By using the design thinking process, I designed a companion app for mudflat hikers, offering an intuitive user experience essential for planning and embarking on a mudflat hiking tour. Providing daily forecasts about the weather and tides, along with a user-friendly booking tool, 'Muddy' is the ultimate app for an unforgettable journey across the sea bed.
By creating surveys and conducting three interviews, I was able to develop my user personas and could empathize with my users needs.
I conducted usability tests with mid-fidelity wireframes over a period of 2 weeks. 6 people (in-person and remote) have been asked to participate. The tested scenarios were:
1. Onboarding Process Evaluation
2. Tidal Forecast Assessment
3. Security Guidance Usability Task
4. Book a tour for a mudflat hike
Gathering the usability test results in an Affinity Map and Rainbow Spreadsheet helped me out solving pain points and other major issues.
Key insights from the usability tests:
- add a skip option during onboarding
- rework misleading icons in bottom nav bar ( e.g. search icon is doubled)
- design the home screen more intuitive by better differentiation through clickable/ non clickable parts
- give the user the chance to check forecast right away by giving it a single feature in bottom nav bar
- overall UI
Finalizing the prototype by integrating an overall UI style guide
The imagery displays dynamic scenes of weather and tides at sea, featuring active mudflat hikers and other positive representations of the North Coast. The overall mood of these visuals is enjoyable, airy and inspiring, characterized by dynamic and beautiful imagery that motivates viewers to either go on a mudflat hike or plan one.
According to the projects requirements, I created a welcome page, a way to login/ sign up, a home screen and 3 main user flows, such as:
1. Search and book a mudflat hiking route
2. Check the weather for: Cuxhaven
3. Find the checklist for the equipment
See here more detailed mockups of Muddy:
The background color of the forecast feature changes to a lighter mode during the day and a darker mode at night.
The app is meant to be used for a quick 2 to 3 minute session to check the weather just a few days before (or on the day of) the mudflat hiking tour or go through some security guidance to refresh your knowledge about the wadden sea.
Thank you!
