TrekAssist

Overview

TrekAssist is a solar-powered e-ink guide concept designed for visitors exploring Yellowstone National Park. As a team UX/HFE project, TrekAssist focused on helping park visitors navigate unfamiliar outdoor environments, respond to weather and safety alerts, access emergency support, and manage device battery life under strict display and power constraints.

Unlike a standard mobile travel app, TrekAssist was designed for a dedicated outdoor device with an 800×600 landscape e-ink display, limited color use, and a maximum refresh rate of 1Hz. These constraints shaped the interface around static layouts, large controls, persistent safety information, and selective use of color for critical interactions.

Problem Context

National park visitors often make decisions in unfamiliar, high-variability environments. Weather can change quickly, trails may be confusing, wildlife encounters can create safety risks, and phone battery or signal availability may be unreliable.

The design challenge was to create an interface that could help visitors understand where they are, notice important alerts, access emergency support quickly, browse guided tours and destinations, prepare for hikes, and conserve battery during long outdoor trips.

Process Timeline

This sequence framed TrekAssist as a constrained human-centered design process rather than a static interface concept.

Early Exploration and Information Architecture

Our team explored both safety-first and discovery-oriented directions before combining them into a park guide focused on safety, navigation clarity, and power-aware interaction. The flow mapping helped define what belonged at the top level of the interface and what needed to remain persistent across screens.

Safety-Critical Flow Planning

Safety-critical elements were not hidden inside individual sections. The interface used persistent global elements: a top alert ribbon for active warnings, a global Emergency button, and accessible settings and battery indicators. This structure supported both everyday exploration and urgent safety scenarios.

Key Interface Decisions

Weather alerts remained visible through a persistent top ribbon and could expand into a focused modal when the warning required attention. Emergency contact stayed globally available, but a confirmation step reduced accidental activation while preserving quick access to help.

The map combined wayfinding, active warning information, destination context, battery access, and emergency support in one static layout suitable for a low-refresh e-ink device.

Usability Testing

To evaluate the prototype, our team conducted usability testing with 9 participants across six scenario-based tasks: checking weather warnings, contacting a ranger through Emergency, starting a guided tour to Mammoth Hot Springs, finding information about Yellowstone Lake, locating safety tips for a long hike, and activating Low Power Mode.

We measured task completion, time on task, number of errors, number of attempts, ease ratings, and qualitative feedback. The goal was not only to confirm whether users could complete tasks, but also to identify where the interface created hesitation, confusion, or unnecessary effort.

Testing Snapshot

The test combined task performance metrics with qualitative comments to identify where the interface supported safety-critical behavior and where it created unnecessary effort.

Findings and Iteration

Core emergency, weather, destination, and guided tour tasks were generally successful, suggesting that the large-button structure and persistent safety elements supported task recognition.

Before testing, Low Power Mode was technically available, but its location depended on users discovering the settings path. After testing, the battery icon and settings relationship became a key redesign area, with future iterations pointing toward contextual low-battery prompts and more visible power-saving controls.

Testing also showed that purely grayscale screens reduced visual appeal and made some information harder to distinguish, so the final direction used color selectively for safety distinction, visual orientation, hierarchy, and emotional appeal.

Low Power Discoverability

Because Low Power Mode was available but hard to discover, the settings and battery relationship became a key iteration area. For a solar-powered outdoor device, battery-saving controls need to be immediately visible when users need them, not treated as secondary preferences.

Final Prototype Flows

The final prototype balanced exploration and safety through scannable guided-tour cards, destination detail pages, and preventative safety content. TrekAssist supported users before, during, and after route decisions rather than only reacting to emergencies.