3. BACKGROUNDThe horse show industry is comprised of
2 major riding styles: English & Western.
Both of these styles train very differently
as the courses require different
maneuvers from the rider and horse.
On average, about 500,000 riders
compete each year in one show or more.
Riders train everyday to learn the courses
they will be competing on. They hire
private trainers and spend countless
hours with them to build up their skill for
upcoming shows.
BACKGROUND
4. THE CHALLWhen it comes time for riders of the
equestrian industry to show, they tend to
need a lot of practice. Learning the
course patterns used in shows not only
takes weeks & months of practice, but
also a ton of money for a private trainer.
There needed to be a way for riders to
have a course trainer at their fingertips at
any given time of the day.
THE CHALLENGE
5. Concepting began by researching the
equestrian industry, studying the course
patterns & sketching.
6. SKETCHESTo beign with, the top level framework of
the app was drawn on paper. It was really
helpful to iterate and find what the layout
needs and and how the user experience
will flow.
1. SKETCHES
7. WIREFRAMESThe next step was to wireframe the
sketches. These wireframes were made to
quickly create UI elements without
thinking about colors or art direction.
2. WIREFRAMES
2 of 10BACK
END
Western Horsemansh
Junior Level 1 - Open
START YOUR TRAINING
Winter Equestrian Festival
WESTERN HORSEMANSHIP
BA
HORSE SHOWS
8. THE VISUALSFor the high fidelity mockups, a
minimalistic approach styled with big
photos was the visual direction decided
upon. To keep the sophisticated look &
feel of the equestrian industry, dark blues
and greys complimented by a bright red
call to action were used. These colors
seem to fit perfectly with horse show
riders as they use the same colors on their
uniforms.
3. THE VISUALS
9. USER TESTINGBefore the build began, a soft prototype
was needed. The frames were put into
Invision App. Three different course trails
were pre-built into the step-by-step
walkthrough so it could go through
rigorous testing.
We sent the Invision App link to 30 riders.
Let the feedback begin…
4. USER TESTING
10. The Invision App was reviewed by riders from both
the English & Western industries. The main concerns
they had was with the course walkthrough. It needed to
show when the horse should change it’s speed as it
progresses through the course.
11. HORSE SPEED FIXAs horses are progressing through the
course, they need to maintain a certain
speed based on the course designers’
specs & the obstacle they’re on. These
speeds are normally marked up by the
rider in different color highlighters to
easily determine what the speed is.
To address this issue, the horse circle
would change colors based on the current
obstacle it was on. There will also be a
little tag header in the upper-right corner
of the detail cell.
5. HORSE SPEED FEATURE
JOG
SIDE PASS
LOPE
WALK
BACK
12. The horse speed feature was
reviewed and passed with flying colors.
(no pun intended)
13. TECHNOLOGYThe app is currently being built in Swift as
a native iOS app. For the backend, a few
key technologies are being used like
GraphQL, Ruby, Node & PostgreSQL.
There’s about 4-5 weeks left of the build
then the beta will launch to 85-90 riders
using Apple’s beta program: TestFlight.
6. TECHNOLOGY
14. After beta testing, the plan is to gather feedback from the 85-90
riders and prioritize the issues & features in order from critical
to least important. Since the hard launch is a month after beta,
critical issues & features will have to be implemented in a
timely manner. October is the launch date to the public.
