User research at 4,000 meters for a skydive jump log

Let’s get your attention first

A video is worth a thousand words

What You Need to Know Before jumping In

In France, the skydiver’s journey in every school is fully standardized. It’s the same everywhere.

Three key roles are interconnected in this journey

The skydiver

Logs each jump to track progress and validate skills.

The instructor

  • Reviews, comments on, validates jumps

  • Checks that the logbook is compliant

What connects them all?

The paper jump log — a mandatory paper notebook to track jumps, experience, and certifications for all skydivers.

Problem ?

This paper jump log is often lost, damaged, or even falsified, risking safety.

The FFP asked me to design a smarter, safer way to track jumps.

The school director

  • Manages jump sessions and aircraft scheduling

  • Handles official logbook validations.

Quick Dive into the Project

Goal of the project

My roles

My Plan

Deliver a high-fidelity prototype to the new board committee in 2026, aiming to secure funding for the project's implementation.

As the sole UX/UI Designer on this project, I wear all the hats—from research to interface design to user testing.

    • Educate stakeholders on the goals and processes of UX design.

    • Establish the project scope and vision through a design brief.

    • Create a centralized repository to share data and findings with stakeholders.

    • Select appropriate research methods based on constraints.

    • Conduct a thorough competitive analysis to understand industry benchmarks.

    • Co-create the “current-state” skydiver journey map for the current paper jump log.on text goes here

    • Conduct user research to uncover insights and validate assumptions.

    • Analyze the data to identify pain points and define a clear problem statement for each personas.

    • Facilitate ideation workshops with skydivers / instructors and school directors to brainstorm potential solutions.

    • Develop user flows for key use cases.

    • Engage developers early to evaluate the technical feasibility of proposed ideas and solutions.

    • Create wireframes and design for mobile, tablet, and desktop.

    • Build a high-fidelity prototype using tools like Figma and/or React.

    • Test the prototype with users to identify areas for improvement.

    • Iterate on the design based on users’ feedbacks to optimize the solution.

    • Prepare a funding proposal aligned with the budget of the French Skydive Association to secure long-term financial support for the project.

    • Create AI Agent with n8n to speed up time-consuming stages from the UX process.

First step ? Get every stakeholders on the same page

Situation

  • Align everybody on the direction the project should take

  • Reassure stakeholders of my UX/UI expertise as the sole designer in this project

  • Educate on user-centered best practices

Results & Key takeaways

Stakeholders might have different ideas about the direction the project should take. I want to avoid the following situation:

Tasks

We agreed on the product’s vision for the 3 personas

  • We want to provide skydivers with an easy and efficient way to record their jumps, ensuring their logbooks are always up to date.

  • We aim to give instructors a clear and efficient way to assess a skydive student’s experience, and a simple, streamlined process for debriefing student certifications.

  • We aim to give them an easy way of validating the jumps and the certification whenever they want.

Actions

  • A presentation to explain what UX is and educate them for user-centered design best practices.

  • A design brief to define the product’s vision and ensure team alignment.

“To design a solution that can be used by parachuting schools, we need to consider the needs of three interconnected personas: the skydiver, the instructor, and the school director.”

— The stakeholders

“Without addressing the expectations of instructors and school directors, we’d end up with nothing more than a digital copy of the paper logbook—missing the opportunity to truly improve the experience for everyone involved.”

— The stakeholders

Coming soon

The project is in progress. After user research, find the problem statement and organize ideation workshops, I am working on the first state of the design. I will present it to the executive committee.

I would be happy to present the entire project to you during an interview.