Design of an Outdoor Bouldering Mobile Application with a Start-Up

Abstract

Bouldering is a type of rock climbing, where the climber ascends a height without ropes and fuses. To boulder outdoors, you need knowledge on how to find bouldering routes and how to ascend them. Today, this information is typically provided by guide-books. There also exist several mobile applications that provide such information.

The thesis is conducted for Bloc Bouldering AS, a start-up founded during the summer of 2017. The basis for the thesis is an assumption that it is possible to develop a new mobile application that is better than the existing solutions, and the desire to develop such an app.

The essence of this task has been to explore this assumption and to design a concept for the app that the start-up is able to develop with its limited resources. The work has been conducted with a combination of traditional design methods and elements from Lean UX.

The explorative work has included context studies, analysis of existing solutions, and user interviews. There have been developed diverging concepts, represented as interactive prototypes. These have been used as a basis for concept discussions with users. The concepts have also been evaluated internally, in parallel with the development of a coded prototype.

The result is an extensive analysis of the problem domain, a strategy for how the start-up can provide value to users while it acquires content, a roadmap for future development and design, prototypes on various levels, as well as a presentation of a final concept that focuses on what the start-up is able to build on the short-term.

These form the basis of a concept that satisfies user needs existing solutions do not meet and that the start-up considers as viable to develop during spring 2018.