ROCK
The National Park App
Role
UX/UI Designer
Objective
To create a mobile app that facilitates and aids the planning process for visiting national parks so that national parks become more accessible to millennials​
Collaborators
Lily Hu
Nicole Trappe
Duration
7 weeks
Jan 2022 - March 2022
Tools
Figma, Miro
Background
National Parks play a key role in ensuring the health of our environment, and park visitation is one of the easiest ways to support national parks. However, there has been a decline in National Park visitation from millennials.
“If we were a business and that was our clientele (Millennials), then over the long term, we would probably be out of business” - Jonathan Jarvis, NPS Director
After conducting over 40 surveys, my team found that a common challenge faced by a majority of millennials is planning anxiety. In our design solution, we aim to facilitate and aid the planning process for visiting national parks so that national parks become more accessible to millenials
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Personas
During the ideation stage, we had developed two personas that best characterize our stakeholders. First, we have our millennial visitor: Rylee. Rylee is a typical student who wants to escape her busy life by going on a trip outdoors. But she’s overwhelmed by the planning process. She doesn’t know what park to go to, what to check for, and isn’t confident in her ability to hike alone.
In addition, we created our second persona, Nick Andrews. While we did not address park rangers in our current iteration due to time constraints, we did not forget and plan to address this persona and their needs in future iterations.
Core Features
Trip Planning
Users wanted to go hiking with a group. This meant there needed to be help with planning a trip and coordinating with a group.
Park Selection
All the users indicated that they wanted help in figuring out where to go. We wanted to add a survey to help them find candidates.
Filters
Users indicated that they wanted selection for equipment, difficulty, and proximity. We added filters to narrow down the selection.
Trip Planning
Park Selection
Filters
Mood Board
Design System
Mobile Information System
Key Iterations
In our design process we used a number of different sketches. Here you can see initial sketches for the park cards and search features inspired by Hostelworld, Maps, or Airbnb.
We did a lot of A/B testing and earlier hi-fi prototypes to figure out which aesthetics users liked most.
Also during prototyping, you can see that we played around with color and fonts to find the best fit.
Iterations:
Final Iteration:
Can’t decide on a National Park?
Easily navigate through popular parks, best parks for the current time of the year, and trending hikes!
Already have something in mind?
Easily hop over to our National Parks page!
Iterations:
Final Iteration:
Easily view and create new plans for friends and family
Pre-made categories so you won’t have to worry about missing any key steps in your planning process.