A collaborative app for the planning and execution of a group camping trip

This project started life with a different goal, but research insights directly led to a re-evaluation of the original audience and scope. The result is a stronger solution with multiple directions for future feature expansion.

Project Team: Kevin Shertz (solo project)

My Role: User Research, UX/UI Design, Branding, Prototyping, Usability Testing

Tools Used: Figma, Zoom (with Fathom), Optimal Workshop, Google Forms, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word

Duration: 160 hours over 8 weeks

Year: 2023

Introduction

  • Problem

    When people camp together in a multiple group setting, consistent knowledge of planned group activities and campground amenities can be a problem when people arrive on site.

    This can result in missed opportunities for enhanced enjoyment of the trip and mean that amenities provided and maintained by the campground owner are underutilized.

  • Solution

    An iOS app dedicated to the planning, coordination and expense tracking for a group camping trip. It acts as a central repository of resources submitted by trip members including accommodation suggestions, activities and meal planning.

    Expense reconciliation, photo sharing and commenting on submitted links are all supported.

  • Impact

    Moderated testing of five users (performed over two test sessions) was conducted via Zoom.

    Two task flows, sharing a link from an outside program and adding an expense entry, were performed by each user followed by a series of questions.

    Testing resulted in a 100% completion rate, an average error-free rate of over 80%, and a subjective rating of the app as a 9.3 on a scale of 1-10.

Discover

The existing app market heavily favors the individual camper

  • Insight: possible business opportunity with campgrounds

    Little exists that considers a campground owner the primary user of the service or app. There might be a business opportunity for creating one.

  • Insight: users are willing to pay a subscription fee for additional content

    Users are willing to pay a subscription fee for additional content. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of pricing terms and derived value to the user.

  • Insight: specialty market leaders emulate larger market leaders

    The most successful services or apps emulate the look and feel of the market leaders in the overall travel search industry.

Talking to prospective users provided some surprising findings that directly affected the project direction

Participants

The target audience for interviews were people who organize and/or participate in group camping trips, and campground owners.

Six campers were recruited via Facebook, LinkedIn, and UX-related Discord groups. Four owners of private and national chain campgrounds were contacted for interview requests.

A quantitative survey was created in Google Forms and advertised via the same methods for other respondents. Fifteen people independent of those interviewed responded to the survey.

Questions

Consistent questions were asked of each group of Primary Research participants. A list of each for the three groups is listed below:

    1. Have you ever planned a group camping trip before?

    2. What research tools and methods do you use in your planning?

    3. How many people are usually involved in trip planning?

    4. What factors affect when and where you decide to go camping?

    5. What campground amenities are important to you?

    6. What group activities are planned in advance of a trip?

    7. What group activities are planned when you arrive?

    8. Are you generally able to use a cell phone while camping?

    9. What method of payment do you use for your expenses?

    1. How do you currently advertise your business to customers?

    2. What amenities of your business do you feel people should know about?

    3. How do you stay in touch with customers during their stay?

    4. Do you stay in touch with previous customers after their stay?

    5. Do you see a lot of repeat business from the same customers?

    6. What methods of payment do you accept either before or during your customer’s stay?

    1. Have you ever been on a group camping trip before? (yes/no)

    2. Have you ever been part of planning a group camping trip? (yes/no)

    3. How important to you is knowing campground amenities in advance? (0-7; 7=very important)

    4. How important to you is having reservations for campground activities in advance? (0-7)

    5. How important to you is knowing what others in your group are planning to bring? (0-7)

    6. How important to you is coordinating meals or activity plans with others in your group? (0-7)

    7. How important to you is the ability to use your phone for information on your trip? (0-7)

Conclusions

Findings were unexpected:

  1. Campers were enthusiastic to discuss the subject! Their energy was infectious.

  2. No campground owners responded to my interview requests. Secondary research findings supported conclusions of lack of interest on the part of owners for how they present their amenities.

As a direct result of these findings, the project goal became to focus solely on the needs of campers.

A majority of Competitive Analysis companies were well-known by interviewed campers and mentioned by name as resources they used.

  • "I like to camp to get out of the city... get rid of any distractions of everyday life and to just be in nature."

    Chandler S.

  • "Camping is an activity we can all do as a family."

    Angie O.

  • “We camped at Colorado Bend and had no cell phone service, which was really challenging..."

    Bret T.

  • “I've been looking forward to this [interview] all day.”

