“I wish more professional apps were designed with this level of thoroughness and care.” —juror Ben Hughes

“I am intrigued by the idea of an app that connects people who want to explore the outdoors, but who may lack skills or people to join them. From park info to equipment to calendars to weather to social media tools, this is an ambitious student project.” —juror Libby Bawcombe

Overview: It’s difficult to heed the call of the wild when you don’t have outdoor skills or the right connections. Enter the Kanna Outdoor Adventures App from Dylan May. Users of this concept app who wish to, say, hike on Mount Shasta, but want some company while doing so can easily plan a trip and meet up with fellow mountaineers. Kanna’s users can also evaluate each other’s skills to better find matches with complementary abilities. Facilitating it all is Kanna’s up-to-date route and destination pages, aggregated via the social media posts you’re obligated to share after you do something as cool as climbing a mountain.

•All interaction animations and motion prototyping were created in After Effects.
•The project was a finalist in the 2016 Adobe Design Achievement Awards.
•The project took four months to complete. 

Comments by Dylan May: 
What are the project’s core features? “Kanna lets users create adventures and invite others to join them while supplying all of the information one needs to successfully plan the outing. As members join an adventure, new channels of communication open up to enable an easy flow of information and collaboration in preparation for the trip. Users can also rate each other’s abilities, which helps them find companions with complementary skills.”

What was the thinking behind the navigation structure? “It was built around the three primary goals users would most likely have: to find information enabling them to head outdoors, to find an adventure to join and to view social feeds from adventurers they are following.”

Are there any special navigation features? “When viewing lists of routes and adventures, the user has the ability to view the list as info dominant or image dominant. This became an option because many people are driven to get outside to see the beauty of nature, so enabling users to browse based on imagery—as opposed to stats—seemed appropriate.”