As a climber I always have my phone with me to take pictures. You could take a picture of your route and then draw the route on it. I created a user flow before wire framing to understand the possibilities in which you might want too record a climb.
One major thing I realized was that it would be different to record bouldering vs. route climbing.
WIREFRAMES: My next step was starting to visualize the flow that I made. It is key to make sure that the interactions fit in with the current habits of Strava users so that they don’t have to learn too much when using this new feature. Below are my wireframes where I begin to do that.
PROTOTYPE: I created a quick low fidelity prototype in fluid to test these wireframes. This doesn’t have to be anything fancy just to make sure that there are not major problems you have to solve before creating a higher fidelity prototype.
Findings:
- The major concern was whether or not to notify people they are supposed to draw their route on the picture. This would be something to test once the drawing function is live.
- People wanted to make notes on the screen they drew the route on.
Prototype with Strava interface Click here or watch below.
NEXT STEP: I would like to test drawing routes on picture of different kinds of climbs and seeing what issues people run into. My next step is to go climbing and test current aps that have drawing functionality.
*I don’t work for or represent Strava. I’m a curious Visual Designer shipping UX projects at 2 design programs until the end of March. I study under Laura Klein & Kate Rutter @Tradecraft
