Why Cairn opens on the map

The first version of Cairn opened on a feed of trip reports. It was the part of the app the team was proudest of, and the part almost nobody used. Session recordings showed people scrolling past it to reach the map, sometimes for ten seconds.

What hikers do with a phone

We spent four days on trails around Zermatt with twelve hikers. Nobody opened the app to browse. They opened it to answer one of three questions: where am I, how far is it, and will I make it back before dark.

They also opened it with gloves on, in bright light, with one hand on a pole. That ruled out most of the interface we had.

The map as the home screen

The new app opens on the map, centred on you. Routes you can finish before sunset are drawn in full and the rest are faded. Every route has a turnaround time at the top that counts down as you walk.

Trip reports still exist. They sit on each route, where they are useful, instead of in a feed, where they were not.

Working with no signal

Most of the routes have no coverage past the first hour. Cairn stores map tiles and route data on the device when you save a route, and it works the same with or without a connection.