Role
Interaction Designer and UX Researcher, collaborate with a Developer, a Visual Designer and a Content Strategist.
Summary
The goal of the site is to help skiers and snowboarders quickly and easily make informed decisions where to go skiing or snowboarding. Our website compiles and presents the most pertinent information about all the resorts in the Northwest region. This includes detailed information about the terrain, weather conditions, cost, and proximity of each resort to the user’s location.
Skiing and snowboarding are fun activities and we believe that the process of booking a trip to a ski resort should be as well. Our website aims to make the search process for ski resorts intuitive and informative so that users focus less on logistical obstacles and more on enjoying their trip.
Time
September 2013 – December 2013
Deliverables
User research report, persona, paper prototype, functional prototype, and design specifications.
Methods Employed
Storyboard, online survey, extreme user interview, persona, affinity diagram, paper prototyping, and high-fidelity prototype.
MEET THE TEAM
Discovery
PROBLEM
How might we enable a skier/snowboarder to find a resort in the Pacific Northwest that best matches their criteria for terrain, proximity to their home, and conditions?
SURVEY
We created a ten question online survey with targeted questions used to obtain the characteristics and perceptions that our stakeholders have when making a ski resort decision. We sent the survey to two separate groups. One group was experienced skier/snowboards that we know personally. The second group was placed on online forums where we know that experienced skiers and snowboards congregate at. We asked question about experience level to make sure we are talking to experienced snowboarder as well as questions to determine if there are any people considered as program coordinators taking our survey.
PERSONA
Our stakeholders of the web application are expert or experienced skiers/snowboarders and program coordinators. Program coordinators are defined as a person who is the decision maker that bring a group together to the resort. After extreme user Interviews with 9 participants, we have created the 3 persona as below.
Ideation
RESEARCH AND AFFINITY DIAGRAM
We used related answers of things that people dislike, liked or wanted changed in the current process they use. Only the answers of the surveys and interviews were used to derive the elements on the diagram.
The team sketched serveral possible features based on the affinity diagram results for further discussion.
PAPER PROTOTYPING
Testing Scenario
We asked each our paper prototype testers to plan a ski or snowboard day trip this weekend for a group of friends. This scenario got the user to go from the first page (ski resort search) to the last page of the website (the ski resort trip plan). Each participant made it to each page in our prototype with this scenario. Three participants tested our prototype, all of which had different combinations of skill and knowledge of the ski resorts in the area.Testing Results
Although all testers made it through the site successfully and was able to make a decision on a ski resort, they also expressed frustration in getting to the final result. One theme common among all of our testers was a mistrust of our ski resort recommendations. We intended to show recommendations to help users find a resort quicker without having them review lots of data about each one. Our testers expressed this was an annoyance, because without the data they didn’t know why we made the recommendations. Since they did not yet trust our website they were not willing to accept the decisions it made. Many users actually ignored the recommendations and just chose the resort that they felt like going to.Several users also expressed that when they did get the data they wanted it was too late in the process. They wouldn’t get detailed information until the end of the process after they selected a resort to go to. Our intent was to give the users recommendations first, then when the user picked one of recommendations they could share the detailed information with friends to see if they wanted to go the resort too. Instead, users expressed that they would rather get the detailed information upfront, either as a way to backup our recommendations or so they could make a decision themselves.
The other frustrations we noticed from the users were mostly confusion to what certain controls did in the web application. This problem mostly had to do with ambiguous labeling. One example was that testers didn’t understand the difference between the “skip” button and “next” button at the beginning or the prototype. We go in to several changes of the web application based on the paper prototyping testing results.
SITE STRUCTURE AND NAVIGATION
Prototype Screenshots
Home Page: Step1
Visually it is a map which shows all the ski/snow resorts in the Pacific Northwest.
The Map list/menu is highlight to show where the user is on the list/menu. The map list/menu is the homepage. The user will start with providing the zip and then indicate on the bottom the distance the user would want to drive. It is a scale representing an hour increment. Depending on the distance that the user wants to drive, the map will expand or reduce to better display the resorts within the user requested distance.
Why only show resorts in a certain distance range?
In our research we found that the travel distance to a ski resort is one of the top two things people consider when going to a ski resort. We discovered people are only willing to drive a certain distance and are only interested in seeing resorts within that range.
Why allow a user to go to a resort card directly and skip the resort choosing process?
We found that in our earlier prototypes some users wanted to only know information about a specific resort. These tended to be people that had a season pass to a ski resort or had a favorite resort. The resort selection process was of little interested to these people.
Step2: Terrain Option
Why allow the user to skip the terrain section?
We found that mostly only new skiers and snowboarders or people that don’t know the local ski resorts very well care about this information. These users need help in determining a resort that meets their terrain needs. Users that already know the local ski resorts tend to skip this step since they already know the terrain of most resorts in the area.
Why show different terrain options for the different terrain difficulties?
In earlier prototypes we found users didn’t want to see all terrain options all the time since some did not match their skill level. For example someone interested in intermediate runs, will probably not be interested in going to the backcountry. This a terrain area that is typically at the advanced or expert difficulty level.
Step3: Cost
Step4-1: Trading Card Result Page
After users choose the date, check the weather, group ski level and terrain and finalize the ski resort, the website will show the record as a fun trading card. The goal of trading cards is to make the experience social. Users are able to tag their friends on the trading card and share the plan to their social network
Why the search result is formatted the way it is?
One of the thing we learned from our lo-fi paper prototype is that the users don’t trust us to have us select what is best for them. Having a gold (aka 1st place), silver (aka 2nd place), and bronze (aka 3rd place) medal put the search in a ranks that users are not comfortable with. Some user already know what s/he wants to go, while other wants to do more research. So, providing the 4 main pieces of information (distance, cost, terrain, and weather) at equal value without ranking allows the user to do their own search and comparison.
Step4-2: Email and Share
Why display the final selection?
It allows user to review what was selected before emailing it. User can shared among themselves or through social media.
Why have the information be sent via email?
Since the site does not have a login account setup to save the data, the user can sent the information to him/herself or to anybody they would like to have it.
Do you need an email confirmation?
Yes, so that user will know what is happening; whether an email has been sent or not.
Next Step
There are still some room to improve for the current design. The team would like to:- Make it more clear which resort is selected on the search result page.
- Rate resorts runs based on number of runs at each skill level, show a percentage distribution of runs by skill level, or provide user reviews of a resort for each skill level or terrain type.
- Give weather conditions for previous two days before day that the user specifies to find a resort.
- Change cost page entirely from search process to include all expenses in detail associated with a trip.
