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 and surrounding attractions are underutilized.

There was very limited competition in the product space of amenity promotion for campground owners, which suggested there may be a market opportunity geared towards them.

Many campgrounds had some form of website promotion and presence within common travel apps.

Campers had many apps for amenity discovery, but they were inconsistent in level of detail provided. In some cases, amenity operators were responsible for “owning” their entry to disseminate details to app users.

Campers were extremely excited to discuss the project!

Collaborative planning of camping trips was extremely common, and tended to involve a variety of tools to accomplish. Levels of tech usage and knowledge by group members was inconsistent.

Whether it be via text, Google Docs, or conversations held in-person while on-site, subjects such as meal planning, an understanding of who is bringing what gear, and who was paying for what all required discussion and resolution. It is inconsistent and error-prone.

Despite multiple interview requests to local and national campground operators, none responded to my invitations.

As a result, I concluded that the topic of amenity promotion by campground owners was not deemed a pain point sufficient for a product design and required project reevaluation.

However, the extreme interest in the topic by campers and the pain point of difficult collaborative planning pointed towards an unmet need for campers that was worth further development.

ReadyCamp is 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, gear lists, activities, amenity suggestions and meal planning.

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

Following Apple’s iOS Human Interface Guidelines provide the user with a familiar table view navigation and organization to encourage quick adoption.

ReadyCamp’s color palette includes contrasts of essential elements of fire and water, and features an icon of a marshmallow being toasted over a campfire. Thematically, the campfire represents a group setting, the reward of planning and enjoyment of the outdoors.

A task flow to detail the sharing by outside information sources into the app via an activity view modal was developed.

Event navigation from home screen through tab view for expense tracking, including bottom sheet navigation for adding a new expense, was defined.

In addition, a slide-in interaction for the addition of a user to an expense item was created.

After minor revisions, users found defined task flows for designs to be easy to understand.

Users found the revised designs to be reasonably easy to navigate without selection of unanticipated UI items.

Multiple testers asked when this app would be available for further testing and requested to be given a copy.