On Belay

An app that lets indoor rock climbers easily track their climbs and review their progress.

Mobile IOS

Overview

So many climbers, so few apps

With the rise in indoor rock climbing gyms and its recent addition to the olympics, more people are taking up rock climbing as a form of exercise. Unlike other forms of exercise where progress can be measured by distance, speed, and time, rock climbers have a rating scale that is unique to the sport to measure their progress. Because of this, there are few if any apps on the market that allow rock climbers to track and measure their progress.

Problem

How might we develop a fitness app specifically for climbers?

Process



Research

Discovering what information climbers value the most.



Strategize

Deciding on what features are the most essential to addressing user needs.



Design

Developing visual design that resonates with the sport.



Test

Testing how well the app addresses user needs and discovering pain ponts.



Revise

Making adjustments based on insights gained in user testing.

Research

What do climbers care about?

Initial research focused on understanding how climbers currently track their climbs, what data they cared about getting, and what common frustrations they encountered.

Methodologies



Competitive Analysis

Understanding what the competitive landscape and what features competitors have.



Surveys

Gaining insight on how climbers track their climbs, what information they value, and common frustrations.

Research Goals



Understand how climbers are currently tracking their climbs.



Determine what information is most important for climbers to track.



Understand how climbers measure their progress.



Gain insight on what some of the most common pain points climbers experience while using their current tracking methods.



Determine what insights climbers would like to see that they can’t get with their tracking method.

Competitive Analysis

Discovering existing solutions

I conducted a competitive analysis of key direct and indirect competitors to better understand the current landscape of apps and what they offer.

Findings summary

View of the survey sent to participants

Survey

Understanding users desires

I conducted a survey with 32 participants who visited a climbing gym at least once per week to discover they're experience with tracking climbs and what information they wanted to keep track of.

Survey Results

60%

of respondents did not track their climbs

75% of participants had not been aware that the feature existed prior to taking the survey. 60% of participants also did not know multiple people could be added to a new request.

53%

of those who didn't track their climbs said that they wanted to

Most cited laziness and "not having a good method" as the most common reasons for why they hadn't started tracking.

75%

of participants wanted to record their climbs to keep track of their progress

84% of participants cited climbing harder grades as the biggest indicator of progress.

Ranking of information climbers want to track

Key insights

Users Love Information

Users expect to have a lot of information on the space before booking (capacity, amenities/equipment, cost what the span can/cannot be used for, etc.) and are frustrated when this information is missing, hard to find, or inconsistent.

Users Know What They're Looking For

When people are looking for a space to rent, they are usually booking for a specific reason and know the requirements the space needs to meet. They like when there are ways to narrow their search to spaces that meet these needs.

Nothing Can Replace a Point of Contact

Users expect to have a point of contact for the reservation even if they book online. They like when this contact is helpful and communicative, but not when they are hard to reach.

Let the Website Do the Hard Work

The more that the website is able to provide users, the less work a coordinator will have to do to provide a similar service.

Key Takeaways



The Desire to Track

The survey data showed that most climbers who don't track want to.



Existing Methods Aren't Working

Climbers who didn't track but wanted to indicated their biggest inhibitor was not having an easy way to do it.



Tracking to See Progress

Of the climbers who did track, most mentioned that they did so to keep track of their progress.



Harder Grades = Progress

Most climbers indicated that they measured their progress by the grades they were climbing.

Strategize

Reimagining climb logging

After gathering insights on what climbers needs were and what could be improved in the current climbing app market, I started to develop some structure around a more efficient and intuitive climb logging flow.

Personas

Catering to all levels of climbers

These personas were developed based on survey responses gathered from indoor climbers. I wanted to represent casual as well as power users with these two personas.

David Olsen

Accountant • Denver, CO

He's an active guy who's been climbing consistently for the last 5 years. He likes the controlled environment of an indoor climbing gym and enjoys efficient solutions to climbs. Usually he keeps track of his climbs in a notebook, but he hasn't really found it useful in helping him improve.

Goals/Needs



To become better at climing



To have a record of all the climbs he's done



To record climbs quickly and easily

Frustrations/Fears



Not being able to tell if he's improving



Paper records make it difficult to review climb history



Climbing apps are hard to use

Emily Nguyen

Marketing Specialist • Los Angeles, CA

She's a goal-oriented and driven person in every aspect of her life. She was introduced to climbing by one of her friends and loved how problem-solving oriented it was. As a new but enthusiastic climber, she wants to find new ways to engage with and learn about the sport.

