Kavo
Your Personal Paddle Planner
A comprehensive mobile-first web app for paddlesport enthusiasts.
Project Overview
Background
One day my boyfriend and some friends told me they wanted to go on a paddle trip, but they had no idea how to safely plan one. Some of them started searching google, but they quickly became overwhelmed, gave up, and asked me to take the lead on planning and prep since I had more experience. As I was planning, I remembered just how time consuming it was to switch between multiple resources and wished I had one place where I could find all the information I needed. That's when I started to wonder what difficulties other paddlers had when planning paddle trips.
The Challenge
Paddlesport enthusiasts must prepare for paddling trips ahead of time in order to stay safe out on the water. However, while there are copious amounts of weather, wind, and watersport apps, none are an all-in-one solution or address the unique needs of paddlers. Also, these individual resources available to aid in daunting trip planning are either time consuming, inconvenient, costly, inaccurate, or too overwhelming to use.
Objective
Paddlesport enthusiasts need an easier way to safely plan paddling trips because they want to make the process more convenient to get out on the water and increase accessibility for beginners.
Design a paddle-specific, comprehensive web app that features accurate wind, weather, and water condition data intuitively along with paddle location search and safety features.
Scope
Mobile-First Web App - UX Design Student Project for CareerFoundry
Role
Sole UX Designer & Researcher (Research, Visual Design, Interaction Design, Information Architecture, User Testing)
Tools
Adobe Creative Suite (Xd, Illustrator, Photoshop)
Figma
Google suite
Optimal Workshop
Usability Hub
Zoom
Miro
Duration
10 weeks - 2022
Design Process
Discover & Empathize
Research enables me to delve into users' minds to best understand not only their immediate frustrations, but their unique abilities, limitations, reasoning, needs and goals. I conducted research in the form of market research, competitive analysis, user surveys, and user interviews.
Research Goals:
Understand the market and identify target groups within paddlesport enthusiasts.
Uncover paddlers' paddle trip planning experiences.
Learn how existing paddling, weather, or watersport apps cater to user needs as well as their strengths and weaknesses.
Learn the preferences, frustrations, goals, needs, behaviors, and motivations of target groups.
22.9 million Americans participated in at least one paddling activity in 2018
paddlers spend more time preparing for paddling trip than actually paddling: for 4 hr paddling trip, paddlers spend 6.1 hours on prep
factors that increase paddlers' exposure to risk: location/ unique hazards, conditions, experience/ skills, training, preparation, and judgment
demographics: predominantly educated, Caucasian males between the ages 25-34 with an annual household income of at least $75,000
Competitive Analysis
It is equally important to research enterprises that pioneer in the paddlesports-specific and weather, wind, and water conditions market, as their solutions to similar problems will help me gather insights about their strengths and weaknesses. These insights also help me identify how Kavo might address any market gaps. I analyzed 2 indirect competitors, who are trying to solve similar problems as us.
How Kavo can fill market gaps:
User Surveys
To build on my understanding of the general market and gain initial insights from our audience, I continued to establish a connection with our users. I conducted a google survey with 20 respondents to determine user goals, define commonly used paddle trip planning features, and discover how current paddle trip planning resources are used.
78%
use 3-6 different resources at a time to plan a paddle trip
80%
think an all-inclusive paddle trip planning app will make them feel confident/ prepared
Top 3 features found most useful for planning a paddle trip:
map views of searchable paddle routes
safety information & waterway hazards
wind, water, & weather conditions
78%
spend a few hours to a few days researching & planning a paddle trip
70%
think it would be convenient to have a paddle trip planning app that included real-time condition data
User Interviews
Based on the survey results, I narrowed down my target audience and created a research methods guide to facilitate the user interview process. Moderated, remote interviews were conducted with 4 participants in varying paddle skill levels and invited to share about their prior paddlesport participation and paddle trip planning experiences. To analyze the qualitative data gathered from user interviews, I created an empathy map to further identify patterns across users, uncover insights, and generate needs.
Define
After discovering initial user insights, I gathered the key findings I collected and generated further knowledge out of that data. Then, I prioritized these insights and needs which allowed me to further define specific user problems.
User Personas
After gathering knowledge of the audience, as well as their goals and needs, I created 3 user personas as realistic representations of my key audience segments: newer paddlers, casual paddlers, experienced life-long paddlers. This helped me focus on tackling the most important issues and address the needs of the most important user groups.
Jess is presented as the 1st primary persona since one of the main opportunities for Kavo is to increase paddlesport accessibility and participation for new paddlers. However, my research helped me develop all three of these personas:
User Journeys
I also created User Journey Maps to identify crucial moments to be illustrated and better define what thoughts and emotional experiences users would have using Kavo. This allows me to discover new opportunities for the product based on what the user is going through during each phase.
