Hello! Welcome to Shredderz
Shredderz is an Augmented Reality system designed to aid skiers and snowboarders in the process of mastering new skills and provide users with real time information about themselves, the environment and the people around them. Users go through tutorials explaining a skill before they attempt it, receive real time feedback, and look through analysis of their performance in post. Users can connect to many different social groups to share their progress, footage or anything else, make new friends, and get the most out of their day on the mountain.
Shredderz
Augmented Reality Ski Goggles
Cheyenne Sokkappa, Nathan Han, Zach Thomas​
Project Overview
This project was developed by Cheyenne Sokkappa, Nathan Han, and Zach Thomas over a 10 week period in the Winter of 2018 for an upper level Human Centered Design and Engineering course (HCDE 318: Intoduction to User Centered Design) at the University of Washington in Seattle.
​
The Users
We focused on skiers and snowboarders as our primary user group. This is a very diverse group in that it includes a wide range of skill levels, ages and cultural backgrounds which leads to the creation of a number of different niches with similar but somewhat varied desires and pain points.
​
Problem Statement
Learning new skills for skiing or snowboarding at any level is difficult without someone, or something, providing feedback and guidance. This can make the experience frustrating and discourage users especially those new to the sport from pursuing it.
​
Vision Statement
Our product will provide skiers and snowboarders a tool that will guide them on their path to mastering new skills with tutorial videos, augmented reality real time guidance, in post analysis, and a clear plan of progress. The product will also serve as a facilitator for the social interactions that make a day on the mountain worthwhile.
​
Our Team
Cheyenne Sokkappa
Human Centered Design and Engineering
University of Washington Class of 2019
Zach Thomas
Human Centered Design and Engineering
University of Washington Class of 2019
Nathan Han
Human Centered Design and Engineering
University of Washington Class of 2019
User Research
User Research
Understanding our users
Research Findings
Polished Personas
User Journey Map
User Research
To gain a better understanding of both our users and some of the tools they already use, we conducted both semi-structured interviews and a competitive analysis. Each group member interviewed either a snowboarder or skier. We also ensured that we were interviewing snow athletes of different skill levels so that we were developing a holistic understanding of our user group. Secondly, each group member researched a tool that our users were using. The purpose of this was to analyze current tools and how they successfully or unsuccessfully meet users' needs.
​
After analyzing our User Research findings we developed main Desires/Goals and Pain Points
​
Desires/Goals
-
Mastering new skills at every level
-
Developing communities/meeting like minded people
-
Finding best conditions on the mountain
​
Pain Points
-
Long wait times for lifts, parking and renting gear
-
Difficulty improving without frequent trips to the mountain
Personas
Designing for our users
After conducting initial user research, it came time to condense our findings and create our personas. From our user research, we interviewed people from different levels of skiing and snowboarding.
We found that while there were some similar desires, there were also a lot of different pain points and goals and key characteristics. From these findings, we decided to create two different personas, one for novice skiers and snowboarders and one for more advanced skiers and snowboarders.
​
We started off by creating provisional personas in class, using similarities from our 3 different user research interviews and applying them to our personas. We used these to help pave the way for our design and come up with a product that will appeal to our personas.
​
We came up with Alex Shredder, an advanced snowboarder whose main goals are to increase his skill set to more advanced tricks and jumps. Our other persona is Kim Parry, a novice skier, whose main goal is to
​
​
User Journey Map
Visualizing the Experience
Now that we had our two main users defined, we created a User Journey Map. The purpose of this map is to visualize the experience of snow athletes when they go to the mountain, in order to evaluate individual moments with the intention of improvement. Due to the time limitations of the class, we only created one User Journey Map, focused on our Alex Shredder persona (advanced snow athlete). To help bring the experience to life, we included user actions, thoughts and an emotional graph that highlights the highs and lows of the overall experience. Creating this map allowed us to augment our understanding of our users and what particular pain points we can design for.
Design Requirements
Defining what our product will do
Before we could start developing our product, we first had to define its capabilities; what users require to accomplish a goal. To create our design requirements, we drew from our User Research findings, personas, and touch-points discovered from our User Journey Map. After developing our design requirements, we broke them down using 2 methods.
