Run Creator

01. Define the problem

Travelers searching for safe runs or locals looking for a new route are unsure on how to even begin this search and often resort to the most simple (but maybe boring) route to avoid complications, but an exciting, safe option may be just around the corner if they’d had the resources to know.

02. Persona creation

After completing market research into potential competitor applications, my team and I completed 5 interviews to create two main personas of our potential users. We interviewed casual runners as well as “extreme users” (competitive runners) to investigate decision making patterns and concerns of this user base.

We found that the main dividing factor between potential users was not their intensity of running (casual vs competitive athlete) but rather safety. This factor was the main concern of theirs while choosing a route. From this, we created two main user types: the safety-concerned runner and the non-safety-concerned runner.

03. Ideation of application features

With the creation of personas and their existing journey maps from the “Decision” phase of working out through the “Post-Run” emotions, we created a series of “How Might We…” statements to address these needs through potential app features.

We found the main areas of concern to be:

1. Route finding: how to find new routes that appeal to someone’s interests:

2. Safety: how to ensure a new route is safe (this was a major barrier for existing runners to choose a new route

3. Post-Run Satisfaction: how the person feels post-run can be influenced by their liking of the route and their ability to assess performance stats

04. Sketching

Starting with mind maps, Crazy Eights, and Solution Sketches, we sought to create an array of potential screens that would address the features we decided were necessary to help users achieve their running goals.

Based on the goals we determined above, we want to include the following features:

• Adaptable route finding/creation options: “Popular Routes Near Me”, “Custom Route”, “Saved Routes”, and “Quick Start”

• Goal setting and Performance Tracking: Dashboard style overviews of exercise performance, distance travelled, average pace, etc. to encourage post-run satisfaction/feeling of accomplishment

05. Wire framing

Low-fidelity wire frames were created to consider how the story would come together, how the screens would connect.

06. Prototyping

High-fidelity prototypes were created for usability testing.

07. Usability Testing

5 usability tests were conducted that combined a screening questionnaire, open ended exploration of the app, and task scenarios for goal oriented behaviors.

• 5 out of 5 users were able to create a custom run

• 5 out of 5 users were able to sort Popular routes by distance

• 4 out of 5 users were able to view all statistics and information about a route

• 4 out of 5 users were able to save a route for later

• 5 out of 5 users were able to identify their daily goals and assess how close they were to achieving them

Conclusions

After conducting usability testing, we came to some key conclusions:

1. “Quick start” encourages user retention on a day-to-day basis while “Custom Route” would be utilized in more specialized cases such as training for a half-marathon

2. A profile and goal setting page allows users to see their accomplishments which further validates their actions and positive sense of health

3. A simplified navigational hierarchy and step-by-step screen flow allows users to successfully navigate multi-step actions that would otherwise be complex and confusing

Furthermore, we refined our value proposition to be the following:

Make the run yours. Discover and customize running routes wherever you go by choosing from suggested routes, specifying landmarks you want to see, and following real-time navigation.