Fish Off — Elevate your fishing experience with FishOff, because every catch counts !!
Role: UX/UI Designer
Industry: Fishing
Tools: Figma
Duration: 4 months
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OVERVIEW
An All-In-One Fishing App Solution
People who fish (for fun and sport) often use multiple apps for different features. The goal was to create a single fishing app with all the essential features one might need, simplifying the fishing experience for all skill levels. I was the designer, developer, and leader of the project, overseeing its development, defining its features, and ensuring my app met the needs of the user.
BACKGROUND
Problems & Goals
When I started the process of creating the app FishOff, the goal was to design an app for those interested in fishing where the user can learn, find hotspots, share their catches, etc., all in the palm of their hand. Initially, I knew this concept would be challenging since many fish apps already have these functions, so I had to think about ways to differentiate the app and make it unique.
Some of the problems I came across during the initial process and what the users' pain points were
that a lot of users felt that there was inconsistency & difficulty when it came to finding consistent fishing spots as most places were out of date when fishing their daily logs, it lacked personalization, limited social features so the users did not like the fact that they weren't able to share their catches & the
main problem was not having reliable information when it came to weather conditions, regulations,
fish activity.
So, I decided to create a competitive analysis and perceptual map of all the competitive fishing applications & decided to focus my goals on these pain points.
Users & Audience
My primary target for my user's targets was anybody interested in fishing, from novices to experienced hobbyists with a passion for fishing. Age-wise, I primarily focused on 18–65 years, but when I did my surveys, I noticed that many users were between the ages of 18–25. Regarding ethnicity, the survey results indicated that most were white or European. Still, as I had stated before, I wanted the app to be open to anybody & everybody regardless of age, gender, or ethnicity. The focus was on individuals who love the outdoors and nature, feel relaxed whenever it comes to fishing, want to improve their fishing skills, and have that social bonding experience with friends and family. During research, I noticed that many users needed updated data and forecasting, fishing spot discovery, up-to-date fishing laws and restrictions, an offline mode, and, most importantly, social features. The users' main frustrations were unreliable or incomplete data, apps requiring too much effort to log catches, and downloading many different apps to use other features, making fishing apps inefficient. The app addresses these needs with features such as up-to-date data & forecasting, comprehensive fishing spot discovery, up-to-date fishing laws and restrictions, an efficient offline mode, and engaging social features.
DESIGN
Design Approach/Solution
During the design process stage for the fishing app, several key principles guided my decisions to ensure that the app was user-friendly, functional, and, most importantly, valuable to users of all skill levels. I wanted to ensure that there was simplicity & clarity throughout the app to eliminate clutter
and provide straightforward navigation, build my app with a deep understanding of my users' needs
and frustrations.
When creating my mood board, I envisioned and attempted to achieve a user-friendly, passionate, fun, knowledgeable, and trustworthy app. I want users to feel motivated, excited, satisfied, & alleviated when using the fishing app. I wanted to accomplish this mainly because of my user's pain points, needs, wants & frustrations and because fishing should be enjoyable and meaningful.
Design & Branding Elements
When it came down to developing my designs & branding elements, I made sure to research everything regarding colors, typography, logos, and imagery. Eventually, I came to a final decision on creating my final high-fidelity prototypes.
First, I decided to go with my main icons (feed, forecast, Maps, & Menu) because these were the users' main frustrations, so I wanted to make them as accessible as possible to reduce that frustration. Secondly, I did a lot of research and consideration when it came to choosing my typography & the reason why I decided on Roboto & Playfair Display as my main two typography choices was because they were more readable to the eye and what worked with my designs when designing them.
When making my logo, I was inspired to incorporate a fish since it's the reason for creating the app. I drew multiple sketches and designed them in Illustrator. Eventually, I decided to proceed with my final logo design because I felt it had a cleaner, more modern design than the other options. My design choices support my branding goals and challenges by establishing trust and professionalism, making the app feel more authoritative; the colors and icons ensure the app is accessible & engageable.
