Roles: Strategy, UX Research, UX, Copywriting.
When selling information,
it does not matter what you know,
if your customer does not know
you know it.
Summary
This project was completed during the 2019-2020 CMCI Studio professional masters
OnTheSnow.com, a property of Vail Mountain Resorts, is the world's largest snow report and ski resort resource and it’s entirely free. The client predates the internet and has decades of incredible content nested within their website's architecture, but sadly their users weren’t finding it and were opting to join competitors that required a paid subscription. It was my job to figure out how to reorganize OnTheSnow’s content and user flows to guide their users to exactly where they wanted to be.
We used a task-based information architecture. This included a parallel set of breadcrumbs that let users choose their level of investment in the website. We also focused on the incredible and historical FREE content that sets On The Snow apart in the marketplace. With these two approaches in mind my teams and I created the blueprint for the redesign of OnTheSnow.com that is currently online.
It's a long story, so lets start at the end.
Website Comparisons
Mobile
Old New
Desktop
Old
New
The Beginning
As we began the project we had a simple goal: increase the number of returning users to the website. The overall traffic was high, but users were leaving and not returning while the competition was growing. The first step was to figure out why this was the case.
After a SWOT analysis it became clear that the competition, such as opensnow.com, had websites that were designed to direct a user to download an app that required a yearly paid subscription. Once that investment was made the user was locked into that brand for the year and likely would continue to re-up their subscription every year after out of convenience.
To that end, we needed to do two things.
We needed to create a compelling user experience that could compete with the websites pushing their apps and do so within the short timeframe that users were on OnTheSnow.com
We needed to show the user that the compelling experience was not only competitive with other winter sports websites, it was FREE. This was the hard part, as free information is inherently seen as less valuable and that’s what OnTheSnow is selling. Even free aspirin is less effective at treating headaches than aspirin a user has paid for.
User Research
My group started to do user research on what people most wanted to know about as they made their winter sports decisions. I wrote a survey that was sent out to eight people that regularly skied. I also designed an interview that my team used for in person work. We then interviewed many people, I personally interviewed ten.
The demographics of the users we interviewed, transformed into personas:
four mid twenties bachelors who were willing to get up at five in the morning to go ski,
two married couples, both with children, that skied as a family activity, and
two elderly gentlemen that regularly booked expensive vacations at ski resorts.
Here is a summary of the research findings
The 4 young men
Actionable Insights
All had Epic or Ikon ski passes, used the pass app for information primarily
Instagram or other social media was a secondary information source for weather
Were willing to travel and take off work for a great snow day
“The snow comes when it comes”, extremely spontaneous trip planning
“I like finding old friends on the slopes in the morning, but I’m mostly there for the adrenaline.”
-Mike
“Mostly it’s if I can get there before the mountain gets packed. Hell is other people.”
-Ryan
“Roads, man. I’ll ski closer if I know I can actually get there. Nothing worse than leaving at 5 and getting there at 8.”
-Chris
“I ski before work, and I work from home. I’ll go if I know I can get an hour and be back by 12.”
-Eric
The married couples with children
4 people total
Aged 38-56
Actionable Insights
Snow and weather quality is not a factor unless it’s absolutely terrible
Typically a membership to a single resort rather than a pass
Information from resort websites or wherever on the day, (SEO a factor)
Will turn the car around if children are misbehaving
“It’s nice to have time to ski at all, I’m too busy to be picky”
-Al
“If it was just me I might not go at all, I’m exhausted, but it’s important for the kids and Bryan to get out.”
-Sarah
The 2 elderly, affluent men that book expensive resort vacations
Aged 64-72
Actionable Insights
Historical data was important for the first booking
Typically no pass or seasonal membership at all
A reputable seasonal forecast is important when planning yearly vacations. (could just go to the swiss alps)
“I honestly barely ski even when I’m there, knee’s can’t handle too much of it. Cross country is a compromise. I want to know how sticky the snow is.”
-Gary
Strategy
From these interviews we pulled out three core values to highlight with respect to OnTheSnow’s data.
That the data was Reliable. As we sorted through the OTS assets that could tell that story we found that Chris Tomer, On The Snow’s contracted meteorologist, was in fact an award-winning author and quite famous. We could use his brand to sell the quality of the data. We could also use webcams to offer reliable and current weather information that Instagram couldn’t.
Families can’t guarantee when they’re going to be skiing. They need flexibility and they need short-term forecasts, but the accuracy of these forecasts doesn’t need to be perfect. For them, a Free service that’s good enough has just as much value as an accurate paid service.
That for expensive resort reservations, Historical Data and accurate seasonal forecasting was extremely important. OnTheSnow has more of a claim to that kind of data than anyone else in their industry.
We then redesigned an entire website, but I’m going to show only what much of my work consisted of, the first thing the user sees. We only had so much time to hook the user into a promise they’d be interested in us delivering on.
Mobile
Desktop
Feedback And New Solutions
On the snow reviewed this and had some feedback.
First, they needed their large ad to stay for financial reasons. Second, they needed to maintain their SEO above all else.
If this enormous ad was going to be the first thing the user sees, it was an opportunity to put the ad in the context of the website.
In other words, it was the perfect opportunity for a value proposition.
To make a long story shorter, miscommunications about what the OnTheSnow.com backend was capable of meant that much of the incredible design work my team did could not be implemented.
My approach could be.
That's a lot of text, but OnTheSnow has the best SEO in their category as well, and this was an opportunity they took full advantage of.
3 mistakes I made and things I learned
1. Always, always check the entirety of the clients backend for issues in terms of servers and service design. A client's cms is just the beginning, especially if they're a company with a legacy like OnTheSnow
2. Some of the cleanest and best work I saw produced for OnTheSnow didn't make it off the cutting room floor because we didn't start on our design systems soon enough and the work just did not fit. Fast is slow, slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
3. Branding information isn't the same thing as branding a company. It's necessary to differentiate between the tangible product itself and the emotional, enduring benefits of a branded experience. When the product is information itself the lines between the product and the brand begin to blur, and this is not intuitive. Taking the time to prove to a client that their case is special is always worth it. Covid-19 has hit a lot of industries very hard and the winter sports industry is one of them. Here's to hoping things get better sooner rather than later.
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