High Altitude - High Demands

Freytag & Berndt, renowned for their high-quality outdoor maps and hiking guides, sought to reflect the same standards in their Rother hiking app. To achieve this, they collaborated with us to conduct a detailed UI/UX audit.​

Project Goals

The primary objective was to enhance the app's value for both existing and new users, aiming to convert them into satisfied, paying customers. This involved a thorough examination of the app to identify and address usability flaws, all within a feasible budget and timeframe.​

Phase 1 - Set learning objectives

Where do we make the biggest impact? Not all areas of an app are equally important. Some tasks are performed over and over again by users while other screens are hardly ever visited.

Based on the most performed user tasks and the priorities freytag & berndt defined, we formulated clear learning objectives and set 5 specific focus areas for expert analysis and user testing.

#1 We want to learn what the difficulties and ambiguities of users are when getting started with the app.

#2 We want to learn about the users’ needs in terms of inspiration, planning, execution of a tour and afterwards and what priority these have for them.

#3 We want to learn where users have uncertainties and difficulties while using the app.

#4 We want to learn how to better explain the differences between free and paid versions ​to users.

#5 We want to learn how to bring the USP "curated routes and content" closer to users.

Phase 2 - UI/UX expert analysis

Now it was time for our UX experts to have a look at the app. Utilizing established usability heuristics and adopting the perspective of end-users, our team began to examine the existing app from all angles. 

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We examined the general user flow, interface, navigation, interactions, feedback mechanisms, brand consistency, where time could be saved and where users might face usability issues, friction points or fail to complete their tasks.

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All usability issues and deficiencies we could find were collected -In the next step we tried to find out if the "real" users would encounter the same problems - or find more of them.

Phase 3 - User-testing

A well-known principle of usability studies states that with only 5 user tests, ~80% of the core problems of an application can be identified. In accordance with this principle, we conducted user tests by talking to both new (2) and existing users (3).

The user-tests were conduced remotely - each user shared their phone screen, while also sitting in front of a PC, so we could observe their behavior while also seeing what they were doing within the app.

The users received specific tasks to complete in the app, after that we kept interruptions and asking questions to a minimum - to keep the tests an observation, rather than an interview.Through these interactions, we were able to identify pain points in the app's usage and gain valuable feedback on what functions are working well and which require further improvement.