Hiking Safety
September 2021 - December 2021
The Hiking Safety app encourages users on maintaining safety on their next adventure whether that’s hiking, biking, or even off-roading by providing everyone with the safest trails.
PROJECT BRIEF
The goal of this project was to come up with a proposal that provides an emergency service, as well as design a mobile app that implements the Apple iOS design style and guidelines while using Adobe XD.
WHO?
According to Out There Colorado, a study conducted explains the most common reasons people get lost while hiking. "What they found from their sample was that 41% of the time someone got lost on the trail, it was due to "wandering off trail" (McKee). Other reasons from the study include bad weather, falling off trail, getting separated from the group, injury, darkness, and loss or failure of equipment. Furthermore, actually locating the subject is often the most difficult. Additionally, if National Park officials knew who was getting lost, and when and where this occurred, steps could be taken to prevent these people from becoming lost in the first place (Dobson). The Hiking Safety app provides hikers with guides in order to maintain their safety.
TOOLS
Adobe XD
Illustrator
Axure RP
DESIGN RESEARCH
After my initial research, I found that there weren't really any apps to help guide hikers maintain safety, however there were apps that gave hiker trails to follow while hiking. The apps that I found for Colorado search and rescuers also felt outdated and incohesive, making them difficult to use or understand.
I learned that the design process should be broken up into multiple steps such as researching, sketching and storyboarding, mapping out a flowchart, etc. Being able to plan and map out the project made the design process flow smoothly. I also found that peer feedback as well as referencing the Human Interface Guidelines was extremely helpful throughout the project.
HIKING SAFETY DESIGN
Using the Adobe XD software, I designed 10 individual screens for the Hiking Safety app. While working on my designs, the Apple Human Interface Guidelines mentions that consistency is a key element in creating an app, it states that using well-known icons and standard text styles is a way to keep the design consistent. Human Interface Guidelines also mentions providing a launch screen, "design a plain screen that resembles your first app screen and doesn't draw attention to itself." I also referenced the system buttons, Apple states that you should "create button content that helps people instantly understand what the button does."
USABILITY RESEARCH
Being able to read and reflect on the peer feedback as well as professor comments helped me throughout this project because it gave me a checkpoint in the project to revisit in order to learn on how to improve my final deliverables. The screens created for this projected consisted of changing colors for better user visibility and adding arrows to each screen in order for users to revisit any previous screens.
RETROSPECTIVE
The most challenging part of the project was learning to work on Adobe XD, as I've never used it before. I also found that deciding on what each screen should do to be a challenging part of the project. In order to improve my design process for future projects, I can learn to improve my problem solving skills to work through the design process quicker and more efficiently.
The biggest thing I learned while working on this project was how to design and prototype screens on Adobe XD. For other designers working on designing an app, I would recommend using the Human Interface Guidelines as it gives helpful advice as well as helping you get an idea of how to successfully design a cohesive and user friendly app. I would also recommend breaking down the design process in multiple steps in order not to feel overwhelmed.