Company: WeClimb
Role: UI/UX Designer and Researcher
Duration: 1 month
Tools: Figma, Adobe Creative Suite
WeClimb is a social website and mobile app platform for rock climbers. Users will be able to locate the nearest indoor climbing gym and connect with other climbers across the world. Sport climbing debuted at the Tokyo Olympics 2021. It’s gained a lot of mainstream popularity in the last few years. With More than 5 million people participating in indoor climbing. Climbing is now a common activity, and totally accessible to beginners, anyone should feel comfortable giving it a try.
The Challenge
Rock climbing is a strenuous sport. For beginners who don’t know where to start their journey and get intimidated by other skilled climbers in indoor gyms. There are not many social platforms built solely for the climbing community. Users look into multiple outlets for climbing information for example, through friends, word of mouth, social media (Instagram, Facebook, etc…), or search google.
Solution
Creating a community for users who are interested in climbing or avid climbers. The website and app will provide a space for users to share their stories about climbing, attend/create events, and connect with like-minded individuals.
My Approach
Research
Introduce “WeClimb” to users
The research is to listen to the user's climbing journey. Understand their comfort level of visiting a new gym and meeting new climbers.
Research Goals
Identify the user’s motivation to create a personalized avatar
Identify the possibility of visiting a new gym
Identify the average amount of time users spend climbing at a gym
Identify the user’s motivation to go climbing
Identify the “nice to have” feature that users would prefer to have on account.
Identify the user’s interest in meeting up and making new friends
Engage with users
The approach to my user findings was collected by applying these methodologies. Filtering 20 - 30 short questions that users can relate to. The group is between 10 — 45+ years old, interested in the sport, or has been to a climbing gym.
Compare to Competition
Competitive analysis is one of the methodologies used to conduct my findings. I have conducted research on direct and indirect companies of WeClimb’s competitors to identify their strengths and weaknesses. In order to differentiate WecClimb aside from the rest, some of the questions I asked were: What motivates users to join a meetup? What do users think of reviews on a location? What features on social media do users use often? This will aid my understanding of users’ behavior.
Search usability
Overall site's visual interface
Navigation accessibility
Research findings
Strategize
Empathy — Ability to understand
From the interview findings, I created a persona based on the archetype — “Social Butterfly” a combination of a young avid gym visitor. The user’s demographics and background will better empathize with the primary user that would be interested in climbing with friends & meet new people. In addition, I created a storyboard and empathy map highlighting Ned’s motivation to explore events and open discussions.
Provisional Personas
Persona - Ned Lester Profile
Storyboarding
How will Ned explore local meetups and connect with fellow climbers?
1. Transition from outdoor climbing to local indoor gyms
2. Browse through WeClimb events and rsvp for upcoming meetups.
3. Connect with climbers and interact in discussion.
4. Search for gym reviews and pin a location to visit in the future.
Defining goals
To align research findings with the company’s defined goals, I was able to dart the happy medium of business, User, and technical groups.
Empathy Map
What does the user see?
What does the user think?
What does the user dos?
What does the user feel?
What are the pains & gains?
Feature Roadmap
As I begin to strategize essential features based on the research collected and , prioritized into 4-categorized, P1 being the highest & P4 as the lowest
Follow the Users path
Coming up with a scenario based on my participants & personas, I created a User Flow diagram demonstrating the user approach to searching for an event.
Users Mission
The user searches for an event and proceeds to rsvp a spot to the event. Users have to decide whether to create an account or reserve as a guest.
Information Architecture
Sitemap
Based on users’ current navigation patterns and how competitor platforms store data, I draft a sitemap to best organize the features.
Ideation
I mapped out the feature layout for a desktop version. My thought process — How will the user navigate through the site? What information will be useful for the user? As I write down the functions, I have to consider if these features can be developed in a high-fidelity prototype.
Wireframe
This low-fidelity version will refine my sketches — To think about what necessary pages should be featured for users to navigate through the site.
Website Pages
Homepage
Event Listing
Forum discussion
Marketplace
Messenger
Dictionary
Create Avatar
Pin a location
Device
Desktop - Macbook Pro 16in
Mobile - iPhone 13 Pro Max
Prototype
I designed the high-fidelity prototype using Figma. Additional pages were added to refine the initial wireframe.
Usability Test
I recruit 3 participants from my network for user—testing. The participants were given a list of tasks to complete as they navigate through the website
Participants - Total 3
Gender: 1 Female | 2 Male
Age: 23 years old
Affinity Map
3/3 of users completed all task. Based on the feedbacks from usability testing — the affinity map will assist on my iterations.
Refine
Based on the feedback from usability testing, I was able to get a better understanding of the site. I went back to my design lab — to tackle the necessary problems with the first prototype
Create Event Button
The “Create Event” button was added to the event page. The user still have the option to have events as one of the widgets.
Resize text & Grammar Error
Proofread information on all the pages & fixed any grammar errors.
What’s Next?
• Add more features to increase engagement
• Create a new set of Bbuddy design options
• UI polish is needed for accessibility
• Partner with gyms to roll out community rates for events and guest passes.
What did I learn?
• Keep asking why for each step and focus on the problem and process.
•With a tight schedule, it is best to focus on the “must-have”, and “nice-to-have” features and acknowledge not to include everything in one version.
•Check-in with everyone to make sure the team is on the same page, all stakeholders must be informed of every design decision.