Rip Curl: coastal activism and ocean stewardship ADV 132 UX/UI Spring Semester 2023

A little bit of rip curling background

Rip Curl remains a company built by surfers for surfers, and they’ve been market leaders in surfing for over 50 years. They endeavor to make the best products, run the best events, support the best athletes, deliver the best customer service, communicate the best brand message and have the best crew of people. This helps Rip Curl hold a vision of being regarded as The Ultimate Surfing Company.

the theme: coastal activism and ocean stewardship

Since its founding, Rip Curl has actively supported groups and issues relevant to its local communities, particularly the maintenance of coastal environments. Identify a cause related to the ocean or coastal environment conservation or restoration that you would like to see Rip Curl actively campaigning for. Your focus may be on sea mammal conservation or protection, clean waters, sustainable fishing. You may want Rip Curl to champion a campaign against offshore drilling, maybe partnering with another environmental organization, like Greenpeace or Surfrider, to add weight to their efforts. Your product should educate, inform and encourage active participation.

the challenge:

Develop a Rip Curl branded website for both desktop and mobile that reflects the nature of the adopted cause, that encourages uses to take action and help preserve coastal and ocean environments, through one or more of these example functions:

Engage the greater community to volunteer in preservation efforts
Provide a way to educate others about coastal habitats, why they matter, and how they can be maintained
Promote advocacy for more sustainable ways to produce, recycle, and reuse
Gamify active awareness and activism such as promotion, donations, or volunteerism
Elevate news, companies, organizations, and/or individuals focused on this progress
Integrate virtual or augmented reality to connect preservation outcomes with visual impact
Encourage social media sharing to create momentum

The users

This audience includes Rip Curl surfers and fans, but does not necessarily focus on them, so design for a target market with varying levels of awareness of coastal issues and technological prowess.

reference

Rip Curl Planet

Your Task

Over the following weeks you will build foundational knowledge, identify insights, develop a deep understand of and empathy with your users, and create a product that delivers the requirements of the brief above.

You will begin the project by focusing on the human centered design approach, understanding your users' needs and their relationship with the issues raised by the client are paramount to creating a useful and relevant product.

You will need to build a digital product as required by the brief. As you can see, you'll need to design a mobile app. Your product must be targeted at a specific user group as identified in the brief. By the end of the course you will prototype the platform and you will document your process from initial user research all the way to the end-point.

Along the way, you will learn to conduct user research and identify useful insights about your target and the product, you will learn to create personas that help you navigate the project, you will learn to ideate and wireframe. And then you will learn about building prototypes using Adobe XD, Figma and other tools, about creating augmented reality experiences using Adobe Aero, and documenting the UX and UI process by using Adobe Spark.

THE DELIVERABLES

The assignment is in 2 distinctive parts:

#1: The UX Phase Deliverables:

Use Adobe Express Page to create a document detailing the Human Centered Design Research stages of your project. Include the following:

Ethnographic Research: Write-up your findings and insights that emerged from interviewing, fly-on-the-wall observation, contextual inquiry, walk-a-mile immersion.
User Personas: 1 set of minimum 5 user persona profiles
Problem Framing: Present a Problem Tree Analysis
Concept Ideation: Thumbnail sketches, a creative matrix and an alternative world

You will need to link to your Adobe Express Page in the Canvas submission box and upload to the #UXUI Slack Channel. Comment on the other teams' projects in a supportive manner.

Deadline: April 06, 2023

#2: The UI Phase Deliverables:

Create an Express Page detailing the UI Design phase of your project. Include the following:

Wireframes: You should present lo-fi renditions, ideally thumbnails, detailing the messy process of figuring out a user journey. Also include the hi-fi iterations.
User Journey: Remember your personas? Take one of them through your product.
Style Guide: Present a style guide detailing typography, colors, iconography, UX writing examples, art direction and any other system components that are necessary
Prototype: Create a prototype on Adobe XD or Figma, and maybe an AR feature on Adobe Aero.

You will need to post your Express Page in the Canvas submission box and upload to the #UXUI Slack Channel. Comment supportively on the other teams' projects.

Deadline: May 16, 2023

Created By

John Delacruz

Appreciate

Credits:

Created with images by EliasSch - "wave ocean sea" • Pexels - "liquid splash water" • egorshitikov - "santa cruz california shore" • egorshitikov - "pelican santa barbara california" • Justasurferdude - "surfers woman beach" • Justasurferdude - "surfer surfing wave" • dimitrisvetsikas1969 - "wave water surf"