Kindling

A responsive website designed to help less-experienced travelers access California’s national parks.

CONTRIBUTION

User Research, Ideating, Branding, Prototyping, User Testing

TOOLS USED

Figma, Otter.AI

DURATION

4 weeks (March 2023)

PROBLEM

Accessing national parks isn’t easy for everyone.

California houses the most national parks over any other state—nine in total. This doesn’t even include the additional 20 protected national forests that are scattered all throughout the state.

Visiting these beautiful sites is a dream for many, however accessing these remote places is not always convenient nor feasible for all. At minimum, one often needs a reliable vehicle, the appropriate gear, and also to possess a basic knowledge of outdoor safety and etiquette.

THE GOAL

I designed a desktop-first website that will allow travelers of varying degrees of experience to easily access the many ethereal landscapes of California via a small shuttle service.

Kindling allows travelers to tailor their specific interests into a curated trip, then reserve their spot through an intuitive and straightforward booking process.

MARKET RESEARCH

Because I was not previously well-familiar with the bus travel industry, it was important to first conduct secondary research. I quickly learned that directly accessing national and state parks is neither easy nor always feasible, especially with the leading bus companies here in the US such as Greyhound and FlixBus.

Utilizing competitor analysis was essential to gain further insight into where each of these companies both shine and fall short. 

USER INTERVIEWS

I wanted to hear from people with varying degrees of outdoors-experience.

I sought out camping-enthusiasts as well as those who appreciate a bit more comfort.
A few objectives to help guide my interviews:

Learn of past travel methods and any prior experience with public transportation

Understand how people decide on destinations and what factors come into play

Learn the extent to which people conduct their own research before embarking on a trip

FINDINGS

Despite varying levels of outdoors-experience, a number of commonalities still existed amongst my participants:

Conducting prior research is crucial. People want to feel as prepared as possible.

Past negative transit experiences were due to busses making too many stops, discomfort, and being dropped off far from destination.

Tour guides can be so useful and informative; wishes bus drivers could also double as guides.

THIS PROMPTED THE NORTHSTAR QUESTION:

How might we ensure travelers of all experience-levels are able to access and enjoy our national parks?

USER PERSONA: WHO ARE WE DESIGNING FOR?

Meet Nico, a city boy at heart who still seeks to escape into nature when able. He tends to feel lost when planning, especially when his unreliable car is often a determining factor.

SITE MAP

Creating a site map allowed me to better visualize the structure of the site and how best to categorize the information in order to create an intuitive experience for users.

USER FLOW

Mapping out a user flow was key in determining how our user will initially decide on the trip they end up booking.

With our target user base in mind, I determined that an interactive filter-based system of selecting your personal interests would work best, resulting in users crafting their ideal trip.

LOW-FIDELITY WIREFRAMING

Sketching out a few of the main screens allowed me to better determine the overall layout and hierarchy of various elements.

MID-FIDELITY WIREFRAMING & USER TESTING (ROUND 1)

After converting the sketches into mid-fidelity wireframes, I began conducting my first round of user testing.

I learned that in order for users to feel more inclined into booking a trip, more visuals and more information would be both helpful and incentivizing.

For example, the trip detail page could include a map of the location along with the distance from Los Angeles. It would also be nice to rent more gear. More visuals (both photos and icons) would also help to excite users and motivate them to travel with us.

BRANDING: TYPOGRAPHY & COLOR PALETTE

It was important to me that the UI felt fresh and different from other nature-based travel companies. Instead of more traditional earthy, natural tones, I took those hues and brightened them up a bit to feel more fun and exciting.

This is more reflective of the company, who strive to take travelers on unique trips that are more off the beaten path.

BRANDING: LOGO

In a literal sense, kindling refers to the small group of sticks and twigs that are used to start a fire. Kindling also means to become impassioned and excited—our very intents when you travel with us.

Designing the logo was rather simple: I knew that I wanted a bold, textured and almost hand-drawn feel while still looking clean. I implemented the orange and yellows to coincide with fire.

USER TESTING

I tested the flow of deciding on a trip and booking your spot with five end-users.

How would success be gauged?

The key metric evaluated was a 100% task completion rate. How intuitive would this flow be?

I also wanted to hear from end-users and discover a few areas for design improvement.

ITERATIONS

What impact did these changes have?

Task completion rate grew by +25%

User satisfaction

PROTOTYPE WALKTHROUGH

Comments or questions? I’d love to hear them.