Tramble

Self-guided trails enhanced
by gamification

the idea

THE BRIEF

Tramble was a new company aiming to gamify walking and hiking by combining exploration with learning. They wanted users to follow guided trails and answer questions about landmarks, scenery, and points of interest along the way. This approach encouraged users to enjoy fresh air, discover new places, and learn interesting facts in real time.

Tramble also envisioned building a community where users could share their progress and compete with one another, motivating everyone to keep walking and learning together.

what needed to be solved

THE PROBLEM

Tramble had developed walking and hiking routes, identifying key points of interest and crafting related questions. They now needed an app development partner to build a mobile app that would display these routes and questions, alongside a CMS to manage the routes, questions, and answers.

The content had to be flexible, allowing new routes and questions to be added easily. This ensured Tramble could continuously update the app and keep the experience fresh and relevant for users.

the clever bit!

THE SOLUTION

The Distance built the mobile application for iOS and Android. The application utilised Google Maps as the main map, with The Distance adding custom points of interest to the map in order to build out the route. The points of interest were created in the CMS. Each point of interest would have a question and answer associated with it, which was also populated in the CMS.

The application needed to be adaptable to the users' needs, so trails were presented to the user in written form and map form. When the user starts the trail, a timer starts counting up how long the user has been on the trail. A pause button was introduced to allow the user to take a break and not affecting their total time. A gamification element was added to the application to get users invested in how long they are taking on the trail and getting answers right, as a wrong answer would add 90 seconds to the total time.

Each user who has completed a trail was displayed in a leader board, showing how long they took and also how many points they have accumulated while using the tramble app. This encouraged people to compete at a trail level, trying to beat someone's time, but also as a whole. Seeing how many points other users have pushed users to complete more trails and increase their own point total.

measuring success

THE RESULTS

The Tramble development was completed, and a trial run was performed on the app, keeping it local to London. This allowed Tramble to add in a collection of routes around London and ask a select number of users to download the application and complete the trails. After feedback was collected and a few changes were made to the application before it was released in the stores.

The Tramble App offered a collection of self-guided 60-minute walks across the UK. Within each walk, the user would follow the directions in search of a sculpture, blue plaque, street art or something unusual before having to answer a question related to what they see.

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