The Arches App: A Case Study
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An Introduction
Between paper maps, printed directions, and myriads of articles about what to do inside the park, planning a trip to a national park can be confusing. This “Arches App” is a modern solution that can simplify the trip planning process by including easy access trail maps, a list of addable activities, and a campsite or guided tour booking feature all in one place.
Its playful design and simple nature has been built to help visitors plan and map out their Arches trip in a enjoyable, accessible way.
The Main Features
The Arches App, as a planning app, has three main features:
TRAIL MAPS: These include safe hiking trail maps organized by difficulty. Desired trails can be added to your trip dashboard.
LIST OF ACTIVITIES: This would include activities such as Stargazing, Photography, Hiking, Camping, and more!
BOOKING FEATURE: This feature allows users to book campsites or book a climbing tour, horseback riding tour, ranger tour, or stargazing.
The Theme
The theme for this app is adventure and exploration has overall clean and easy to access design, with the symbol of the arches being the icon.
Design elements include bright, playful colors (using light blues and oranges, as well as grays instead of black), easy to read text, and a textured, recycled paper background.
The icon of the Arches app takes a minimalist approach at a famous landmark- including classic colors associated with the area and a circle that can be seen as a sun or a moon.
The Audience
I knew I wasn’t going to be designing this app for the average parks visitor. I designed this app for hikers, campers, and that are millennial/gen z visitors (16+ up) who are familiar with technology and might be unfamiliar with the park, or are craving a smooth technological experience to help plan their trip.
The Main Objective
The audience can spend less time stressing about planning their trip and more time enjoying what Arches has to offer with a streamlined app experience.
Research and Content
I took my of inspiration, images, and information from the Moab Mobile Site and The National Parks Mobile site.
In the Moab Mobile Site, I took inspiration the vast amount of helpful information about Arches and bold engaging color scheme. However, the information seemed cluttered and there was so much to read, and there were many parts of the site that were difficult to read. I decided for my mobile app that I would have a bold color scheme but do everything I can to make my text readable.
In the National Parks Mobile Site, the thing that I took the most inspiration from was the dark blue headings and the textured, recycled background, which I included in my final app design. I didn’t enjoy the long menu, or the lack of text, however, so I did my best to include a smaller menu and balance my text with my images for my final design.
Beginning the Design Process
With my content pulled from these sites, I started designing my app with my three main features: Trails, Activites, and Bookings.
Since I am inexperienced in App design, it took me some time to figure out the best alignment, colors, and fonts for my sections, as well as how many images or how much information I needed to include. These wireframes, however, helped me get a better sense of space and size as I moved forward.
A Menu Issue
An issue I faced while designing my app was what interface I should implement with my activities function. I liked the summaries of my design on the left, but I loved the image grid as it appeared on the tight.
I decided to solve this issue by sending out my two designs around to my peers who are in the same age range as my audience. At the time, the design on the right did not have a background texture, or color, so it appeared in a similar style as the one on the left. After some voting, the majority came in favor with the design on the right, and the image depicted here is the image of my final activities page.
The Final App
‘Experience the Arches App here:
https://xd.adobe.com/view/3342ecba-50d4-4b2e-8fdd-1befcd196d0f-6611/
In conclusion
The audience can spend less time stressing about planning their trip and more time enjoying what Arches has to offer with a streamlined app experience.
The end result of this design process is a modern day solution to an existing problem. What other existing problems can be solved by a modern day solution, such as an app design? And are you willing to solve them?