BACKCOUNTRY ACCESS
Who: Backcountry Access, a brand dedicated to snowsports and avalanche safety.
What: Two sites on the Experticity platform
Why: To educate Experticity members about avalanche safety and new safety products.
Backcountry Access was one of my first projects when I started at Experticity in 2015. At that time, Experticity was focused on training but often let brands shoehorn several, if not over 10, products in each lesson, making it more difficult for our members to learn and retain information.
When it was time to update Backcountry Access’ content in 2017, Experticity had shifted its focus to less product (for better information retention) and more storytelling. In my initial conversations with Backcountry Access, I had learned about their passion for safety and thought it was a clear indication of where to take the content.
In the first lesson, I wanted to make a “Top 5” list of avalanche safety tips. I’m not an authority on backcountry safety (I’ve only been skiing once when I was eight), but I knew I could find someone who was. I used my network to find Craig Gordon for the Utah Avalanche Center to ask his Top 5 avalanche safety tips. He was impressive in his knowledge and little did I know, he’s a Utah skiing legend.
In the next lesson, I focused on Backcountry Access’ products and their use cases. I used what was an older style of content for Experticity, scenario learning (because it’s not as if someone could go into the backcountry and test these products on purpose, right?) Also, my interactive designer and I made the decision to have some interactivity to make the content fun and unique.
I also knew it was important to have some behind the scenes information from Backcountry Access’ testers and product designers, who gave some excellent insights.
The brand was thrilled about the content as it hit on avalanche safety while still educating about their products. From a pure educational point-of-view, this was one of my favorite projects.