2024
Master's Project
Background
Our project brief was to foster interdependence among users through design. After exploring multiple problem spaces, we chose Hikers as our target group, considering the varying levels of skill, time dedicated and experience within the user group. We conducted interviews and diary studies in our discovery phase and used that as a foundation for our problem definition, ideation and prototyping.
Core problem
Users usually organized who's bringing what on an excel sheet - but the starting costs of creating this sheet and adding+assigning each item are high, and land disproportionately on the most experienced hiker in the group
Requests for certain items and crucial trail information can get lost in a groupchat
For assigning items, it's hard to keep track of who already owns what
Finding an appropriate trail and subsequent crucial notices is time consuming and requires familiarity with hiking forums
Crafting a User-Centered Approach
After concluding our discovery phase, we analyzed our findings using affinity maps to pinpoint pain points in the overall hiking experience. Initially, we were looking to make an interface that enhances the during-hike experience; however, synthesizing our datapoints led us to the conclusion that a majority of users hike as a way to disconnect from urban and digital society, preferring minimal to no phone usage during the hike.
Considering this insight, we shifted our interface’s focus to the pre-hike preparation phase. We reasoned that simplifying pre-hike preparation would, first, encourage more people to hike and, second, enhance immersion and engagement during the hike.
Distributing Pre-Hike Responsibilities
We designed an interface to evenly distribute pre-hike organization, minimizing the burden on the most experienced hiker while maximizing during-hike immersion. The system auto-generates a packing list tailored to the number of hikers, the selected trail, and items already owned by group members—streamlining what was once a tedious and uneven process.
Finding the Perfect Trail with Ease
Our solution helps users quickly find suitable trails to hike with their friends, eliminating the need to scour multiple forums. By offering crucial trail information, such as difficulty, weather updates, and safety tips, we provide everything users need at their fingertips to make informed decisions.
Encouraging Group Interdependence
To enhance collaboration and reduce unnecessary purchases, the interface allows users to request items directly from hikers in their group who already own them. This feature fosters a sense of interdependence and strengthens group dynamics, making the hiking experience more connected and efficient.
Outcome
We presented a working prototype of our interface at the course exhibit, where we had users go through a storyline involving hike preparation and had them follow along with completing core tasks on the interface. We also presented a magazine that detailed our process from discovery to definition to ideation to prototype.
Our group received an A for the interface and presentation.