Eldora Resort Redesign
Our Mission:
Design Safe Winter Sport Experiences in the Era of COVID-19
Challenge
COVID-19 forced Colorado’s Eldora ski resort to shut down; ticket sales, rentals and food services exposed Eldora’s guests to the virus. Our challenge was to create contactless ski experiences that would help the resort re-open in winter 2020. The experiences needed to be tech-forward and deliver on their existing brand.
* This design sprint was a collaboration between Josh Sheetz, Nick Lunt and Yangmin Zhang.
My role
Landscape audit
Personas
User journeys / interviews
Rapid iteration
Insight synthesis
Deliverables
Physical design
Web redesign
Tech integration
Budget proposal
“How can we evolve our touch-points
to minimize exposure to COVID-19?”
Question : How can research help us de-risk the redesign outcome? How can research help us hit the mark harder?
Research
Research for Eldora’s redesign collected data broadly and included information from target demographics and health indicators, restaurants, hotels, and cutting-edge mobile technology. CDC guidelines on service industries and national ski industry trends in response to COVID were also considered during the design process.
I employed the following research tools:
Landscape audit / competitor analysis
Survey development
User interviews
User journeys
Target audiences / personas
Question : Who skis at Eldora? For whom are we tailoring our designs?
Target Audience
Eldora Resorts target audience ranges from young children to seniors who want to enjoy a close-to-home ski experience. They are season pass-holders and single-day visitors. Some are families, others are seniors or the young and independent. They value the down-to-earth and rustic vibe that Eldora promotes.
Question : How do Eldora skiiers use the resort?
Journey Mapping
By digging deeper into the usage patterns of each demographic, we discovered that there were three major areas of concern : tickets, rentals and food & beverage. Altogether, journey mapping revealed that there were a staggering number of instances where skiers would be exposed to COVID-19. Designing a re-opening plan for Eldora would need to creatively address these areas where people congregate in dense, high-touch spaces.
Question: What are people’s biggest concerns with visiting Eldora during COVID?
User Interviews
Once our team had identified Eldora’s key audiences and their most common pathways through the resort, we wanted to know how COVID had disrupted these pathways. We developed survey scripts and conducted user interviews to better understand people’s new perspectives on skiing during COVID.
By asking versions of “what do you need in order to feel safe about skiing at Eldora?”, we gained a better understanding of the skiers’ fears and hesitations. Only then could we design a solution to fit the skiers exact needs and make plans to re-open the resort.
From this, we gleaned that :
Skiers identified all three major touch points (Tickets, Rentals and Food) as opportunities for crowds and air-born infections.
Similarly, skiers wanted the resort to enforce restrictions on the number of people on the slops, the restaurants and the rental buildings.
Additionally, skiers wanted the resort to adapt norms to suit the conditions. For example, skiers should be able to order food online in advance
or even bring their own food entirely.
Next steps:
Our designs would need to focus on risk mitigation. Opening the resort only to become a hot spot of disease transmission would be a short-term strategy.
Instead, our solution needs to build trust through concerted and public efforts to prevent infection.
Building trust is informed directly by user’s input.
Question : How to convert the research findings into physical and systems design?
Early Iterations
Leaning heavily on our research into target demographics, the user pain points and insights, we began to develop plans for Eldora’s re-opening.
Sketching Ticketing Ideas
Sketching Equipment Rentals Ideas
Sketching Food & Beverage Ideas
Question : How does our design benefit business? What does a fiscally smart redesign look like?
Phased Re-Opening
To prepare for the winter 2020 season, we propose a phased reopening plan. Our recommendations put business first; we provide a range of options from low-budget, immediate fixes to investment choices. Our recommendations provide Eldora Resort with 3 distinct steps, moving from a quick and simple re-opening to a gradual transition to digital-first service points.
Question : How can we build trust in skiers and staff? How can we make responsible, health-conscious decisions?
7-Step Safety Plan
Our recommendations provide Eldora Resort with a 7-step safety plan. We propose increased sanitization measures, universal wellness checks, and digital innovations in order to move ticketing, equipment rentals and food services to touch-less alternatives.
No. 1
Training for staff
COVID-19 changes the way we interact. It requires us to re-think business practices to place safety first.COVID-19 also is an evolving situation, for which Eldora staff will need on-going training.
No. 2
Increased sanitization measures
In order to make Eldora Resort safe for all guests, increased sanitization measures are required. Careful thought and planning is required to prepare for re-opening and to maintain the resort throughout the season.
No. 3
PPE equipment / social distancing
Personal protective equipment, coupled with social distancing are important components to creating a safe environment. Interactions between all persons at the resort will need to be re-designed for distance
No. 5
Guest wellness checks upon arrival
Similarly, all guests will receive temperature checks prior to entrance into the resort.
No. 6
Digital innovations
By gradually moving ticket sales, rentals and food & beverage online, patrons and employees can protect themselves from human interactions and thus exposure to the virus.
No. 7
Staggered, limited pass
By limiting ski passes to 3 hours a person, Eldora can control crowd sizes. And by staggering admission times, Eldora can spread out the arrival of parties throughout the day. Combined, these techniques can avoid the morning bottleneck resorts often experience.
No. 4
Daily employee wellness checks
Prior to starting a shift and entering a building, all employees will undergo temperature checks to screen for the virus.
Question : How can we make the proposed overhaul affordable to an already hurting business ?
Budget
Our plan offers 3 price points to account for budget size and lead-up times. With only little notice and a small budget, Eldora could re-open within a week. Alternatively, with a greater investment, the resort could prepare for larger crowds and implement comprehensive safety measures.
Question : How will our solution wow? How can we win over Eldora’s regular clients to our redesign?
Deliverables
We amalgamated research and iterations to inform Eldora’s physical and web presence. We relied on repeated testing to distill the most user-centric version of our redesign. Our final product solves for safety concerns linked to COVID-19, effectively offering Eldora Resorts practical, cost-effective options.
