A user-friendly service to help you discover outdoor rock climbs with ease.
The challenge
Develop a mobile application that helps users find outdoor climbing routes and enhances their overall experience while navigating the product.
The result
Stone Atlas now offers a user-friendly app featuring a unique filter system tailored for the sport and a path guide to help locate climbs—fully customizable for offline use.
Client
Stone Atlas
Background
Stone Atlas is a company dedicated to helping climbers of all experience levels become familiar with climbing areas and find established routes. As more climbing areas and routes continue to be developed, traditional guidebooks are becoming increasingly outdated. The company recognizes that creating these books requires significant time and effort, but believes that today’s technology can be leveraged to transform them into valuable, accessible resources for climbers.
The scope
An app that locates outdoor climbing routes
Role
UX Designer (Research, Visual Design, Interaction Design)
Project duration: 80 hours
This is a passion project I’ve done for UX Academy at DesignLab.
Research
Market research
Competitive analysis
User interviews
Define
Persona
Empathy map
Problem statement
Ideate
Ideation
Storyboarding
User flow
Lo-fi wireframes
Mid-fi wireframes + Prototype
Prototype
Usability testing
Affinity map
Hi-fi wireframes + Prototype
Branding + UI design
1. Research
Understand the landscape
To gain a clearer understanding of the trend, I began researching rock climbing and how current climbing apps help climbers locate routes and familiarize themselves with the area.
Research goal
Empathize with the user and get to know their experience with climbing outdoors and what the sport means to them.
Understand the main motivations, frustrations, and pain points users face when finding climbs outdoors.
Discover the user’s needs.
Methodology
Market research, competitive analysis & user interviews
Market analysis
It was essential to understand the rock climbing industry and its current target demographic. To do this, we need to examine data from gyms that cater to climbers. This is particularly important because gyms maintain records of their members, check-ins, and waivers, which are often not required for outdoor climbing areas. My findings were as follows:
The commercial climbing industry experienced significant growth in recent years, with rates of 6.9% in 2016, 10% in 2017, and 11.8% in 2018. This surge in popularity has led to the opening of numerous indoor rock climbing gyms. The decision to include the sport in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics further reflects its rising popularity.
In 2020, the climbing gym industry was expected to reach its highest level yet, with plans for 75 new gyms to open in the US. If all these projects are completed, the number of commercial climbing gyms opening in the US in 2020 will surpass any previous year.
Over the past decade, the climbing gym industry in the US has grown to over 500 gyms, more than double the number at the beginning of the decade. Additionally, interest in indoor climbing is evident in web search data; the search term "climbing gym" has steadily increased in popularity over the past five years.
In recent years, about 40% of new gyms in the U.S. have been bouldering-only or primarily bouldering-focused. These bouldering gyms, with their smaller facilities, are well-suited for urban areas.
While many gyms cater to indoor climbers, an increase in indoor climbers is likely to lead more people to transition to outdoor climbing.
Climbing has a unique position among popular outdoor activities, making it appealing to a broader audience. This recent growth in the sport has prompted more individuals to open climbing locations as more people seek outdoor experiences.
Guidebooks are a popular resource for navigating outdoor climbing, but with bouldering having nearly limitless development potential, keeping up with the latest information is a significant challenge.
Competitive analysis
I began researching the features offered by current rock-climbing services on the market, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each competitor. My discoveries were:
Some apps depend on users to upload their own content to keep the community engaged with fresh material on their homepage.
A common criticism of these apps is that they often have small libraries of climbs that users must pay to access.
Additionally, many apps adopt design patterns users are already familiar with, which have proven effective.
User interviews
Gaining insight into users helps in understanding and empathizing with their experiences. I contacted five participants who have climbed outdoors and asked them about their experiences and thought processes when searching for climbing routes. My key findings were:
Motivations to find a route
Knowing the grade and quality of the climb.
Understanding its climbing style.
Quality images of the boulder.
Viewing routes relatively from one another.
Needs
Seeing what climbs are in the area.
Finding specific types of climbs quickly and easily.
Accurate topos of the boulder.
Logging climbs finished or to-do.
Access to a map without their phone’s service.
Pains
Unclear topos and descriptions on how to climb the route.
Descriptions on the approach and its landmarks are unclear.
Tedious process to add a route online currently.
