About SlabLab

We seek solutions to challenges faced by the winter recreational community.

Using an approach called Human-Centered Design we perform research and offer resources. We listen to the experience of snow travelers, look for common pain points and create resources to address them. We freely share all of our research with individuals, educators and the entire community.

Why we're doing this

Backcountry travel is complex and dangerous. We believe the resources availabile to recreationalists can improve and the way to do that is through listening directly to the voice of the skier.

Who this is for

We engage with, and design for all backcountry travelers regardless of mode of travel or skill/experience level. We expect our work to be valued by recreational users, educators, guides, avalanche centers and curriculum developers, and manufacturers.

What we do

Our approach is called Human-Centered Design, a close friend of Design Thinking. It is a form of creative problem solving that begins with empathy. We do our best to put ourselves in our participants' shoes. The desired outcome is not to definitively prove or disprove a hypothesis but simply provide inspiration. We seek to offer fertile ground for new solutions.

Research

We conduct semi-structured, qualitative interviews and use other observational to understand our participants. We’ve wrapped up our first big round of research and have shared our finding in our 2021-22 Season Report. Check it out to see what skiers shared, and what we learned!

Resources

We design solutions to meet the needs and mental models uncovered in our research. The most frequent pain point we heard about in our research is that partner finding is difficult. We are exploring solutions to this problem, including ski partner “speed dating partners” events we held during the 21/22 season and our personalized matchmaking service.

Who we are

Photo of Richard
Richard
Co-founder

Richard is a long-time avalanche educator and ski guide. He is passionate about student outcomes, and actions people take after training.

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Daniel
Co-founder

Daniel is a backcountry skier and an experienced Human-Centered designer and product manager who loves making things that help people.

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Jenny
Contributing Researcher

Jenny is a design research specialist and wild places enthusiast. She's passionate about supporting people to choose safe behaviours, navigate risks and mitigate trauma.

Get in touch

Questions, comments, jokes.
We'd love to hear from you.

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