Online Community for Kitesurfers

Product Design - Web Design

Problem

Before packing up their gear and hitting the road to the perfect kitespot, kitesurfers use many platforms to ensure conditions and the spot is right for them. They check weather apps & webcams for environmental conditions but also go to online social groups or contact kiteschools in the area to find out if there are any special conditions or rules they need to be aware of before traveling.

Solution

Our solution was to create a website that brings together all the information the kitesurfer needs and allowing them to leave reviews about kitespots so that first-hand experiences can benefit the community.

From vision to wireframes

Client reached out to me with their business idea of building a website with library of kitespots over the world that also allows a comparisons of kiteschools. My role as a product designer was to prepare the wireframes that they want to hand to their developers.

Tools

Pen & Paper
Figma

Team

1 product designer
1 client

My Role

Interviewer
UX research
UX design

Timeline

Discovery & Research: 2 weeks
Design: 4 weeks

Interviews

During the ideation phase of the project, I conducted user interviews to understand kitesurfing in-depth and to inform the design. I prepared an interview script with open-ended questions, focusing on values, motivations, and experiences. In the first week I interviewed 3 people (2 expert kitesurfers one of which was the client and one kiteschool founder). These interviews helped me understand the business needs and gave me foundational information about kitesurfing. In the second week I went to the field to interview 6 more kitesurfers. The interviews have help me build the personas and we referenced the interview findings throughout the entire design process.

The aim of the interviews was to find answers to two main questions:

What is important for kitesurfers when deciding on destinations ?
What are the challenges that kitesurfers face?

Insights from the interviews:

Friends or acquantainces recommend kitesurfing, kiteschools or instructors
Local Facebook groups for expats or other was used to find kitespots/instructors
After they decide when they have the free time, they check the best kitespots for their time available
Kitesurfers call locations "spots" or "kitespots"
People remember their bad kitesurfing instructors rather than good ones
Beginners care about safety & socializing
More experienced kiters look for good references

Netnography

During the interviews I also asked people which online platforms they use to get information about kitespots and kiteschools. All of them referred to Facebook groups where people actively ask recommendations from spots, to instructors and kiteschools, from how to start kitesurfing to the best gear necessary.

I took a note of these Facebook groups and took screenshots of 20 posts referring destinations & challenges.

Posts were assigned codes in the forms of short sentences for easy analysis, some posts talk about both Destinations & Challenges.

Kiters decision tree

Insights from the interviews and netnography are gathered as a decision tree to understand how kitesurfers' prioritizations. This was something I created for myself to truly understand what's inside the mind's of kitesurfers. It was important for me to understand the users.

Personas

We wanted to form a deeper understanding of our users' goals, needs, experiences, and behaviors. So, I created 2 personas for each of the user segments. They were based on user interviews and netnography. First segment consisted of more experienced kitesurfers who know where to look at for the information they need, but waste a lot of time to decide on the perfect time and place they want. The other segment was a younger group of beginners who are more interested in building connections to learn kitesurfing in ways they feel safe. Personas were really useful for us in order not to drift away from the main goals of the project.

Sketches

I began the design process with lo-fi sketches to accelerate decision-making through visualization without losing time. For most pages, I used the crazy 8's method to come up with layout ideas, eliminating them myself first, then to present the client the rest of the options. Pen & paper sketches were brought together in Figma to create lo-fi wireframes. My sketches were based on the initial user interviews, netnography and the business goals.

Wireframes

Using Figma, I translated my first sketches into medium-fidelity wireframes. At this point the client is very happy with the wireframes and is ready to move to the user testing phase to before jumping to investing in the implementation period of the project.

Kitespot detail page

Next steps

Since this project has budget constraints, user testing the wireframes before moving on with implementation is extremely important. The next step is to take the prototype to the field for user feedback. The plan is to visit the nearest kitespot in the area and find between 5-8 people that fits the target users that are willing to spare 10 minutes.

01

After testing the medium-fidelity prototype the necessary improvements will be made and a meeting with the developers will be arranged.

02

Client also asked me to help with the creative direction of the project, so I am responsible of reviewing and giving feedback to the project's UI Designer.

03

When the project goes live, I will continue further usability testing, providing design consultation to the project.

Learnings

Contrary to my entirely online previous experiences of interviewing people, this was my first time going out to the field looking for people to interview. I didn't receive a lot of rejection as kitesurfers coming out of the water were already happy and open to talk to. However, with my every attempt I improved how to start the conversation because at the start they thought I was interested in learning kitesurfing and were pointing me to the kiteschool nearby.

Thank you for reading about this product I helped design!

Want to work with me? Feel free to contact me!