Goals/Needs



To know more about her climbing performance



To see if her performance has improved over time



To learn more and grow as a climber

Frustrations/Fears



Making dumb mistakes and looking like a novice



Not making any progress



Not knowing what she needs to do to improve

User Flow

Making climb logging easy and intuitive

This is a user flow showing how a user would start and add climbs to a new climbing session.

I took inspiration from the structure of other non-climbing fitness apps to develop a flow that took into account how users would interact with the app during their workout.



Climbing Session

The equivalent of a workout, something a user starts when they enter the gym and can add exercises to.



Route

The equivalent of a type of exercise. A climbing session can contain many different routes.



Climb

The equivalent to a set of an exercise. Users can log multiple climbs to a route.

Site map

Developing the app structure

Below is a rough outline of the major content sections that make up the app.

Lo-fi wireframes

Balancing a lot of functionality with intuitive design

I began to draft screens using wireframe components using the established user flow as a guide. A key challenge here was integrating a lot of interactive components and information in a way that's intuitive and understandable.

Design

Merging climbing & fitness app aesthetics

After approving the wireframes with the client, I began tackling the visual design of the website. This stage involved two key challenges: making a site that aligned with the client's goals while keeping to it's brand guidelines and developing an MVP in a short time frame before launch

Brand Guidelines

Letting the climbing space inspire the design

Climbing gyms are usually very colorful spaces because each route is a different color. I incorporated this by creating a flexible color palette that communicated route difficulty. The name "On Belay" is a climbing term that one's climbing partner says when they're ready for them to start climbing.

a visual of how the app's color palette shows route difficulty

HI-fi wireframes

A twist on a classic fitness app

When refining the UI for these screens, I wanted to reference the sleek style of mainstream fitness tracking apps while implementing the colorful branding system I had developed.

Test

Insights gained from potential users

After finishing the high-fidelity prototype I recruited indoor climbers for unmoderated usability tests to see how usable and intuitive the initial build was.

View of the MAze test results dashboard

User Testing

Is this the easier method that users need?

I ran unmoderated usability testing with high fidelity prototype of the app with 11 participants using Maze. All participants had previous experience climbing at indoor gyms.

Due to some confusion around question phrasing and participants unfamiliarity with user testing, I conducted 2 additional moderated user tests over zoom to gain further insight into common issues.

Test objectives



Is the feature intuitive?

Determine if users can complete essential flows in the new feature.



Where are the pain points?

Discover any areas where users get frustrated or confused.



Would people use it?

Discover if the appeals to user and if they would use it.

Affinity map of participant performance on each part of the user flow

test Results

56%

of testers said they would use the app

38% said maybe, 8% said no. 62% of users described liking the app in their comments.

7.3 out of 10 was the average of how testers rated their overall experience using the app

7.3 out of 10 was the average of how testers rated the climb logging feature

Successes

92%

of testers were able to start the “add route” flow with no errors

77%

of testers were able to edit a specific climb with no errors

100%

of testers were able to finish a climbing session with no errors

Improvements

100%

of testers had some difficulty identifying the filter button and applying filters on the gym page

54%

users had some difficulty adding a route to their climb session once they got to the route page

100%

of testers had some difficulty navigating to the climb history section of the app

15% of testers were unable to complete this task.

Revise

Solving for pain points revealed during testing

Due to time constraints user testing was conducted shortly after launch to discover and quickly remedy any pain points.

Priority Revision

Revising filtering options

Pain Point

During testing users often confused the filter and sort icons.

The lack of the feature’s prominence also didn’t reflect the user’s needs at this point in the flow; users would likely be searching for a specific route when they’re on this page.

Solution

A more robust, visible, and comprehensible filtering options that allow users to quickly and easily identify their desired route in the app.

Before

After

Priority Revision

Select route button

Pain Point

Users didn’t immediately understand that the “Select Route” button on the top right would add the route to their current climbing log.

Solution

I changed the button to white to provide more contrast and draw focus, made the size larger to be more obvious, and moved it away from the top section that already had a lot of interactive components.

Before

After

Priority Revision

Main navigation

Pain Point

When users were asked to view a previous climb they rarely chose the main navigation first. After moderated testing, it seems like part of the problem was that the main nav seemed inactive to users.

Solution

I turned the nav icons that were unselected into outlines rather than decreasing their opacity to make them look more active.

Before

After

Conclusion