Context

With the pandemic forcing many businesses to abruptly close and no clear sight of how long the pandemic will go on for, the parks became one of the optimal location for leisure and exercise. The parks suddenly saw an increase in visitation with new users looking for to explore local parks and seasoned experienced park users who increased their time spent in parks. 

Discovery: Research Focus

Through desk research and moderated qualitative research

• 1. How do they decide which park to go to, where to go and with whom?
• 2. How has the park going changed due to the pandemic and change in regulations?
• 3. What motivates them to go to the park (Jobs To Be Done) and how can we find the right park for them?

Participant demographics

• 12 participants
  
• Age: Baby boomer (x2), Gen X (x5), Millennials (x4), Gen Z (x1)
  
• Gender: 8 Female, 4 Male
  
• Ethnicity: Mix of Caucasian, European, Latin, Central and South American, South Asian and East and southeast Asian

Define: Key findings

Based on user research findings, there are two distinct user personas that informed priority of the webapp design. 

1. Explorative novices “Looking for quiet campsites with wild-life on site.”
‍
2. Experienced adventurist "Enjoy spending time at parks with friends and family at park"

When choosing a park they looked for the following types of information:

• 1. What’s happening currently at the park including busyness, parking and current weather
• 2. Proximity to me. How close is it from home or does the park transit or bike friendly option.
• 3. What’s available at the park, including facilities, wildlife, views, trails, etc. Does it have a family/kid friend park where my child can play at the beach or playground? Does it have an amazing view or cool trails?

• 4. Recommendations and reviews from popular parks from sites, friends or subject experts. Suggestion from family, co-workers with kids of similar age, Facebook groups or from friends who enjoy camping at the same level.

With limited resources and time, we used the Kano Model to prioritize features that provided the most value to both the user groups for our initial release

Design considerations

HMW create a better experience for users in the midst of quickly changing regulations and encourages park exploration for new and experienced users.

• 1. Make it easy to explore new parks and activities. Whether you are an explorative novice, or new to parks and not sure where to go, or an experienced adventurist seeking new adventures.

• Suggest popular actives by season (powered by data)Popular parks near you (based on location for ease of access)
• Popular parks near you (based on location for ease of access)
• Curated list of parks from experts or based on interest group
• Find parks near you (near your home or in an unfamiliar are while traveling)

• 2. Customized experience by letting users control the type of experience they want to have and suited to the individual needs and abilities. Are they looking for a park with challenging hikes and kayak or canoe rental available on-site? Are they looking for a place to spend time with family with stroller-friendly walkways, a playground and change room facility?

• Use filters to narrow down list of parks based on interest in activity and facilities available at the park
• For parks with hiking, running and walking activities, users can further narrow down on length, difficult and elevation
• For parks with camping facilities, users can further narrow down based on available facilities

• 3. Highlight current status at the park including new regulations and facility closures, especially for parks further away from home or longer trips that required more thorough planning and during the busy summer season. 

• Working with the regional and provincial park agencies, development teams worked together to bring in real-time status update through various channels including API and social media feed
• Users can subscribe to a park to receive new regulations or facility closures notifications
• See how busy the park is before you go. Park conditions near you (based on your current location) at a glance on the map

• 4. Content that is powered by the community and not just from park agencies. Users want to see content from subject experts, influencers, and other users just like them that covers a wider range of niche current information.

• See what others think about this park and what get a feel for what the park may look like on the Review section of the park page (where user can share their experience at park by leaving comments and photos)
• FAQ section on park page, to find answers to most asked questions
• Community experts (like book authors and advanced hikers) and groups with niche expertise (families with young children, playground reviews, etc.) curate a list of parks depending on the season, activity and niche interest groups or write articles about their recommendations s and experiences 

Future considerations

One of the biggest park agencies in BC (with over 1000 parks) has shown interest in the Discover Parks platform. To further develop content and product side of the application, the client has hired a Product Manager to help further the project and work to integrate the reservation function of the app.