Onboarding experience
Freeland: Nature connector app
Introduction
For my UX bootcamp at Columbia, I designed and prototyped several mid-fi frames of a whimsical and accessible travel app.
Inspired by outdoor appreciation projects, such as the Hike Clerb program, and of course the AllTrails app, I wanted to give individuals confidence and comfort with venturing out solo for possibly the first time.
I, myself, am a city kid, who rarely spent time in the woods until I was eight and then had the experience of living in a tent for a summer at a children’s yoga camp in Yogaville, VA. So, I’ve always dreamed of gaining outdoor skills and self-reliance, and I know many other city kids will feel the same way once they’re older.
The Problem
People love the idea of parks: Consistently, year after year, 75% of all Americans have a favorable views of the parks service. 82% want to preserve public land from energy exploitation. In 2022, parks saw more visitors than ever, up 30% from average.
People greatly enjoy the experience of the park: Analysing tweets of parks hikers, happiness levels are on par with major holidays.
A select demographic utilizes the parks: Unfortunately, the majority of parks visitors earn above average incomes. 80% of park visitors are white, even though they are only 60% of the population. Arches and Zion National Parks have recently introduced timed tickets and permits, which helps manage public safety but has also created an additional obstacle to access.
The Product
Freeland is digital tool that helps individuals (such as urban or young adults) gain confidence around visiting state parks.
The product’s approach is to provide information but also inspiration. The hope is that users can start, or continue, a lifelong relationship with nature. The platform offers an opportunity for discovery and a path toward building adventure skills.
Process
Proto Persona
Before interviewing people, I started to sketch out in my mind what a typical user might look like. They were in their 20s, they were employed, and their free time revolved around friends.
Interview insights
Affinity diagram
Empathy map
User Persona
A clearer image started to appear of the potential user.
User insight: Cristina likes the fitnesses element of time spent outdoors, but also believes it can be a spiritual experience. Nature is awe-inspiring, beautiful, unexpected, and challenging. Cristina has read articles about how enjoying the natural landscape is an important part of mental health. Now, as we are seeing the effects of climate change, Cristina feels nostalgic and melancholy for the natural world, and wants to experience it more immersively.
Ideation
I employed several techniques for generating, organizing, and editing content.
1. User Matrix
2. How Can We…
3. Worst Possible Idea
4. Feature Prioritization Matrix
5. Value Proposition
User Scenario
How can we package a summary of the hopes, goals, realistic obstacles, and step-by-step experience of our user? I made an effort to encapsulate all that information in the user scenario below.
Storyboard
A personality and narrative begins to take form in comic book-style storyboard.
User Journey Map
If we could chart the emotional experience of interacting with the product, this is what it would look like.
Competitor Analysis
Looking at the home pages and onboarding experiences of Freeland’s competitors, Freeland’s market positioning take shape, and I can see which strengths to adopt and which weaknesses to avoid.
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Pros: The app offered a tutorial and utilized a variety of interface styles (pop-ups, lists).
Cons: quite technical, and requesting trust too early in the process, eg. asking for personal information (birthday, access to contacts, location, etc.).
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Pros: positive encouragement in the process.
Cons: some fields were hard to see and collapse.
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Pros: The brief onboarding employs clear organization with visual design. I like how it has encouraging reminders of the tools you are unlocking.
Cons: Desktop version is unable to move away from reliance on thumbnails.
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Pros: onboarding is just a few clicks, with semantic color cues.
Cons: If the user does not give any permissions, they will not be served any content.
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Cons: Loads of information that is difficult to filter. Navigation is too detailed and siloed for first-time guests. No customization options. Many links send users to external sites without opening in new window.
Strategically, since Freeland wants to reduce obstacles to participation, a shorter onboarding is preferable, followed by a customization quiz later, in order to unlock features.
Drafting
Wireframing and paper prototyping
A brief onboarding, using either system permissions or fun, easy options to move forward, will help get users on the app fast.
Once users have had a chance to explore the home screen, they will see an option for delivering customized matches. Curiosity will take them to a short quiz that gets them to input what they are looking for from the app at this moment. Tailored results will drive up satisfaction with the product.
I did some user testing on the low-fi prototype and had success with the flow. The next step was the mid-fi design.
Product
Mid-fi Prototype (final deliverable)
Testing results and next steps
Testing
If a hi-fi prototype were to be developed then the following round of testing would be useful.
Summary: Users had a few issues with scrolling (both vertical and horizontal), with allowing system permission, and with understand some of the language.
Next Steps
There were a lot of great ideas in the early Feature Prioritization Matrix that I would like to included as the prototype expands. As these high-value features are incorporated, so would be the necessary text, relevant images, and the remaining interactions.
The development team would create an algorithm for matching users with activity/location suggestions. Large amounts of information on parks, trails, transportation, accommodations and events would need to be regularly synched with the product. The social element of the app would be added.
Users expressed interest in having a better sense of the app’s overarching organizational structure, so having a few, clear categories could help navigation and understanding of all the content. What currently exists, users did find easy to use, so I could continue using the same UI and visual design.
People of all experience levels connected with the activity options offered in the app. However, the logo would get revised, as users have said that the hiking activity depicted in the logo icon looks “too difficult”.
I believe, ultimately, this could be a more beginner-friendly variation on Strava and AllTrails.
“I love your mobile app idea! And I love everything about this!
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