[Rebrand] Mt. Bachelor ski resort - research phase

I wanted to do this personal project to show my design process. Of course every company is different and the process will be adapted accordingly. The project is separated into 4 different sessions:

1. Research

2. Design Brief

3. Logo Ideation

4. Style Guide and Application

As I just started this project, I didn’t expect COVID-19 will cause the world-wide shut down and all the ski resorts closed earlier than they planned. Since I’ve been quarantined at home, I couldn’t get all the interview done. Ideally I would like to get more data from different demography and get the ski resort involved.

Brief intro

Mt. Bachelor is a volcano located in Central Oregon. The ski resort is one of the biggest ski resort in the US (#6 in terms of the area.) It’s a volcano so you actually can ski 360°.

It’s owned by Powdr Corp which is also the company that owns Woodward. If you are not familiar with Woodward, it’s an action sports company. That’s also the reason why Bachelor terrain park got branded as Woodward in 19/20 season.
It also offers nordic skiing and tubing in winter; mountain biking in summer.

competitors

There are two types of competition for Bachelor - nation-wide and local.
For nation-wide competitors, I would point out the humongous corporates in ski industry - Vail and Alterra. Vail owns Epic pass, and Alterra owns Ikon pass. They both include crazy amount of ski resorts in the US and international destinations. If you’re a skier/snowboarder, you know the ski resorts included in these two passes got hammered by tourists.

Since Mt. Bachelor is not part of Epic or Ikon pass, most of the visitors are local or PNW dwellers. The competitors are the mountain resorts that’s located in the vicinity.

audience

Currently customer profile is local people living in Central Oregon (Bend, Sun River, Eugene) and weekenders from Portland. Local people usually buys season pass; city weekenders usually get 4-day pass. I roughly outline the four main types of audience-

Here’s the more detailed version (they’re based on my observation):

Fun Chaser
Skiing/snowboarding is their life. Most of them work at ski resort or have a part-time job at night that doesn’t affect their ski schedule. The style! It’s all about the style! They usually stay in park where they find most of the fun is - but if they go out, they make other people look like beginners.

Mountain Goat
They live in Bend or Sunriver and likely are weekday or senior pass holders. On powder days they would go on the mountain get some fresh turns in the morning and get back to work later. They’re decent in what they’re doing and not afraid to shred on the gnarly terrain.

Summit Achiever
It’s not surprising to see a Gopro on their helmets. They usually have experience traveling to different ski resorts across North America. If the summit lift is open, they’ll be in the line. This type of user has higher chance morphing to backcountry skiers and ditch ski resort.

Groomer Taker
They usually come with family and are the main contributors to the lodge. They would come early on a weekend, spend whole day at ski resort, and take a lot of photos. Restricted by the days they can come out skiing, they might have skied for many years but still stick with groomers. They probably have a Summit Achiever Dad.

user research - interview

The goal of the interview is understanding who they are and their experience at Mt. Bachelor. Ideally (without being quarantined), the interview will be targeting 4 different users:

• Park rider, very experienced

• Mountain cruiser, intermediate level, local

• Around 40 yo have 2-3 kids

• Expert knowledge in Bachelor 

I did manage to do two interview before the COVID-19 outbreak.

I don’t do survey or traditional interview. People usually give the answers you want, or they think who they are. Here’s the diagram showing different approach that can reach to different levels of human psychology.

I listed the questions I would like to know from the users, and designed the practice with different research tools.

The process is almost like a therapy. Interviewer has to carefully listen to what user say and ask questions to dig deepr.

Along with the marketing research, the design team will filter the data and generate insights. The next step will be creating design brief, 6 attributes, and mood board.

How can a company respond to COVID-19?

We don’t know how long the quarantine is gonna last but we do know most of the business got affected. People are losing their jobs as things are shutting down. Even if the current situation magically improves in a month and everyone is free to walk outside again, the economy is not gonna bounce back immediately. People will change their behavior in purchasing, working, social, etc. Regardless what’s the government policy for the next step, let’s just admit:

It sucks.

But let’s not bitch about it. Nor criticize the people who just went outside of their houses. You can embrace the changes.

Remote work actually works

I’ve been working at home for a long time, and I love it. I never like to work in the office and being interrupted or listening to coworkers chit-chatting for an hour straight. I have the idea that the less time you’re sitting in front of your laptop working, the more free time you have for yourself. I also love how much less traffic it is in the city (at this moment I’m in Salt Lake City). The air quality has been hugely improved. (This is the real news in China.) For a company, you need less or no working space. For individual, you spend your time wisely and locate those free time to do something you love.

