Boulderthon: Understanding marathon runners to find the best way to support them
Boulderthon: Understanding marathon runners to find the best way to support them
Boulderthon: Understanding marathon runners to find the best way to support them
Overview
Overview
Overview
Boulderthon is one of the fastest-growing, top-rated marathons in the country! Boulderthon 2023 is back, after nearly tripling its registration last year, with a 5,000 runner cap and is a Boston Marathon Qualifying (BQ) certified marathon.
Boulderthon is one of the fastest-growing, top-rated marathons in the country! Boulderthon 2023 is back, after nearly tripling its registration last year, with a 5,000 runner cap and is a Boston Marathon Qualifying (BQ) certified marathon.
Boulderthon is one of the fastest-growing, top-rated marathons in the country! Boulderthon 2023 is back, after nearly tripling its registration last year, with a 5,000 runner cap and is a Boston Marathon Qualifying (BQ) certified marathon.
How might we
How might we
How might we
"How might we evaluate Boulderthon website's navigation, usability, and design to identify strengths, improvement areas, and suggest design enhancements?"
"How might we evaluate Boulderthon website's navigation, usability, and design to identify strengths, improvement areas, and suggest design enhancements?"
"How might we evaluate Boulderthon website's navigation, usability, and design to identify strengths, improvement areas, and suggest design enhancements?"
Goals
Goals
Goals
Assess Boulderthon website's navigation, usability and visual design to uncover: what works, what is good and what needs improvement and provide recommendations to improve the website design.
Registation
Local Feel
Navigation
Assess Boulderthon website's navigation, usability and visual design to uncover: what works, what is good and what needs improvement and provide recommendations to improve the website design.
Registation
Local Feel
Navigation
Assess Boulderthon website's navigation, usability and visual design to uncover: what works, what is good and what needs improvement and provide recommendations to improve the website design.
Registation
Local Feel
Navigation
Goal 1: Resgistration
Goal 1: Resgistration
Goal 1: Resgistration
Selection Consistency
Insight: Some of the participants thought that after they selected their race in the registration flow, it would default to the race they selected rather than automatically defaulting to the kids run, because they expected the website to remember their previous selection.
Race Menu Branding
Insight: Some participants expressed disliking for creating a new account on Racemenus website because they felt it took them out of the flow from Boulderthon and were unsure if it was for the same website.
Recommendations
Recommendation 1: To improve scannability and organization and allow runners to easily discover the information they need, Boulderthon can use cards, drop-downs, or other visual design techniques that organize information and only display it when the user needs it.
Recommendation 2: Registration flow can be improved by remembering the race package [bundled races into packages] that is picked and keeping all of the registration flow consistent with the same branding.
Selection Consistency
Insight: Some of the participants thought that after they selected their race in the registration flow, it would default to the race they selected rather than automatically defaulting to the kids run, because they expected the website to remember their previous selection.
Race Menu Branding
Insight: Some participants expressed disliking for creating a new account on Race menus website because they felt it took them out of the flow from Boulderthon and were unsure if it was for the same website.
Recommendations
Recommendation 1: To improve scannability and organization and allow runners to easily discover the information they need, Boulderthon can use cards, drop-downs, or other visual design techniques that organize information and only display it when the user needs it.
Recommendation 2: Registration flow can be improved by remembering the race package [bundled races into packages] that is picked and keeping all of the registration flow consistent with the same branding.
Key Learnings
Upon conducting the research for migraine and how it affects people, I stumbled upon a crucial point: people suffering from migraines tend to journal their experience in order to recognize some obvious triggers and understand the effect it has on their headache.
Triggers are inherently disparate for everybody and the intensity varies. This further corroborated my preliminary hypothesis of how important it was to trace every aspect of your migraine in order to understand it and make it more bearable.
After talking to a bunch of people suffering from migraines, including students, faculty, administrators, and more I saw that migraines were more common amongst 30 to 40 somethings and not everyone was comfortable enough typing their triggers and symptoms on a computer or phone. They'd rather physically jot things down.
Competitive Analysis
Competitive Analysis
Competitive Analysis
Goal 2: Local Feel
Goal 2: Local Feel
Goal 2: Local Feel
Insight: Boulderthon’s website stands out in terms of local feel because of the photography and videos that display Boulder. Community impacts, callouts to the local community and businesses give the Boulderthon website a distinctly local feel in comparison to other major marathon websites.
Insight: Boulderthon’s website stands out in terms of local feel because of the photography and videos that display Boulder. Community impacts, callouts to the local community and businesses give the Boulderthon website a distinctly local feel in comparison to other major marathon websites.
