VELA
New app development
Role: Research / Analysis / Wires and Mocks
Goal: Create a weather app for water lovers
Problem
Water aficionados don't have a reliable, easy to use source of information about specific weather conditions, so it is hard for them to plan their water activities. We will know this to be true when we see how many water sports lovers are using our app to plan water-based, outdoorsy activities.
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Process
User surveys, user interviews, data analysis, proto personas, affinity diagrams, contextual observation, concept sketches, wireframes, high fidelity mockups, usability testing.
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Solution
Provide beautifully displayed and easy to understand wind, wave and weather reports, forecasts and statistics for sailors, surfers, divers and any other water sport aficionado.
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Outcome
An app that usability testing showed was greatly respected by the target.
Analysis and Research
Competitive Analysis
Discovery and Strategy sessions helped us to identify unique pain points in the user's journey to ensure a fun, and more importantly, safe day on the water.
During a competitive analysis we uncovered the following pain points:
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Accuracy. Currently, the range of weather accuracy goes from spot on to barely accurate. For our target, a bad forecast could be dangerous or even life threatening.
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Content. For Vela user’s basic info isn't enough. They need things like wind direction and speed, wave height, water temp, visibility, and tide info.
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Ease of use. Current apps that do have the information needed by water aficionados tend to be clunky and hard to understand.
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Water based. Most of the forecast/weather information from current apps is land based. This is especially problematic for Vela users that are ocean based.
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Lack of pertinent data. Many of our users operate in remote areas so it is difficult to get data from traditional sources. Things like underwater visibility or quality of waves are data fields not normally recorded.
User Surveys
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We conducted a simple online survey to get initial impression of what the target desired. We targeted social media pages that consisted of fisherman, surfers and scuba divers.
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Learnings:
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Users are not happy with the current weather apps available.
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Current apps don’t contain enough information our target requires before a day out.
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The data desired varies by specific sport.
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Most users would happily share info from a current location and would love that same info from others.
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User Interviews
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To explore needs of water sports lovers, specifically regarding weather/conditions data, we did a series of in-person interviews. We explored where their current apps are lacking, as far as data, for their actives and if users would share data that is not easily measured. We also learned what information water lovers seek out when planning a day.
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Learnings
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Users still need the basic weather stats provided by your standard weather apps.
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Much of the data requires users to use several sources to meet their specific needs.
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Some of the info users seek, is only available from other water sports lovers (There is no technology to record certain data).
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Our target relies on weather conditions more than most people.
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Even though there are apps that are sport specific, there are still many features users wish they had.
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Users need current reports. Weather conditions change rapidly, so a report several hours old can be useless.
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Water sports lovers are looking for data points that mimic a great day on the water, so they can predict similar conditions.
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Bad conditions can make for a dangerous day… even a deadly one.
User Personas
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User personas
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Since most Vela users fit into three basic categories, we created three user personas to represent each subcategory:
Fishing and boating people
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Surfers
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Scuba and Free divers.
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* Each persona was created from research conducted on each of these groups of potential users.
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Heavy mobile users
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Prolific social media users
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Very tech savvy
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Heavy mobile users
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Prolific social media users
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Very tech savvy
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Both desktop and mobile users
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Not prolific social media users
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Very tech savvy
Shawn. He has a 30-minute commute, is a small business owner and frequents a fishing bar. Checks out fishing reports on his mobile.
Alana. Surfs every morning before work, showers at work. Owns a waterproof mobile and loves Instagram. She checks out the local surfing report before deciding to head out.
Dan. Commutes 18 minutes to his job at a mergers and acquisitions firm. Hits the gym 5X a week. Dives 4-5 times a month.
User Flows
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User Flows
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Since each of these unique sub-groups require slightly different data for their prospective sport, we needed to create three different user flows (based on the research we conducted) to help guide us in the development of the app.
We wanted an app that was useful for all water activity lovers, but also wanted the users to feel like we considered their specific sport and not come off as just a generic weather app.
Wire Frames
Wire Frames
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We conducted several rounds of wire frame designs, adjusting reflect feedback we were getting from users. These iterations helped us understand placement of elements and guided priority of features.
Wire Frames also allowed us to see efficiencies of the mobile design. We learned that many users would use their mobile phones for this app for two major reasons:
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Portability
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In general people use mobile for non-work research.
This discovery helped us realize the need to create a mobile version first and perhaps a desktop version later on.
Hi-Fi Mockups
Hi-Fi Mockups
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To explore needs of water sports lovers, specifically regarding weather/conditions data, we did a series of in-person interviews. We explored where their current apps are lacking, as far as data, for their actives and if users would share data that is not easily measured. We also learned what information water lovers seek out when planning a day.
Click image to enlarge
Prototype.
Click button below to take the prototype for a test drive.