​
-
Method 1 - Action, Object, Context
-
Action​​
-
An activity or behavior supported by the system​
-
-
Object​​
-
​The entity that is affected by the action​​
-
-
Context​
-
When and where the action occurs​​​
-
-
-
Method 2 - Data, Functional, Contextual​​
-
Data​
-
Objects and information that must be represented in the system based on Pers​onas' data needs
-
-
Functional
-
Actions that must be performed on the system's objects​
-
-
Contextual​​
-
Relationships between sets of objects in the system​
-
-
​
Key Design Requirements
After discussing our design requirements, we selected a few that we thought would be the most useful for our users. These design requirements set the foundation for the product we built.
​
-
Track progress of user’s skill mastery while practicing
-
Develop a sense of community around the mountain
-
Track the user’s speed and position while system is running
Storyboards
Telling a story
Based on our key Design Requirements, each group member created 2 Storyboards; one drawn and another using pictures. In order to diversify our Storyboards, we each chose a different experience to depict. Storyboards are visual narratives of an experience that allow us to communicate the context our personas may have with the product we create. Creating these storyboards helped us to narrow our design scope and create an Information Architecture of the kind of screens and functions our users may expect.
 |  |
|---|---|
 |  |
 |  |
Information Architecture
Creating a sitemap
After developing our design requirements and processing the ideation of our product, augmented reality goggles, it was time to switch focus to design. In order to begin our designs and prototypes, we first started by creating an information architecture, which is a sitemap of all the screens we will have on the mobile app as well as the goggles and certain decision points.
​
This was necessary because it allowed us to see the scope of our project in a single document and also help us to narrow down what we wanted to create.
​
Using this information architecture, we were then able to begin prototyping and developing screens for our product and also create mockups for the most important aspects of our products.
Paper Prototypes
Integrating our findings
Now that we have narrowed our design scope and specified all of the screens and functions we will need, we created Paper Prototypes. Unlike our Storyboards and other sketches, the intent of Paper Prototypes is to test the product and idea with real users. Each group member chose one key path from our Information Architecture to prototype. Creating these prototypes were helpful because we were able to finally integrate all of our findings from previous work. After we had each developed our key path prototypes, we conducted usability tests to gauge how well our ideas were meeting users' needs.
Key Path 1: Joining the Husky Snow Club Community
Key Path 2: Record Video on AR Goggles and Share to Community
Key Path 3: Begin the AR tutorial for a new skill
After the paper prototypes were created, we then had to go through the process of usability testing and evaluations. Our usability test consisted of 3 separate tasks, seen in the paper prototypes.
​
Participants
Our participants consist of 3 college students. One was an expert sponsored snowboarder, the other is a snowboard instructor and experienced skier and one is an intermediate skier; all are possible users of the product. All three are familiar with the use of smartphones and social media apps. One of the snowboarders also uses a GoPro.
​
​
Application Scenario
You are an experienced skier/snowboarder and you visit the mountain frequently. You really want to learn new tricks and develop your skills as well as track your progress. Finally, you want to enhance your experience on the mountain by building relationships with like minded people and developing a sense of community.
​
Method
For this evaluation, we are taking our 3 participants and running them through 3 separate tasks on our mobile app. We first asked some pre-evaluation questions to determine the participant’s demographics and technology use. We implemented the think aloud protocol where we record and observe the thoughts, feelings and actions verbalized by the users. After the task was completed, we asked for some feedback and suggestions on each task.
​
Tasks
​
Task 1 - Join the Husky Snow Club Community
Intended Steps:
1. Tap communities icon (4th from left on dashboard)
2. Review current communities and use search bar to type Husky Snow Club. Review search results and select Husky Snow Club
3. Review information about the selected group to confirm this is the correct selection and tap Join Group
4. The task is now complete. The user is shown the members interface for the club including the community feed
​
Task 2 - Record Video on AR Goggles. Save and Share to Stevens Pass Community
Intended Steps:
1. Tap the Goggles Icon from the dashboard (3rd button from the left)
2. Check that the AR feature is toggled on
3. Tap the Record button
4. The user then will take a run down the mountain
5. The run is now finished. Tap the Stop button
6. Tap the Save button
7. Tap the Share your video button
8. Select Stevens Pass Community when prompted for who you would like to share with and tap share
9. The task is now complete. The User is returned to their home feed and sees their video at the top of the feed
​
Task 3 - Begin the AR Tutorial for a 360 spin on a snowboard
Intended Steps:
1. Tap the Trick Icon on the dashboard (second from the left)
2. Toggle Ski Skills to Snowboard Skills
3. Review the skills available to learn and tap 360 Spin
4. Tap the Play button on the tutorial video
5. Tap Launch on Goggles
6. The task is now complete. The user sees a confirmation screen on the app and the goggle interface activates.
​
​
Findings
​
Finding 1 - Ski/Snowboard Trick List Toggle
The first two participants seemed to struggle the most in task 3. They had particular difficulty switching from skiing and snowboarding tricks.