    Andrew C.

  • "I think we've camped in more than 40 states in the past few years."

    Sean F.

Define

Interview / survey notes and affinity mapping insights

  • Collaborative planning for trips very common

    Reservations, meal planning, and gear responsibility were all mentioned as items that would be discussed as a group and then be followed up upon by a person.

    This is a pain point when information isn’t communicated back to everyone.

  • Multiple methods used for research and planning

    People aren’t all necessarily using the same tools. Some people are tracking things like group expenses by memory!

    This compounds the problem of poor communication between travel party members, which can cause friction.

  • Onsite connectivity not assumed to be available

    A pain point for everyone. Some are willing to travel to find it; some just accept it isn’t available.

    This translates to needing a solution that’s not reliant on Internet access while on the trip. It must be an on-device experience.

  • Acts as “home base” for other activities

    Other activities is the major appeal of the chosen site. These might be campground amenities or off-site attractions such as hiking trails, watersports, or even visiting a nearby town or amusement park while staying in a lower-cost accommodations setting.

A tale of two campers who view amenities differently

  • Users need good communication when sharing ideas and coordinating plans with each other.

    How might we enable Jennifer and her group to easily share ideas and planning progress with each other?

  • Users need access to their travel information during a trip but can't rely on internet access in many locations.

    How might we give Samuel continuous access to his travel data while out of cellphone coverage?

  • Users need to track expenses incurred because they may be a considerable financial outlay for them.

    How might we allow Jennifer to itemize their expenses and let others know their portion of the costs?

  • Users need to be able to communicate in adverse conditions.

    How might we enable Samuel to talk with friends outside of earshot when there is no cellphone service?

Develop

Ideation guiding principles

  • Use design standards

    The most popular apps researched adhered to appearance standards of larger products. Accessibility and heuristic conventions in iOS and Android are well-researched and documented, so it makes sense to leverage their design systems for a native appearance.

  • Use core features

    Using OS APIs means ReadyCamp can take advantage of future OS improvements without additional product development overhead and reduce app complexity.

  • Create consistency

    Consistency of task flow and context cues to complete different tasks within the app (for example, adding Expenses, Categories, etc.) will reduce onboarding time for user.

So many ideas, so little time for an MVP feature set

  • Obviously, not everything that was defined could be part of a Minimum Viable Product, which is what this project time constraints required.

    While offline capabilities for the app were identified as an area of interest during affinity mapping, they were pushed out for future development due to time constraints for the project..

  • Several areas for development emerged for a core feature set for a Minimum Viable Product: Sharing of information with the app from outside sources, creating Trips, and creation of extensible items for Categories, Itineraries, Expenses and Tripmates within those Trips.

Developing scenarios for sharing info with the group and being reimbursed provided a window into a greater task flow that applied to all campers

  • Storyboard

    SHARING A LINK

  • Storyboard

    ENTERING AN EXPENSE

  • Task Flow

    SHARING A LINK

  • Task Flow

    ENTERING AN EXPENSE

  • Site Map

    READYCAMP APP

  • Lo-Fi Wireframing

    READYCAMP

  • Mid-Fidelity Wireframing

    SHARING A LINK

  • Mid-Fidelity Wireframing

    ENTERING AN EXPENSE

High fidelity screens for the prototype task flows

  • Task 1: Sharing a link

    Since the app is designed to be a repository of information from outside sources, creating as small of a pain point as possible to accomplish that was paramount. People are used to sharing information between apps, so ample precedent of how users would expect for that interaction to work.

    This task is to share a link from an outside site (in this case, the TripAdvisor app) into ReadyCamp using the iOS-native controls and enter a comment, the intended trip to be filed under (Memorial Day Weekend), and the intended category (Accommodations.)

    A temporary notification banner confirms that the task was successfully completed.

  • Task 2: Adding an expense

    Expense tracking was a common item mentioned by interviewees in response to our question about expenses and payment. A task flow for this item was important to detail because it encompassed so many of the task flows common for the app: creating an item, accessing Tripmates, and assigning applicable information before saving it.

    This task flow is to enter a new expense item under the Memorial Day Weekend trip, add the amount ($180), intended category (Accommodations) and a memo line for the expense (campground site.) After saving the new expense item, the user returns to the Memorial Day Weekend trip page where the new expense entry is shown.

Deliver

  • Moderated testing

    Five Users originally interviewed for primary research participated in prototype testing of the two task flows.

