STOKD

UX/UI Design

Boosting Forecast Accuracy and Session Tracking within the Surf Community

Stokd is an app that centers around two key features: reporting the accuracy of surf forecasts and tracking your surf sessions.

Project Overview

The application is a platform for tracking surfers' progress and increasing the precision of wave forecasts. Users may log and track their surfing experiences, much like Strava, a fitness software that tracks and shares outdoor activities like cycling and jogging.

The app enhances the accuracy of surf forecasts, like those from Windguru, which are centered around wind and wave conditions for outdoor enthusiasts. By incorporating community-driven, real-time updates, the app offers surfers more reliable forecasts, helping them navigate unpredictable surf conditions.

Stokd's goal is to create a convenient and trustworthy platform for surfers to connect, share insights, and track their sessions effectively.

Research & Insights

User Research:

Conducted interviews with surfers of varying skill levels to understand frustrations with surf tracking and forecast tools.
Surveyed users on community integration and forecast reliability

Competitive Analysis

Analysed apps like Strada and surf-specific platforms
Found that while existing apps offered community features, none combines them with real-time validation of surf conditions

Key Insight: Surfers desire both social connection and verified, accurate surf data

Defining the Goals

Though the previous research there were two main issues that surfers encounter are inconsistent surf reports and a lack of tools to monitor individual improvement. Forecast applications are used by many, however they don't always accurately reflect the situation. Others are looking for an improved method to record their sessions and track their progress over time.

I established two main goals for this project in order to address these issues:

1

Provide users with an intuitive and detailed tool for logging their surf sessions, enabling them to easily track key session data, and monitor their progress over time.

Session Recording: Track, Log, and Monitor Your Surf Progress

Surf forecasts can be unreliable, and users often lack real-time, community-driven feedback to verify and improve the accuracy of these forecasts.

2

Offer a trustworthy means for authenticating and sharing real-time surfing.

Features

Report Surf Conditions

This feature enables surfers to provide real-time updates, allowing them to report whether actual conditions align with the official surf forecast.

The more reports submitted, the greater the accuracy of the overall forecast. This helps surfers by providing a forecast reliability percentage, saving time and preventing frustration from traveling to spots with poor conditions.

AI-Powered Smart Surf Tracking

This feature automatically detects and assesses surfing sessions with minimal manual input. The user must click. The smartwatch sensor uses GPS, accelerometer data, and artificial intelligence algorithms to correlate the data with the current surf conditions. It can also count waves and track ride length, speed, and session duration.

Through trend analysis and your ideal wave conditions, Stokd provides you with personalised insights over time (e.g., “You surf best in 4-6ft waves with offshore wind”). Based on your past surfing experiences, the AI also suggests the best times and locations to surf so you don't waste another session on bad conditions.

AM