Competitive Analysis
Competitive Analysis
Competitive Analysis
Goal 3: Navigation
Goal 3: Navigation
Goal 3: Navigation
Selection Consistency
Insight: The navigation menu has many options making it overwhelming for the user. Additionally, most of the users found certain menu titles confusing. Like challenges & streakers.
Recommendation
Align the navigation of the Boulderthon website with the navigation of other marathon websites:
Race
Race Information
About
Get Involved
Running Programs
Selection Consistency
Insight: The navigation menu has many options making it overwhelming for the user. Additionally, most of the users found certain menu titles confusing. Like challenges & streakers.
Recommendation
Align the navigation of the Boulderthon website with the navigation of other marathon websites:
Race
Race Information
About
Get Involved
Running Programs
Competitive Analysis
Competitive Analysis
Competitive Analysis
Boulderthon Navigation Issues
Boulderthon Navigation Issues
Boulderthon Navigation Issues
Users are not able to relate to categories (ex. “Challenges” & “Streakers” mentioned in navigation insights).
There is an opportunity to improve accessibility with the text and background colors to make it easier for people with visibility constraints.
Assign the logo to redirect to the home page to align with the convention
Users are not able to relate to categories (ex. “Challenges” & “Streakers” mentioned in navigation insights).
There is an opportunity to improve accessibility with the text and background colors to make it easier for people with visibility constraints.
Assign the logo to redirect to the home page to align with the convention
User Interviews
User Interviews
User Interviews
Task 1: "Discover race details, parking instructions, and starting line info on the official website."
Prompt: "You want to run the half marathon but need to find out all of the information you need to find the race, park at the location, and get to the starting line. Please find the information you need on their website."
Insight 1: Almost all participants did not succeed in find some/all of the information needed to learn about the race, park and shuttle to the start line because the information on the race pages was not easily scannable and too wordy.
Insight 2: Some of the participants thought the information was on the FAQ page but they had trouble finding it because they couldn't sort through all the questions efficiently.
Insight 3: Most of the participants were looking in the respective race page but failed to find the information because they stopped scrolling early or missed it when they scrolled down.
“I tried to find the parking information on the race page, didn’t find it there and then went on to the course map and was looking for a logo that indicated parking.”
Task 1: "Discover race details, parking instructions, and starting line info on the official website."
Prompt: "You want to run the half marathon but need to find out all of the information you need to find the race, park at the location, and get to the starting line. Please find the information you need on their website."
Insight 1: Almost all participants did not succeed in find some/all of the information needed to learn about the race, park and shuttle to the start line because the information on the race pages was not easily scannable and too wordy.
Insight 2: Some of the participants thought the information was on the FAQ page but they had trouble finding it because they couldn't sort through all the questions efficiently.
Insight 3: Most of the participants were looking in the respective race page but failed to find the information because they stopped scrolling early or missed it when they scrolled down.
“I tried to find the parking information on the race page, didn’t find it there and then went on to the course map and was looking for a logo that indicated parking.”
Competitive Analysis
Competitive Analysis
Competitive Analysis
Recommendations
In contrast to the Boulderthon website, Boston Marathon incorporates easily scannable cards that makes information digestible for their users.
Prominent companies that are leaders in information scanability such as Amazon use drop-downs on their FAQ page to make information easily scannable.
Prompt: “You are the parent of a child and have heard that Boulderthon has a race for kids. Your child is only able to run for 0.75 miles (3/4th mile), so you want to make sure the course is short enough for them. You also want to run with your kid and don’t want them running alone. Please find the relevant information that you would need to complete this task as you normally would.”
Insight 1: Almost all participants were not able to find that the parents could run alongside their kids [and for no extra charge] because the race page was too wordy and some of the most relevant information was not apparent on that page.
Insight 2: Almost all the participants thought that the description alongside the race they selected on the registration page would give them all the information needed because that is where they thought they could verify the information about the respective races.
“Yeah, I guess registration, I assume, like if I wanted to do. A registration would just tell me everything or that I would hopefully get a confirmation email after.”
Recommendations
In contrast to the Boulderthon website, Boston Marathon incorporates easily scannable cards that makes information digestible for their users.
Prominent companies that are leaders in information scanability such as Amazon use drop-downs on their FAQ page to make information easily scannable.
Prompt: “You are the parent of a child and have heard that Boulderthon has a race for kids. Your child is only able to run for 0.75 miles (3/4th mile), so you want to make sure the course is short enough for them. You also want to run with your kid and don’t want them running alone. Please find the relevant information that you would need to complete this task as you normally would.”
