A Plea to Surfline, Think Like a Surfer

Target: Surfline.com

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"Getting Real"

A while back I read a great book by the crew over at 37Signals titled “Getting Real,” it turns traditional application development on its head by championing “less is more.” In the book they talk about fewer features and more thoughtful user interaction, people are digging it. In fact their DIGGing it so much that the 37Signals produced bare bones project management application Basecamp has been listed by Business2.0 as one of the Web2.0 applications that is changing the Internet. Surfline never changed the internet but they did change surfing by offering accurate surf forecasting to the masses. Somewhere on the trip they got confused about what surfers want, let’s see if we can help them “Get Real” so they can change surfing again by putting down the feature list and putting the user first.

Give Me My Surf Report!

I learned in the third grade that most of the world’s surface is covered by water however I am betting that the majority of Surfline’s customer base lives between Point Conception and Tijuana. When I signed up I gave them my zip code so I am pretty sure they have a good idea where I surf. Yet they still force me to flash navigate through three levels of really small options to find what I am looking for. At 5am I don’t care what the waves are like in Bali or if Sam Hammer scored in New Jersey I just want my surf report.

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By signing up for Surfline Premium I am communicating some important personal information to them, mainly that I care about surfing enough that I am willing shell out cash to make sure that when the surf is good I am on it. When I log on to Surfline "My Surf Report" is what I want to see.

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Good, I now have access to "Surf Check" and "Forecasting Tools" from the moment I sign in. Now there are four things I care about: video(live), current surf conditions, tides and wind.

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Ads in My Space

Contrary to what the marketing depart might tell you I am not interested in buying a new Honda Element so get that garbage out of my interface. Remember this is a pay service, if it were free I would tolerate it but it’s not so don’t interrupt me with it.

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Make it Easy to Look Around

Since the surf is no good at Swamis today make the navigation to other spots easier. I want it customized to my region. I may want to look at the pipe cam sometime today, right now I just want to surf.

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Now that I have exhausted the local surf check and it looks poor I need easy access to my forecasts and forecasting tools.

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Community Goodness and Web 2.0 Features

Surfline has great content but they are still only offering Web 1.0 community features. Forums are just not cutting it these days users want RSS feeds for everything, we want to link up with friends who surf and we want user generated content(video, surf journal entries, pictures with tags).

Unfortunately I don’t have time to build this all out here but I did add one community building feature that I think would be great, it is called "Where You Go’in?" I know the title sucks but the idea is solid. Before you leave the desk to hit the water tell Surfline where you are headed and the community members you have designated as friends will be able to see where you are padding out today. This kind of technology not only saves you time it makes sure you stay connected with friends and guarantees no 5AM phone calls, that my friends could save your marriage.

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That should do it for now, view the completed redesign

If you are interested in a Usability Redesign for your site read more about Suimple’s Quickly Redesign Service.

We currently do not offer comment functionality, if you have something to say about this usability review email contact[at]suimple.com and I will add your comments to the piece.