A Wren Says

It was going to be my first race/vacation. I was excited to do the foam run, I even watched videos to prepare. Did I train? No, but it was about the party anyway. The nighttime event would feature glow in the dark foam, which made it all the more appealing.

We arrived at the event with our race bibs, crowded in with the rest of the runners. After the start, we all continued to move as a tight crowd. A confused tight crowd, because the route was not clearly marked as it wound through the open field. It’s very likely we unintentionally cut our time short because of how hard it was to tell where to go. The worse part was that after all of that, I got a tablespoon of foam on me. Once we were off the course, we left immediately, disappointed by I all. I take it back. The worst part was knowing that I missed out on other opportunities to participate and sorely regretted that decision.  

I think back to that time, not because I actually want to really think about races or fun runs. Instead, I want to call attention to what they probably didn’t do. That would be employ user centered design. It is  likely no one thought about the racers’ experience. No one considered how visible signage would be in the dark. No one thought about the orientation and amount of foam spray to make sure it was really a foam run. To get to the point, they definitely didn’t take a user centered approach.

Organizing a good event, or even creating a great product in general, is more than just sales. It requires thinking about the end users and making sure they are happy enough to want to will come back to you time and time again. A user centered approach gets you to think about their needs and figure out to solve for them.

Had the race organizers used this approach, they would have thought through and managed all of the features to improve the experience. They would have considered if the course signage and course markings were appropriate for low light conditions at night. They would have thought about the flow of the racers throughout the course. They would have thought through how much foam a racer would need to experience to meet their expectations.

A race course is the perfect example to use for user centered design. It is a reminder to about your customers’ journey from start to finish line and to make sure you are meeting their needs along the way.