Insight 1: Almost all participants were not able to find that the parents could run alongside their kids [and for no extra charge] because the race page was too wordy and some of the most relevant information was not apparent on that page.
Insight 2: Almost all the participants thought that the description alongside the race they selected on the registration page would give them all the information needed because that is where they thought they could verify the information about the respective races.
“Yeah, I guess registration, I assume, like if I wanted to do. A registration would just tell me everything or that I would hopefully get a confirmation email after.”
Recommendations
In contrast to the Boulderthon website, Boston Marathon incorporates easily scannable cards that makes information digestible for their users.
Prominent companies that are leaders in information scanability such as Amazon use drop-downs on their FAQ page to make information easily scannable.
Prompt: “You are the parent of a child and have heard that Boulderthon has a race for kids. Your child is only able to run for 0.75 miles (3/4th mile), so you want to make sure the course is short enough for them. You also want to run with your kid and don’t want them running alone. Please find the relevant information that you would need to complete this task as you normally would.”
Insight 1: Almost all participants were not able to find that the parents could run alongside their kids [and for no extra charge] because the race page was too wordy and some of the most relevant information was not apparent on that page.
Insight 2: Almost all the participants thought that the description alongside the race they selected on the registration page would give them all the information needed because that is where they thought they could verify the information about the respective races.
“Yeah, I guess registration, I assume, like if I wanted to do. A registration would just tell me everything or that I would hopefully get a confirmation email after.”
Recommendations
In contrast to the Boulderthon website, Boston Marathon incorporates easily scannable cards that makes information digestible for their users.
Prominent companies that are leaders in information scanability such as Amazon use drop-downs on their FAQ page to make information easily scannable.
Prompt: “You are the parent of a child and have heard that Boulderthon has a race for kids. Your child is only able to run for 0.75 miles (3/4th mile), so you want to make sure the course is short enough for them. You also want to run with your kid and don’t want them running alone. Please find the relevant information that you would need to complete this task as you normally would.”
Insight 1: Almost all participants were not able to find that the parents could run alongside their kids [and for no extra charge] because the race page was too wordy and some of the most relevant information was not apparent on that page.
Insight 2: Almost all the participants thought that the description alongside the race they selected on the registration page would give them all the information needed because that is where they thought they could verify the information about the respective races.
“Yeah, I guess registration, I assume, like if I wanted to do. A registration would just tell me everything or that I would hopefully get a confirmation email after.”
Conclusion
Conclusion
Conclusion
1. Collaborative Presentation: Coordinated cross-team efforts to craft a client-ready presentation that distilled complex research into easily understandable insights.
2. Client Validation: Engaged in a thorough client presentation, effectively conveying our research process, findings, and recommendations, resulting in client agreement and initiation of recommended changes.
3. Actionable Insights: Translated research outcomes into practical recommendations that the client swiftly adopted, forwarding them to their internal development team.
4. Adaptable Methodology: Strategically selected research methods aligned with project constraints, demonstrating the ability to tailor approaches for maximum impact.
5. Versatile UX Research: Applied UX research techniques across development stages, uncovering interface challenges and contributing to an improved user experience and project success.
1. Collaborative Presentation: Coordinated cross-team efforts to craft a client-ready presentation that distilled complex research into easily understandable insights.
2. Client Validation: Engaged in a thorough client presentation, effectively conveying our research process, findings, and recommendations, resulting in client agreement and initiation of recommended changes.
3. Actionable Insights: Translated research outcomes into practical recommendations that the client swiftly adopted, forwarding them to their internal development team.
4. Adaptable Methodology: Strategically selected research methods aligned with project constraints, demonstrating the ability to tailor approaches for maximum impact.
5. Versatile UX Research: Applied UX research techniques across development stages, uncovering interface challenges and contributing to an improved user experience and project success.
1. Collaborative Presentation: Coordinated cross-team efforts to craft a client-ready presentation that distilled complex research into easily understandable insights.
2. Client Validation: Engaged in a thorough client presentation, effectively conveying our research process, findings, and recommendations, resulting in client agreement and initiation of recommended changes.
3. Actionable Insights: Translated research outcomes into practical recommendations that the client swiftly adopted, forwarding them to their internal development team.
4. Adaptable Methodology: Strategically selected research methods aligned with project constraints, demonstrating the ability to tailor approaches for maximum impact.
5. Versatile UX Research: Applied UX research techniques across development stages, uncovering interface challenges and contributing to an improved user experience and project success.