Online service

I’m kinda bummed that I didn’t buy Zoom stock before all of this happened. Online communication is way more demanding than it has ever been. I don’t think online communication will totally replace face-to-face after things get settled. But some people are realizing lots of things can be done by sitting at home. Again, saving the traffic time. That’s being said, offering online service (with the huge discount offering now) is the way to go. Adobe already offered two free months for all Creative Clouds products. If you need to take the damage better take the future potential customers with you.

Door to door service

When Park City announced to shut down for 30 days, some restaurants started to offer deliver-to-door service. It’s a great idea for a business to minimize the impact. They still can operate, and pay their employees. So people still can pay their ridiculous rent in Park City. Lots of my friends are saying they don’t know what to eat now (since they usually don’t cook). That’s an opportunity to fulfill their needs.

Invest in Research

For companies that are selling physical products, I suggest to rethink about your brand positioning and review all the product lines. Drop the ones that don’t align with your brand. Only keep the core ones, and create the new products based on the new findings at this time. Streamline your products. Keep it lean. Make something that will really resonate in your tribe.

support your tribe

At this time, people appreciate any small helps. Depending on where you are at financially, supporting the community is a great way to create the bond. For example, some restaurants in Bend offer free meal for those who got laid off because of COVID-19 quarantine. Not saying doing this merely for the purpose of promoting brands. Your audience has been supporting you along the way. Giving a hang and showing gratitude will make this people think this brand is own by human.

enjoy it now, pay it later

If you know your product is more like a luxury product for users (something it’s nice to have a new one but it’s not necessary; it’s also more expensive), it’s nice to offer installment plan. People during this time is less willing to spend their spending on something that is not essential. Give them a chance to get something that will make them happy while not burdening their current financial situation.

do good

Similar to support your tribe, but extend to people that are not your users/ audience. For example, donate food to low-income families; provide products to those who need; give a certain percentage of profit to the organization that’s fighting COVID-19. It’s time to help each other to get through this difficult time together.

Every company’s product or service is different. You might find some useful and some not applicable. If you want to talk more, feel free to contact me: cerrateng@gmail.com

Delighted, by a coconut

My husband and I went to a Thai restaurant after climbing few days ago. We haven’t gone out eating for a while since we both are decent at cooking. Honestly I’ve been just disappointed about the food here. It’s usually overpriced, and the quality is meh.

This place is quite nice and the leather-cover menu uses the paper with texture. The price of the food is higher than average so I have higher expectation. I grew up in Asia and had been to Thailand several times. Therefore I’ve hold higher standard for Asian food. After browsing through menu hundred times, I decided to have Panang curry. My husband got some appetizers to share.

The photo I took long time ago when I was in South East Asia.

When the food came out, it displays nicely. The flavor is traditional but the presentation has a more modern fashion. When my curry came out, it’s in a coconut. There’s a glass next to it. I asked what’s inside of the glass. The waiter says it’s the coconut water coming out from that coconut.

I’m surprised. I didn’t expect that.

I was really happy they used a fresh coconut that has great coconut water and tasty coconut meat. It reminds me that I used to drink all the coconut water when I bought a coconut from a street vendor in Thailand, and brought it back to the vendor asking them to chop it half for me. So I could eat the meat. It reminds my husband that how much coconut water he drank when he was living in Hawaii.

It is such a simple thing that makes me happy.

They honestly don’t need to put curry into a coconut. I’m pretty sure it’s still delicious. But I think it’s a little extra thing that makes people feel connected - connected to a place, a period of time, a piece of memory. Maybe that was not their intention. But that makes me feel this place put thoughts into people’s experience.

The gaps

This article is a general observation in outdoor industry. Some personal bias is involved.

Have you noticed that most product design teams are dominated by male and marketing teams are all girls? Product design is a thing; branding and marketing is another thing. Product team created a product rooted from user experience, and marketing team makes strategy based on the numbers. Even if they have meetings together periodically, they pass the specs not emotion aspect of a design.

words lose in transition

Especially when a company gets bigger, the collaboration between team also gets thinner.

Branding, website and marketing campaign should come from user product experience. But marketing team usually doesn’t have any product design experience or knowledge. Some of them are not even users. They come out with the strategy or advertisement that doesn’t speak to the products. It becomes a feature-naming game that confuses the users. Or it eventually becomes a price-slashing campaign that entices those fishing for deals.

