Human-centered design prioritizes the user experience, emphasizing empathy, inclusivity, and adaptability. While current boards like MoonBoard and Kilter Board focus on standardizing training and competition, there’s an opportunity to create climbing boards that also nurture collaboration and community.
Ideas for Enhancing Connection Through Design
1. Collaborative Climbing Modes
- Concept: Introduce multiplayer features where climbers can solve problems together in real-time.
- Example: A climbing board mode where two climbers alternate moves to complete a route, with the board lighting up the next hold for the other player.
- Benefit: Encourages teamwork, communication, and shared problem-solving.
2. Storytelling Through Routes
- Concept: Use climbing routes to tell a story or explore a theme, engaging climbers on a deeper emotional level.
- Example: AR or LED-enabled boards could create “adventure routes,” where holds light up sequentially to simulate climbing a famous rock face or solving a mystery through movement.
- Benefit: Makes training more imaginative and immersive, appealing to climbers beyond raw performance metrics.
3. Community-Led Route Creation
- Concept: Expand route creation tools to emphasize collaboration, where groups of climbers can design and vote on problems together.
- Example: A shared app interface where local climbers upload and rank new problems, with the top-voted routes projected on the board for everyone to try.
- Benefit: Strengthens local climbing communities by giving everyone a voice in shaping the board’s content.
4. Social Performance Metrics
- Concept: Shift performance tracking from individual competition to group progress.
- Example: A “team climbing” mode that logs collective achievements, such as the number of problems completed by a group in one session.
- Benefit: Builds camaraderie and makes training less about competition and more about shared goals.
More then climibing
When we think of climbing boards, we often see them as tools for performance or training. But by incorporating human-centered design principles, they can become something greater—a space for connection, creativity, and shared experiences. By shifting the focus from individual achievement to collective engagement, climbing boards could redefine the way climbers train and interact, both with the wall and with each other.
