Winter Carnival Medallion Hunt App
The Hunt & Users - Treasure Hunters
Each January, there is a hunt for a medallion hidden somewhere in Ramsey County where hunters must interpret 12 clues given over 12 days. The finder of the medallion wins up to $10,000. There is a large community of people who impatiently wait for clues to be released so they can get a jump on the hunt. Hunters rush outside in the midst of harsh Minnesotan winters with shovels, ice picks, and various garden tools to dig for the medallion. Hunters are dedicated folks who celebrate one another once the medallion has been found. If you do not have time to see all the research and work that went into this case study, you can view the prototype below.
Goals & Focus
Focus: The St. Paul Winter Carnival has been associated with the medallion hunt for years. Many hunters have developed their own unique strategy and approach to the hunt. Many hunters have created their own resources to maximize their finding potential. The focus of this project identified pain points for hunters and paths to improve their hunt experience.
Goals:
Identify pain points for hunters
Explore the range of resources that hunters use
Develop low and high fidelity wireframes to fit the needs of the hunters and assist in their hunting experience
Method
Directed Storytelling, Competitive Audit, Journey Mapping
Research Synthesized - Download the Research
Directed Storytelling - At the onset of this case study, I sourced 5 of my fellow medallion hunters through an existing active forum for half hour remote directed storytelling sessions over Zoom. These hunters volunteered their time to assist my journey into building this application and shared some helpful insights.
Click the image for a closer look at the Journey Map.
Competitive Audit- For years, hunters have needed to be innovative with their resources. Several hunters have developed websites or books to assist with their journey to finding the medallion. I performed a competitive audit of these various resources to gain knowledge of how hunters might approach the hunt and use resources to their benefit. These resources include several books with maps, websites with historical information, and additional hunter written books.
Download the competitive audit
Journey Map- The image to the right shows the journey of a new hunter if they decided to begin looking for the medallion without the medallion hunt app. The journey identifies several key pain points for the persona, Greg including:
Access to the clues
Information accuracy
Hesitancy to share information
Community safety
Low Fidelity Wireframes
After gathering a wealth of information from hunters, those insights led to the development of several key features. I spent time creating low fidelity wireframes of those ideas. Then I presented these back to several hunters to show the progression of the app and get their feedback on the usefulness of the features.
Information Architecture & Design System
Information Architecture - In order to pull together the full depth of this app, I created an information architecture diagram. This diagram includes some of the big key features including the vast historical information that is needed for hunters. The historical content that would help hunters the most is that of parks and cities within Ramsey County, as well as, the hunt history that’s been going on close to 70 years.
Design System - I created a design system for this app. Given the depth of information that’s necessary and the possibilities for expansion, it would be extremely helpful to have more people assisting with the development of this application. This design system includes fonts, colors, icons, and components included in the high fidelity prototype.
High Fidelity Prototype
After getting feedback from users on the low fidelity wireframes and after developing the information architecture of the app, I built a high fidelity interactive prototype within Figma. I took the feedback from usability check ins with primary users and incorporated those into the current state of the design.
Next Steps & Conclusion
As a hunter myself, this project was a blast to work on and develop. There is still a need for additional usability testing with some of the new features developed. So testing those with hunters would be the first important step. Secondly, to uplift the community in meaningful ways, added verification processes would be helpful. This would keep hunters safe and increase hunters willingness to share within the forums and potentially create some beautiful connections. In conclusion, I jumped at the opportunity to develop this application because I love the medallion hunt. If there are and developers out there that would like to take on this challenge, please get in touch because I’d love to work with you!
Questions about this project? Please reach out!
- Justin Daleiden (justindaleiden1@gmail.com)