KWADKLUB
Kwadklub is a social network for FPV (First Person View) Drone Pilots.
The company Kwadklub was founded in 2021 by Raphael Freitas and Ana Breljak and the company’s goal is "create a home for FPV pilots, where they can connect, share their experiences and help each other".
In this project, I worked with Natália Garces and Marcele Mendes de Oliveira sharing responsibilities of all the tasks: research, define the problem, ideate, select solutions, prototype and test.
Pen & Paper, Figma, Google Forms, Numbers, Pages, Keynote, Google Drive, Procreate, Post-its.
The work was done in the first two weeks of March 2023, as part of UX/UI Design Ironhack full time bootcamp.
PROBLEM: LOOKING FOR SPOTS AND SPOTTERS
First-Person View (FPV) is a method used to control a radio-controlled vehicle from the pilot’s point of view. To fly FPV drones, the pilot wears a set of goggles that allow him to see what the drone's camera is seeing.
This sport/hobby is challenging because it is immersive; the pilot is not aware of the world around him. They can see the environment only through the drone’s camera lens.
That is why, according to the regulations, the flight must always take place with one more person (called a “spotter”).
Another issue is about the places to fly. It is not allowed to fly anywhere; they are special places (called “spots”) where the practice is authorized.
SOLUTION: A FPV SOCIAL NETWORK
Gathering the needs of users and the objectives of entrepreneurs, we chose to develop a specific social network for FPV pilots.
This network would be different from the others because it has the option for the pilot to share interesting and safe places to fly and, in addition, ways to find a spotter, or accompanying pilot.
The forum and store features were shown, but not developed, due to lack of time.
THE DESIGN PROCESS
[1] discover
This is the most important phase of the process, because it is the key to understand all about the project.
Secondary research
We researched competitors apps that offered ways to connect FPV pilots. We found only two social networks specialized in this audience: Family FPV and Airvūz.
Family FPV is the most complete, with a feed in Tiktok format, a place for conversations and a marketplace.
Airvūz is just a beautiful collection of FPV winner videos of challenges.
There are also three more apps dedicated to showing flight spots (Drone Spot, Drone-Spot and Spotfindr) and an app that works as a forum (IDRL).
None of them provide information about the fleet, that is, which model of drone the pilot used to produce the photo/video when posting the content.
This is a information that Raphael, as a pilot, misses a lot and would like to include in this project.
As indirect competitors, we found Instagram, Youtube and Facebook, where FPV pilots share their experiences and Reddit, to solve technical problems.
SURVEY
With the time we had to develop the project (less than two weeks), we did not have the opportunity to personally interview the FPV pilots (lack of space in their schedule).
We had Raphael, but we believed his point of view was biased because he was also our client. So we decided to do an online survey.
Sharing the Google form in FPV groups on special networks and inviting some of them privately, we got 15 responses from pilots all over the world.
We got some interesting insights: 100% was male, among 18 and 50 years old. Most of them (46.7%) flight on cinematic mode and only 13,3% racing.
About 87% customize and repair drones themselves. There is an inside joke that FPV pilots spend 50% of their time flying and 50% of their time repairing equipment. That's why fleet information and marketplace are so important.
We asked about the main challenges they face when it comes to FPV drone experiences. The most voted answers (they are open) were:
- finding good places (80%)
- find people in the community to fly together (46.7%)
- safety and regulations (40%)
- find a drone spotter (20%)
We asked also about what they like to share on social networks (most used were Instagram, Facebook, Youtube and Reddit). The answers were:
- pictures and videos
- tips for beginners
- old parts
- new tricks
- quad builds and specifications (fleet)
- fails
- jokes
- sales.
[2] DEFINE
At this point we have enough information to define the problem based on previous research.
User persona and the problem statement
Based on the research information, we were able to build the user persona: Lukas Maier, a young FPV pilot, for whom
“Flying an FPV drone is having the freedom to see the world from another perspective”.
But at the same time, he feels frustrated because it’s hard to find good places and people to fly with.
These quotes were adapted from users comments.
After organize an affinity map, built a persona (Lukas Meier), the user journey and the empathy map, we finally defined the problem statement:
"A FPV pilot needs to find a location and someone to fly with"
[3] DEVELOP
In this phase, we develop a solution to solve the main problem identified.
Concept
To solve the user problem, we thought of building a social networking app that also includes forum, events, fleet and marketplace.
But it was a huge and complex project and we didn’t have time to finish the challenge in time.
So we decided to provide the basic framework for most of the features, but focus our efforts on completing a flow that solved our problem statement: find a location and someone to fly with.
We translated the brand values (togetherness, freedom, creativity, friendship and constant learning) on a moodboard. For the Style Tile we chose keep the originals brand colors black & white and use drone blades propeller shape as a visual reference.
After many usability tests, we built our Hi-Fi Prototype. You can see some screenshots in following image.
HI-FI PROTOTYPE
[4] deliver
We built a Hi-Fi prototype to show a main user flow to solve the problem statement: the task is, when travel to Lisbon, for example, find a nice spot and a pilot to fly together. You can see it below.
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What is next?
This was the most complete project we did in this bootcamp. Of course it needs a lot of improvement, but the experience was very valuable. We learned how to negotiate ideas very quickly (the three of us had different points of view most of the time), the importance of testing and having the customer as a partner.
In our favor, the entrepreneur Kwadklub really intends to implement our project.
Fortunately, we will have the opportunity to do a lot more testing, change details, improve functionality.
Therefore, this case study does not end here.
Wait for the next chapters…
Want to know more?
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