Developmental Details & Conclusion
Development
I conducted a closed card sorting exercise with six participants; most participants were beginner fishers aged 18–25. They sorted features like "Guides or Tutorials," "Fishing Spots," and "Species Identifier" into categories. While most categorizations exceeded my expectations, users struggled to place friends in either "community" or "socials." This created an interesting challenge for me as I had to work out multiple tests & surveys to find the desired category that would bring a clear & intuitive design when it finally came to creating my prototypes. In site mapping, I initially structured the app around local region-based navigation. Still, testing showed that the users preferred a filter catch-based navigation, where they could search their local region & filter for the specific fish to find the probability of finding that fish in the area. The revised map featured clear labels & instructions ensuring quick access to desired spots & desired fish.
Wireframing
The main feature I pursued for the fishing app was designing an interface that would simplify
theuser's need to find local hotspots.
I started with low-fidelity wireframes using pen and paper to sketch basic layouts, focusing on navigation flow and feature placement.
Once I had a clear structure, I used Figma to create grid systems to lay out my app's appearance in desktop, tablet, & phone view. I then moved on to making more low-fidelity wireframes on Figma & mapping out the key visual / features & interactive elements.
Once I mapped everything out, I created my first round of high-fidelity wireframes incorporating interactive elements for testing. After the first round of feedback, I adjusted the map interface, as users found the original layout too cluttered. I prioritized a clean, interactive map with clearly marked hotspots and a filter for fish species. Users also struggled to save the fishing spots they searched for, so I added icons and color-coded them to differentiate them. These iterations ensured that the Hotspots feature was intuitive and efficient, helping my users quickly find and save their preferred fishing locations.
Final Designs
My final design focused on a clean, nature-inspired design that reflected the outdoor fishing experience. I chose a blue and light grey color palette to represent water and natural landscapes, ensuring high contrast for readability. I used Playfair display for headings and Roboto for body text to enhance readability for typography. To Improve the usability of my app, I incorporated micro-interactions, such as highlighting icons when selected and a display prompt confirming when a fishing spot was saved to make the experience more engaging.
I created an interactive high-fidelity prototype in Figma, simulating fundamental interactions with the map and getting hotspot directions. During usability testing, some users found the hotspot markers too small on mobile screens, so I increased their size and added a highlighting effect for better visuality. Others struggled with the search button, causing me to simplify its design and use a transparent icon so it could be visible.
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Key Insights
Throughout the design process, from beginning to end, I identified and addressed my users' key pain points when using hotspots/fishing spots that did not have accurate data or were too complicated to use. The designs alleviate these paint points firstly by simplifying the interface of the hotspots to make the key icons like searching, weather data, & filters easily accessible & persistent; I noticed that it reduced the average time to locate & find specific fishing spots. Then, I implement reliable information by using reviews and laws to ease the users' decisions in finding the fishing spots they are searching for.
One of my strongest design decisions was incorporating a visually clean, nature-inspired color scheme, making the app's branding as reliable as the outdoors companion app it's intended to be. I also implemented UI trends such as micro-interactions to create an engaging but functional app. However, there were some limitations due to time constraints. I couldn't fully refine the process of having a search history & having access to saved locations as my users desired. The social media feature also received positive feedback, but I couldn't implement it in this phase.
CONCLUSION
Next Steps
For the next steps in refining & and improving the fishing app, I plan to have more user testing to assess how well the revised layout performs over time. I also intend to conduct A/B Testing on the filtering option for finding specific fish in the local area & compare my current step-by-step flow with a more customizable version to conclude which would better suit the user's needs. Additionally, I aim to implement the socials feature, as the feedback that I had and from my users' pain points shows that it is a feature of high interest. I want to create multiple different designs & interfaces, then have users test the designs to get feedback on what they prefer and improve on it even more.
From a business perspective, the improved design directly supported the app's engagement. By making features more accessible, I enhanced the user experience by creating a more straightforward interface to increase how fast the user could find the key features in a precise & timely manner, which aligned with the client's objectives of finding accessible & reliable data quickly. Through this project, I learned the importance of iterative design, & user feedback continuously shaping my app throughout the stages, proving that even minor adjustments significantly impacted usability. Moving forward, I will apply these insights to my future by testing through various steps and always focusing on the user's pain points to create seamless user experiences.