Sitemap
After setting up the project goals, I 1st tested and refined the content organization of Kavo through card sorting. The results from the open card sort shed light on the Information Architecture and iterated sitemap. A sitemap helped me to visualize the relationship between the content and examine the hierarchy.
Task Analysis & User Flows
Before moving on to the design phase, it was important for me to identify the main flow that users take when completing a task in order to help direct my focus on designing specific screens and features for Kavo. By creating task analysis that center on key functions of Kavo, I was able to think through the necessary steps and examine the user experience in details.
Building on the task analysis, I mapped user flows whose scenarios corresponded to the established tasks. This process helps me incorporate screens I need to design for users to successfully complete those tasks.
Ideate
Wireframes
Low-Fidelity Wireframe Sketches
I started sketching my low-fidelity wireframes to quickly capture my ideas. It enabled me to examine and change my ideas before adding too much detail and put everything in the daunting process of digitizing.
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
Once I decided the visual direction of the layout I wanted to go for, I produced a digitized, mid-fidelity wireframe version. It allowed me to ensure elements are placed with the guidance of correct hierarchy and spacing while still avoiding spending too much time on design details.
UI Style Guide
A UI style guide is a compilation of existing UI elements on the app that provides references for future design and collaboration with others on the design team. It is a document that is constantly updated whenever there is an iteration of the design.
Prototype
Mid-Fidelity Clickable Prototype
After designing wireframes, I built a mid-fidelity prototype version of the product for testing. It helped me validate assumptions, identify UX frictions, and eliminate errors before investing too much time or resources in developing the product.
I used Adobe Xd to create the prototype using the screens that are necessary for users to complete each task.
Tasks include:
Task 1: Find a paddle location.
Task 2: Create a trip plan.
Task 3: Verify paddle location conditions.
Test
Usability Testing
The prototype was brought to the testing phase for users to interact with.
To prepare for testing, I first wrote a usability test plan to define what and why I wanted to test. I wanted to test the most important features of the app based on the proposed solutions to solve my users' main problems. I then conducted remote usability testing with 6 participants, and noted my observations of their interaction with the prototype.
I analyzed the results using an affinity map which helped to order pieces of information that could then be grouped to determine design patterns and future iterations. Afterwards, a rainbow spreadsheet was created to visibly clarify what app flaws needed to be fixed in the next iteration.
Affinity Map
83%
were confused where they could click on location to quickly verify conditions after planning trip
67%
believed scrolling in search results needed work to make it more intuitive
33%
were confused how to find notifications and safety alerts
Preference Testing
I conducted a preference tests through the website UsabilityHub.com which tested design styles for the onboarding screen and color schemes for the sign up screens. The test was open for 24 hours and 10 responses were collected from users. Responses determined which color scheme and image would be best to use for κανo. Overall, users preferred the simple and aesthetically pleasing styles, which felt more professional and easy to read.
Iterate & Refine
Final Iteration
As the time and resources we have is limited, I made revisions based on peer feedback of my initial prototype, accessibility issues, and resulting testing recommendations/ analysis from the affinity map. These edits were based on ease of usability, readability of content, visual design principles, and accessibility guidelines.
Kavo, your all-in-one app to meet your paddling needs
Kavo gives users the ability to have one comprehensive resource to easily find new paddling locations, conveniently create trip plans, and safely verify real-time location condition data.
Find new paddling locations, routes, and launch/ take out access points! Search our extensive database of locations by list or map views, filter specific results, or browse existing categories of routes carefully curated for you.
Create trip plans with your friends on the go! Quickly add trip details, invite your paddling friends, and stay on top of your packing/ prep from anywhere.
Verify real-time location condition data from sources you trust! Get notified of upcoming inclement weather conditions with updated location monitoring condition alerts. Check waterway safety hazards updated by reliable governmental and international organizations.
Final Thoughts & Next Steps
Final Thoughts
This was one of the first projects I worked on from design conception to finalized prototype where I applied the full design thinking process. It was both challenging and extremely fun getting to creatively problem solve for this project. Overall, I gained so much understanding of the UX design process and paddlesports industry.
Here are some of the most important things I learned from working on Kavo:
Next Steps
While I believe I have successfully addressed my persona's problems, there is always room for improvement. I hope to keep improving the overall UX and UI of Kavo, incorporating unique animations, and work on creating a community feature for users to connect with other paddlers. For this reason, updates and revisions will continue to exist in the future, and I will address them based on their priority levels. Also, since this was a project conducted for educational purposes to learn conceptual design, I am looking forward to working collaboratively with developers throughout the process in the future and using Zeplin for handoff. I will always make myself available to assist with any follow-up questions.