Thousands of climbers globally can easily find spots and facilities. However, in countries like the UK, climbing requires significant travel and time, making it challenging to find practice locations, learn the activity, or connect with fellow enthusiasts.In the UK, where rugged crags hide beyond long drives and climbers’ passion is tested by fragmented communities, a silent struggle persists. Imagine craving the adrenaline of ascent but facing barriers of time and isolation. Here, climbers aren’t just seeking rocks—they’re chasing connection.
The Climbing community faces multiple challenges when they want to practice this activity like the following:
To nurture climbers’ passion daily whether scaling peaks or planning next adventures. We’re crafting an intuitive, visually driven hub where you can find enjoy your activity effortlessly:
🔹 Track & Progress: Record routes, achievements & daily training content
🔹 Learn Collectively: Bite-sized training + kit guidance (all levels)
🔹 Climb Anywhere: Indoor/outdoor spot finder (offline mode)
🔹 Connect Deeply: Personalised recommendations + community spaces
The company's vision is to create a daily-use app where every interaction from drills to sends help you create progress and connect you to the climbing community.
To achieve company's goals, firstly, we need to understand the needs of their audience as well as climbers who do not know the brand learning from their pain points and challenges, to aligning them with the company's needs.
- Core need: Support UK climbers while establishing REI as the #1 brand
- 70% bounce rate on previous app (seen as a store link rather than engagement tool)
- Requirement to communicate REI’s ethos and build brand loyalty
- Top competitors offered spot/route finders and GPS maps (premium)
- Key gaps: No integrated training, equipment purchasing, or community features.
- Most apps failed to support multiple climbing disciplines in one platform.
- Bespoke support for all experience levels
- Preparation tools (training, equipment)
- Offline maps/location display
- Progress tracking with sharing capabilities
- Critical safety information
- Personalised training plans
- Updated spot/crag/weather data
- Engaging community features
Time-pressed Gen Z mum who climbs indoors. Needs quick access to trends and local spots.
- Time-poor mum, indoor climber
- Needs quick training & spot finder
- Wants community recommendations
47-year-old returning climber. Prioritises safety and retraining after hiatus.
- Outdoor enthusiast, regaining fitness
- Seeks safety updates & route tracking
- Values gear reliability & offline maps
Personalised Onboarding & Journeys
Bespoke support for all experience levels (beginner to expert)
Adaptive training plans & equipment guidance
Safety-Centric Knowledge Hub
Critical safety information + real-time updates (crags, weather)
Trusted kit-buying guidance & route annotations
Unified Progress Ecosystem
Intuitive tracking (routes, achievements, personal analytics)
Shareable metrics with community feedback
Community-Led Discovery
Seamless spot-finding (offline maps + location intelligence)
Social features for tips, beta-sharing & meetups
Holistic Daily Utility
All-in-one platform bridging training, planning & climbing
"Always fresh" content sustaining engagement between climbs
Most participants of our card tree testing revealed the most logical structure, also about implementation and most used features like browsing between indoor and outdoor climbing with their different challenges.
- User-centric structure prioritising frequent tasks (e.g., indoor/outdoor switching)
- Validated through tree card tests
Crazy 8s ideation exercise exploring possible solutions that provide intuitive navigation and easy to use.
Here are the early ideas to create a multi-climbing platform (hub) which provide several services despite the discipline.
After the first round of usability testing participants overall found the concept of the REI app really good. However they felt confuse when they want to start as a beginner, needing an access to climbing training to start from, In the other hand, experienced participants manifested separating discipline from indoors and outdoors and have a more international climbing grading system should be a must.
- Navigation: 4/5 rating
- Task success: 65% (avg. time: 40 sec)
- Key requests:
Prominent training access
Separate indoor/outdoor flows
Multi-grade difficulty systems (French/V-scale)
Safety/ethics guidance
During the 2 round of testing we observed a positive increase in navigation satisfaction also improving the time in task success, iterations were made in climbing information iconography, climbing grading, as well of the incorporation of training in the navigation menu.
- Navigation: 5/5
- Task success: 93% (avg. time: 20 sec)
- Optimised: One-hand navigation, iconography, and offline maps
- Community: Improved iconography and interactivity
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The redesigned website has transformed how IJC connects with its audience. Here’s what we achieved:
The project’s success was measured through the following key performance indicators (KPIs):
Navigation Rate: Increased by 40% by improving the layout and flows.
Adoption Rate: User adoption improved by 25% after climbers research to learn what provides value to their experience.
Time-on-Task: Improved 40 sec to 1 min minimising pain points especially when they are in the mountain
Task-Completion Rate: Started from 65% rate to currently 93% after iterations the climbers have several distinctive flows allowing them to achieve each task effectively.
Brand Recognition: Surveys indicated a 50% increase in positive user sentiment about REI’s branding and as a climbing reference.
Through research, collaboration, and thoughtful design, this project empowered REI to scale its mission and amplify its impact, providing user-centered and intuitive solutions for climbers.
Alignment is critical: Balanced business goals (REI as market leader) with user needs (holistic climbing support)
Assumptions create risk: Early mistakes included:
Undefined user segments
Designing by "gut feeling" vs. data
Over-prioritising shop needs over climbers
User's Experience is key: using guerilla-research helped me to learn and empathise with users in their environment facilitating data collection and enrich the understanding.
Testing accelerates success:
Testing diverse climbers revealed discipline-specific needs
Earlier testing would have saved significant rework
Reflection reshapes outcomes: Pausing to analyse data refocused the solution on core climber challenges
Creating an innovative app that engages climbers in and off-mountain and stay connected to the activity everywhere, being able to share their goals, tips, getting feedback, planning and meeting new people alike. Making REI standout as a solid brand between the experts and beginners.
Redesigning REI’s App was a rewarding and impactful journey. By placing the user at the heart of the design process :
- Delivered an intuitive and user-friendly App that makes climbing more than a sport or discipline also enhance climbers experience on or off mountain effortlessly.
- Strengthened REI’s brand presence, aligning it more closely to the climbers needs with its mission and values.
- Built a habit-forming, dynamic and useful tool which allows climbers of every level to be engaged with the discipline and also to be connected as a community.
- Seamless integrated REI Co-op equipment pairing it with every activity like indoors as outdoors.
This project successfully repositions the REI climbing app as an inclusive, intuitive platform catering climbers of all abilities – from seasoned enthusiasts to those embarking on their first ascent. By embedding interactive progress-tracking features, we foster engagement and skill development, lowering barriers for newcomers. Simultaneously, the streamlined search experience – prioritising discipline, location, and required experience – empowers users to effortlessly discover relevant climbing opportunities, encouraging broader participation.
Crucially, these enhancements not only elevate user satisfaction but also solidify REI’s authority in the climbing community, driving user acquisition and cultivating long-term brand loyalty. The solution demonstrates how thoughtful UX design bridges user needs with commercial objectives, making climbing more accessible while reinforcing REI’s market leadership.
