Ikon app Redesign: A project for fun

because skiing is the best covid appropriate activity

 

Let me tell you a story

Once there was a woman. She lived in Seattle and longed to get out of the house. You see, she was in a solitary confinement of sorts. Her world had turned upside down due to a virus. Have you ever seen the move Pandemic? It was kind of like that except real life and while no one raided grocery stores for food, they did ravage the stores of toilet paper. #2020

What was this woman to do? All her favorite activities were off-limits. Alas, she realized that an appropriate activity did exist. One where gloves, masks, and goggles were essential apparel. She could go skiing!

The Ikon App is fantastic in many ways.

  1. It’s pretty, whoever the UI designers were, they did a great job.

  2. It includes a track-your-ski-day feature, from which I can learn important insights about how many vertical feet I skied down, how many lifts I went up, which tracks I skied down, and how many of those tracks were green, blue, or black.

  3. It includes a “Leaderboard” feature allowing me and a group of friends to see where each other is on the mountain so we can meet up.

However, the Ikon APP leaves something to be desired

THE TAB BAR - The tab bar isn’t utilized as effectively as it could be. Below you will see the 5 primary tab bar screens: Home, Destinations, Ikon Pass, Profile, and More.

Ikon Legacy Tab Bar

Gorilla research (Qualitative)

After asking 5 random skiers on the lifts, “What’s the main reason you use the Ikon app? Or if you' don’t use the app, what would entice you to use it?” I came up with an ordered list:

  1. Make reservations

  2. Track my day / track my friends / see a map of the mountain I’m currently on

  3. See the mountain conditions in my area to determine which mountain has the best snow (and therefore, which mountain I should go to)

From these results, I propose the Tab Bar should be re-engineered to reflect users' actual goals in using the app. The navigation options should be action oriented like: Reserve, Track, Discover, and Profile.

My new tab bar
Tab bar: Reserve
Tab bar: track
Tab bar: discover
Tab bar: profile
 

Problems Solved

RESERVE: In the legacy, skiers have to click through 5 screens by finding obscure CTA buttons, logging in to the Ikon website (this is the second time a user has to login), and select their preferred mountain 3 times on 3 different screens. THREE TIMES. This is a lot of work to do the primary action of the app. Instead, we can prioritize the “Reserve” feature on the tab bar, integrate the website and app so that users only have to login to the app once, and enable users to only choose their mountain once. This will reduce confusion and time it takes to complete a reservation.

TRACK: In the legacy, skiers have to click through 2 pages AND select their mountain to access the tracking feature. This can be easily cleaned up by adding “Track” on the tab bar and using GPS tracking, plus your reservation, to automatically locate which mountain you’re at and would like to track.

DISCOVER: In the legacy, there are awesome upsell options like add a Friends and Family Discount Pass, Heli-sking, and purchase options for No Blackout Dates. These upsell options can be packaged into the “Discover” section where users can also learn about trips they can plan to resorts across the world. Additional upsell options can include ways to make their trips a full experience, especially during these COVID times. For instance, users could select the area they’re interested in going to and see Apres Ski restaurants, hotels, and sledding opportunities nearby. Ikon pass could even partner with AirBnB on this page to create a mutually beneficial partnership.

PROFILE: In the legacy, both the “Profile” and “Ikon Pass” could be combined to free up tab bar real estate and streamline information architecture since the information in both sections is similar. This would include your season stats, picture, upgrades, favorite destinations, preferred language, link to FAQ’s, etc.

 

NEXT STEPS

  1. Use card sorting to test the information hierarchy on the “Reserve” screen

    • In the context of reserving ski days, do users prefer mountains be grouped by region?

    • In the context of reserving ski days, do users prefer mountains be listed alphabetically?

  2. Create an empty state for the Track screen (a map of all Ikon resorts worldwide that users can zoom in on)

  3. Create a prototype and flow for each Tab Bar icon

Lessons Learned

  • Learned how to use Figma for this project (as a Sketch gal, I’m afraid to say I like it!)

  • Asking folks about the Ikon app creates great conversation on the chair lift

  • Apparently, being taken down the mountain by ski patrol in a sled is free. Unfortunately, my mid-slope ACL injury has taken me out for the season. Never fear, there’s always next year :)