Improving Backcountry Safety Awareness
A feature proposed by my team at SFU to enhance Avalanche Canada's existing app, designed to help inexperienced backcountry skiers make safer and more informed decisions by streamlining access to critical safety information for when it matters most.
COMPANY
Avalanche Canada
ROLE
UX UI Designer
TIMELINE
2 Weeks
TOOLS
Figma
01 - OVERVIEW
The Client
Avalanche Canada is a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing public safety in Canada's winter backcountry. They provide daily avalanche forecasts, educational programs, awareness campaigns, and conduct research and data collection to improve forecast accuracy and develop tools for reducing incidents.
MISSION STATEMENT
To inspire, engage, and empower recreationists to enjoy Canada's winter backcountry and be safe from avalanches.
02 - RESEARCH
Key Data Insights
While researching Avalanche Canada and their existing tools, we began to uncover a broader issue. Post COVID, the popularity of backcountry sports such as skiing, and snowmobiling had been steadily rising, bringing a growing number of inexperienced individuals into high-risk terrain.
Coinciding with this surge was a notable increase in avalanche-related fatalities, pointing to a clear gap between the growth of the sport and the safety knowledge of those entering it. This became especially apparent during the 2022/2023 season, one of the deadliest on record for avalanche-related fatalities in British Columbia
Over 4,400 backcountry access tickets were sold at Whistler Blackcomb in 2023, a 17% increase from the previous season.
— Whistler Blackcomb Resort, 2023
12 avalanche-related deaths recorded in the 2022/2023 season, the highest since 2016 and 4th highest in over two decades.
— BC Coroner's Service, 2023
03 - USER RESEARCH
Lack of Access
This gap in safety knowledge was further compounded by how Avalanche Canada's information was being delivered. While they offer a wealth of safety resources on their website, this content is only accessible online through their website and not included within their application. For newcomers who need to ensure they are well-prepared before heading out, this presents a real challenge, especially in areas where reception may be lost.
With these findings in mind, we conducted a series of interviews with backcountry skiers of differing levels to better understand the problem from the user's perspective. We wanted to know how they were learning, what information they struggled with, and how confident they felt making safety decisions in the field. What emerged consistently was that most struggled to learn the necessary material when initially starting out which impacted their confidence.
“I think the biggest thing was finding partners as a beginner who were ok with mentoring and letting me ask dumb questions. A lot of the culture expects you to be knowledgeable right off the bat, which can lead to people overselling their abilities or knowledge in order to not sound dumb.”
— Experienced backcountry skier, 6 years experience
“I think the hardest thing for me was being able to be confident in my snow readings. I can identify the different slab types however I struggle to be confident when I’m actually skiing in these high risk areas which is why I like using the app to see good areas to go.”
— Inexperienced backcountry skier, 1 year experience
“I like to review my knowledge and terminology before the start of a reason to refresh but I wish there was a more straightforward refresher video page for people to watch or read a bit easier instead of having to click through the entire dictionary for terms.”
— Inexperienced backcountry skier, 2 years experience
04 - DEFINE
Problem Statement
As the number of inexperienced backcountry skiers rises, so does the risk of avalanche incidents. With limited support for out in the field, newcomers can’t access critical information if needed.
Framing
How might we streamline critical information for inexperienced backcountry skiers, enabling them to make confident, informed decisions and increase their safety when in the backcountry?
04 - WIREFRAMING
Structuring The Info
With the problem defined, we moved into wireframing to explore how the feature could be structured within Avalanche Canada's existing app. The focus at this stage was on information architecture, how to organize and surface critical safety content in a way that felt intuitive and quick to navigate for users who may be under pressure in the field.