Tackling Booking Campsites
As a final project in Denver University's Bootcamp my team and I decided to tackle a mobile redesign of the Recreation.gov mobile app, specifically the flow of booking a campsite. With user research and multiple rounds of designing and iteration, we were able to develop a high-fidelity prototype that accomplished the solutions we set out to achieve.
Interview + Surveys
We conducted surveys in order to see the specific pain points of booking the same campsite but in different ways.
Survey 1
The first survey we conducted was how people go about reserving their campsite. We learned that most people reserve their campsites through various online resources.
Survey 2
The second survey was mainly pointed to figure out the percentage of people who have used Recreation.gov to book campsites. We found that the majority of the people we surveyed had used Recreation.gov.
Survey 3
The third survey was aimed at finding what people expect when booking a campsite. Our team was able to prioritize features that were important to our user and lacking in the current Recreation.gov experience.
“Honestly I would love to have the ability to have as many filters as possible when searching and as many photos as possible”
“I feel like I’d have a bit more clarity on what’s going on in the app if it was more visual. Icons always seem to add some extra visual clarity for me””
“I can’t get through the search page! It won’t let me share my location to search campgrounds close to me.”
Research Gatherings
Through our research, interviews, and surveys our next step was to organize this information into data that we could then use to make the improvements needed for a more successful app experience.
User Persona
Through our research, surveys, interviews, and other gatherings we were able to put together a detailed user persona that would aide us in creating an optimal experience for our key consumer.
User Journey
We created a story by starting to understand our users. We were able to detail a common journey that we could use to become more immersed in the hopeful mobile experience.
Takeaways and Next Steps
The main takeaway from this project includes that making a customizable experience can appease a greater consumer base. If we were take the next steps to further improve this project it would include adding directions to link to google maps straight from the app, having campers be able to upload photos of the campsites in return for free nights, adding fire regulation updates can help campers especially during the dry season, and redesigning the checkout process to include Apple Pay, Google Pay, Paypal etc.