2. Define
Identify insights and user needs
Using the research findings, I distilled and illustrated the data in more relatable terms to enhance my empathy towards them. This step is essential for understanding how the product can positively impact their lives.
Methodology
Persona, empathy map & problem statement
Persona
I created the primary persona, Erica Wang, to better identify with the target user.
Empathy map
Based on my research findings, I organized them into sections: what the persona thinks, hears, says, and does. This helped gain insights and identify user needs.
Problem statement
To frame the problem I was facing, I used the “How might we” (HMW) technique to turn obstacles into opportunities. I generated 12 HMW questions and picked three to take into the ideation phase.
How might we help Erica locate boulders and areas that can be easily read on a map without relying on her phone’s location service?
How might we help Erica find climbs based on her preferred difficulty, style, and needs?
How might we help Erica remember routes she wants to do and keep track of what she has done?
3. Ideate
Brainstorming features to form the product
Creating the connection between users and climbing by presenting content first.
Methodology
Ideation, storyboarding, user flow, lo-fi wireframes, mid-fi wireframes + prototype
Ideation
After capturing the three problem statements, I conducted a “Crazy 8’s” session, aiming to generate as many ideas as possible to address the challenges I was facing. By the end of the five rounds, I identified two features that I wanted to develop further through storyboarding.
Storyboarding
To better understand how users would utilize the features I identified during the ideation phase, I conducted a "Crazy 8's" session consisting of four rounds to quickly develop the story. The storyboard I created aims to address some of the users' identified pain points and needs, such as locating specific climbing styles and learning more about the area.
User flow
Using the selected storyboard, I created a user flow to illustrate how a user would interact with the app to find and locate a climb at a bouldering area.
Lo-fi Wireframes
After mapping out the user flow, I created low-fidelity wireframes for the app, keeping it simple to allow exploration of more ideas during the process.
Mid-fidelity wireframes & prototype
Using my wireframe sketches as a foundation, I developed mid-fidelity wireframes in Figma. I made several adjustments from the initial sketches to ensure users can access plenty of content while still easily finding what they need. Once I completed the screen layouts, I converted them into a prototype to test the structure and layout with potential users, allowing for any necessary iterations based on their feedback.
3. Prototype
Putting the product to the test
User testing will reveal the product's usability and value to users. Gathering insights on how real users interact with the product will help address their pain points.
Methodology
Usability testing, affinity map, hi-fi wireframes + prototype, branding + UI kit
Usability testing
The usability test involved three participants who navigated the mid-fidelity prototype to locate a climb. Participants were asked to think aloud and describe their interactions with the website to identify potential pain points. Here is a summary of my findings:
All participants completed the task and found the design and experience familiar. However, some expressed that the terminology used was unclear and were uncertain about its content and purpose. Additionally, all participants shared a few insights into their expectations and what they would find useful.
Affinity map
I compiled all my findings from the usability testing into an affinity map. This helped me identify patterns and pain points, leading to several insights and design recommendations.
High-fidelity wireframe + prototype
Taking the insights I found from the affinity map, I iterated on the mid-fi wireframes and turned them into high-fidelity wireframes. The prototype was also updated to improve the user flow.
Branding + UI Kit
I refreshed Stone Atlas's brand identity with a new design. The UI kit serves as a guideline for maintaining the app's visual elements.
What People Are Saying
“Wow! I really like the look and feel of the design. It looks so modern and I could see myself using this at the crag. I wish it turns into an actual app soon!”
— Ida L. (Beginner climber)
“This is a huge improvement from other apps I’ve used. It’s very fun to look at and I want to see more of it. I hope this gets picked up to be built into a real app.”
— Jason L. (Experienced climber)
Reflection
Working on a project that combines my passion for rock climbing and product design has been an eye-opening experience. I found the research phase particularly interesting as I explored the data and uncovered the untapped potential of a rock climbing app. As the sport continues to grow in popularity, so does the importance of technology. People are increasingly relying on their smartphones, and companies need to step up by providing products that enhance their experience rather than distract from it. This project has fueled my ambition to create a product that I hope will make a difference in the world of climbing someday.
Next steps
I will be taking my high-fidelity prototype back for testing to gather feedback and further improve the product. Many opportunities can arise as I gain new insights, face challenges, confirm assumptions, and validate my research.