​
Finding 2 - Confusion on Posting Video to the Stevens Pass Community Feed
During task 2 there was confusion among participants when posting a video to the Stevens Pass Community Feed. Participant 3 found some confusion in whether he needed to save the video first before sharing to the community.
​
Finding 3 - Confusion on where the video was being posted/who could view the posted video
At the end of task 2 participant 2 was unsure of what they had actually accomplished. There was confusion on what the “Stevens Pass Community” was, specifically they didn’t know if this was a feed for all people at Stevens Pass or if this was a page run by the Stevens Pass corporation.
​
​
Plan of Action and Redesign
1. Redesign the toggle function from Task 3 so that it is more intuitive to the user to switch between snowboarding and skiing skills. We will implement it in a way so that a snowboarder will be on one side and skier on the other side and the toggle will switch between the two.
​
2. Make sharing videos easier by automatically saving recorded videos from Task 2 so that the user isn’t confused whether he/she must save the video first before sharing. In this case, the user can later delete the video in their archive in their profile.
​​
3. Clarify the roles of communities in a way so that the user will know whether the post was shared to the community they want. Based on Finding 3, we have decided to curb this confusion by writing in the communities section that these are all groups and communities of users who also have the AR goggles.
Evaluation Findings
Usability Testing
Annotated Wireframes
After our usability testing with paper prototypes we developed wireframes for the entire app and the AR goggles. We put a greater emphasis on the skill mastery section so as to emphasize the novel aspect of the project.
The wireframes were created in lucidchart as individual screens and later in conjunction as we outlined the key path scenarios we deemed to be most relevant to our users. With Google Docs we added annotations on each screen uncertainty that comes with pulling a single screen out of context.
These wireframes contain no content but allow us to test out the intuitivity of our layout while expending minimal resources.
​
Here are some wireframe keypaths of the most important interactions a user has with Shredderz.
Skill Practice Keypath
Joining a Community Keypath
Recording a Video Keypath
High Fidelity Mockups
High Fidelity Mockups
From the feedback we received we created a final set of high fidelity mockups for the most significant screens on the app (Home feed, Communities page, and Skill Mastery selection) as well as for the Goggles (Skill mastery guidance and social interaction).
The last step we took was creating high fidelity mockups of the screens we considered the most important. We developed these screens independently so that we would have three different directions to evaluate before committing to one of them.
Reflection
How do we feel about our project?
Now that we have finished our 10 weeks of work on this project we can look back and learn from the process. Probably the most significant thing we learned was to understand our time constraints and coordinate the scope of our project accordingly. We tried to incorporate more services than we could handle. As we progressed we continuously switched more and more of our focus to the skill mastery aspect and eventually the AR Goggles. In retrospect we should have spent all of our time developing the AR interface with little to no development of the companion app. The AR interface was introduced a little late into our design process so it took some pivoting to accommodate for the goggles when it came to usability testing and creating an information architecture.
If we were to continue work on this app the AR display would have to be the primary focus. This is the novel and interesting part of our solution and would certainly take the most work to refine. We are happy with what we have done over the past 10 weeks, and while more user research and usability tests would be nice, we think we did a decent job at appealing to our user groups interests and focusing on aspects of skiing and snowboarding that bring them joy. Having more time and being able to go through the process of developing the AR goggles would have been a really great project that would challenge us a lot.
The most surprising part of this project was how much the work accumulates into one final product. As we were creating our prototypes and mockups, we found ourselves going back to our basic user research to guide us on what we needed to design.
As a team, we worked seamlessly. We all worked well together and did our parts of the project. We were able to do so because everyone in the team trusted each other to create high quality work on time. Everybody’s suggestions were taken into account and everybody has a good portion of the design that is their own novel idea. We were able to communicate well and efficiently and only needed to meet up in person when necessary.