    Testing was recorded via Zoom (with Fathom plug-in) and was followed up by a series of questions after each task.

  • Questions

    1. How was your overall experience with the sequence?

    2. Did you feel confused at all about what you were supposed to do?

    3. On a scale of 1 to 10, with one being difficult and ten being easy, where did this task rank?

    4. Does this seem like part of a service you would use?

  • Benchmarks

    1. A completion rate of 100% is the success goal for each task in the usability test.

    2. An error-free rate of 80% is the success goal for each task in the usability test.

    3. A subjective rating score of 7 or greater is considered a success.

  • "...provides an experience that has been for me a plethora of Google Docs, random apps like Instagram channels, and other things all-in-one that just feels very succinct."

    Andrew C., on Adding an Expense (Task 2)

  • "It might be helpful if there is an empty profile here with a plus or an add maybe...."

    Bret T., on Adding an Expense (Task 2)

  • “This sequence was confusing... I understand exactly what you're asking and exactly what you're saying you want, but I don't see where it fits into the screen here.”

    Heather O., commenting on Adding an Expense (Task 2)

  • “When is this going to be available?”

    Angie O., after completing both tasks

  • "The Dyrt lets you save campgrounds to particular groups that you can name. I think what's different about this one, that makes it more useful, is that it's more than just campgrounds. You have other categories besides accommodations so you can really start to put the whole trip together. And that's interesting.”

    Sean F., on Sharing a Link (Task 1)

  • "Very iPhone-ish..."

    Sean F., on Sharing an Item (Task 1)

  • Completion Rate

    Benchmark: 100% completion rate

    Task 1: completion rate 100%

    Task 2: completion rate 80%

  • Error-free rate

    Success: 80% error free rate

    Task 1: average rating of 81.6%.

    Task 2: average error-free rate 68.7%.

  • Subjective rating

    Success: score of 7 or greater

    Task 1: average rating of 9.4

    Task 2: average rating of 7.2

    Even though people had problems with the usability test for Task 2, overall, they still really liked it!

Revisions to improve the user experience for task 2 were prepared

  • Task 2: the home screen

    Four of five users indicated they did not know where to click on initially. This was the reason one user failed to complete the task.

    To address the issue of not knowing what to select to enter a Trip, a “button” overlay was placed on the trip photos to make it more visible as a touch target.

  • Task 2: tripmates add/edit addition

    Three of five users were unclear how to add the Tripmate to the new expense, but in each case were able to successfully complete the task.

    To address the issue of not knowing how to add or edit a Tripmate, a generic Tripmate silhouette with an “Add/Edit” label was added to the Tripmates list.

Re-testing of task 2 went better with the changes

  • Completion Rate

    Benchmark: 100% completion rate

    Task 2: completion rate 100%

  • Error-free rate

    Success: 80% error free rate

    Task 2: average error-free rate 87.6%.

  • Subjective rating

    Success: score of 7 or greater

    Task 2: average rating of 9.33

Reflections

What would be future improvements for this project?

Investigation of close range communications between devices without cellphone service.

  1. Bluetooth mesh networking creates a technological possibility but would require intense coordination with Engineering for feasibility.

  2. A “walkie-talkie” functionality could be a killer subscription-based service feature!

A/B Testing of toggles versus checkboxes on the Tripmates screen.

  1. While I find the toggles to be a more visually satisfying solution, the checkboxes are a more technically correct implementation.

Development and testing of a tablet-resolution prototype.

  1. The tablet form factor is a very interesting platform because of the persistent sidebar menu capabilities in iPadOS.

  2. I would definitely not want to see it just be a “giant phone” version scaled to 2x.

Development of a more comprehensive “open world” prototype.

  1. I can envision possibly wanting to make this an actual product in the future.

What Did I Learn?

Primary Research led the design decision to alter user product focus at the Research phase of development.

  1. Campers are a far bigger market than campground owners and far more interested in the project.

  2. Solving their diverse collaboration methods with an OS-native share functionality to a central “repository” is most effective leverage of effort.

  3. Offline functionality requirements led to native mobile app design.

  4. Mobile app paradigm led to using OS inherent design language for aesthetics and functionality.

Camping is a passionate subject for prospective users!

  1. During testing, several testers inquired when a “beta” version of the app would be available to them for future review.

  2. This implies an enthusiastic user response would follow product introduction.

  3. Data-driven decision making = stronger product = brand loyalty.