People buy feelings

Convey the story how a product is come out. Give your product a solid test. Come out with a campaign that you’re convinced as a user. Don’t do the campaign because it’s what you like; do the ones that your audience will like.

I don’t care about international women’s day but I want more women in outdoor industry, in product design

Most of my snowboarding outfit is menswear. Why? Because I’m sick of pink or super feminine design in women’s apparel. In male-dominated product design team, they used to make women products by make it smaller, make it shorter and make it pink. (There has been improvement nowadays as big companies have added color specialists in their team.) There are some women in technical apparel design but they are mostly not users. They’re more at the fashion side. Why do we need woman product designer who’s a big time mountaineer or crushing 5.13s on rocks? Because she likely will design something that’s functional and fits women’s needs. Not saying men can’t design good stuff for women. It will require lots of empathy and tremendous amount of research. I’ve climbed with guys most of the time and they never understand how physically weak women naturally are…(They always say “oh I think it’s easy” and I really want to punch into their face.)

Switch it up

One thing we can do is switching product design and marketing team’s job for a day, periodically. (Human brain doesn’t change that fast if you only give it one try.) Learning what other’s are doing and understand the challenges. Some people might hate it. But it will help building the empathy between the teams. And your brand will be consistent inside out.

[Case Study] Turtle Fur - what works and what doesn't

Every time I saw this Turtle Fur, I was wondering if turtle really has fur… Anyway, this company which was founded in 1982 created the awesome neck warmer to keep you warm in snowy winter. When my husband just purchased the product on Amazon, he noticed the logo has changed.

Just by looking at them without knowing their process and their story, I would say it’s hard to make it worse. The original one looks like a kid’s brand.

What works

• Clean silhouette than the cartoon version of a turtle can sell to broader audience. It also looks higher quality.

• Huge improvement in logotype.

• Love they use lowercase on logotype to convey the idea they’re family and kids-friendly. The lowercase rule is also applied through out the website.

Not sure…

• They put so much details on turtle toes… (That was what I noticed at the first glance.)

• Why there’s a frame around the turtle?

Now look at their website to check the “look and feel”. I’m not sure when they redesigned it but it looks like recent work.

What works

• Color palette is welcoming, family-friendly, and natural.

• Slab serif and sans-serif font combination works pretty well.

• The lowercase rule is applied through out the website.

• Really like the topo map graphic element in the middle. It’s subtle and not too distracting.

what works

• Navigation looks really clean and nicely organized with the lines.

what doesn’t works

• women’s collections is confusing. What’s the difference between “collections” and “styles"? Truckers are in two different categories.

Let’s keep scrolling the homepage. And here’s the part I feel confused.

What doesn’t work…

• For the 3 categories “Shop kid’s best seller” they use different fonts and colors. Why don’t they just have 3 basic categories kids, men’s, women’s?

• “Read more” button font is off

• The bottom text looks randomly place. I can kinda tell there are 3 equal columns. But without any lines, the uneven space makes the layout look bad.

And here’s the footer

What doesn’t work…

• It definitely needs more hierarchy in this space. It’s really hard to find the page I want especially the sub-menu doesn’t group it really well. Some items have several lines and the space between items are not big enough to differentiate them. This part drives me insane.

• The logos at the bottom are partners? I don’t know why they need to put blurry logos there that no one can read.

I’m not going to audit every product page or this article will be too long. Let’s check out their Project Warmth.

What doesn’t work…

• The topo map graphic as the background is too busy. Makes the line opacity down to 30% or less so the text is legible.

Their step by step illustration on desktop version is too big and I’m also not in love with the illustration style. This part looks ok on mobile version .

If you keep scrolling down you’ll see their donation list -

What doesn’t work…

• Looks like just dumping the whole excel sheet here. It’s great that you offer a list but who’s gonna read through it? Whatever you put on the website you need to put thoughts into it. You can make the whole list into another pdf (for whoever is interested.) Or one of the easiest way to organize is using filter Type and it shows the list under a certain type. The name with hyperlinks allow people to go to individual site.

• There’s no left, right padding so all the info touching to the edge of the page.

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This is just a very basic assessment in design elements, layout and storytelling without any user testing. The goal is trying to give non-designers an example that a small detail can change how user experiences the online shopping experience. For me personally, I have very little patience trying to figure out or find things on websites. If it’s too hard to use I’ll close the window right away. Don’t tell me you never feel frustrated when you’re browsing on the internet!