Off hours · Parks and trails
Saunders-Monticello Trail
A walking guide that shows you which way to go at every fork
Unofficial concept · not affiliated with Monticello
The short version
Even as a daily walker, I lose track of where I am on the loops. Charlottesville also sends a steady stream of visitors to Monticello who never find the trail. I set out to design a guide for both, and to give Monticello a way to reach the people already walking at the foot of its mountain.
In about ten days I designed and built a working prototype for iPhone, Android and the web. It helps you pick a loop, turns you the right way at every fork, and tells the story of each of the trail's seven stops as a few cards you tap through or listen to. It runs on the trail's real map data. I have tested it on the trail myself; it has not been tested with other walkers yet.
The problem
The Saunders-Monticello Trail in Charlottesville is two miles of easy greenway with wooded loops branching off it. The loops twist, cross each other and look alike, and the QR code on the ground opens a map that doesn't yet show which way you are facing. I walk it most days, so I designed the companion I wanted: The Trail at Monticello.
What if the trail had a guide instead of a map?
The trail serves two groups who share the same ground. People who live here want to know how long a loop takes and when the light goes. People passing through, on a Monticello trip or in town for a weekend, often do not know the trail exists. Both need the same thing on the ground: confidence about where they are and what is ahead.
I worked alone, with no photography, trail data or sign-off from Monticello. So the prototype is built on open map data, my own photos of the forks, and history from monticello.org, and everything that is a stand-in is marked.
What I set out to do
- Make the loops easy to choose by how someone feels and how much time they have.
- Point the right way at each fork, from where the walker stands.
- Tell the story of the place, in short history and seasonal notes that open where you stand.
- Connect the trail to Monticello: a visit to the house, an event, a membership or a gift.
How I worked
The app works as a guide: at each point it says the next thing to do, so the walker never has to work out which way they are facing.
I designed in a working prototype rather than static screens, so every idea met real content, a real phone and the real trail within hours. The trail network comes from OpenStreetMap, the climbs from elevation data and sunset from the sun's position for the date, so every distance and time in the app is measured.
Most of the work was taking things away. Early versions were busy, with filters, labels and cards everywhere. The stories went from a long scrolling page to cards you tap through, the pattern people already use every day.
What I did
- Field walks and trail photography
- Problem framing and strategy
- Brand system, drawn from Monticello's own
- UX and UI
- Content: stop stories and trail history
- Trail mapping from open data
- Working prototype, built with an AI coding partner
Key design decisions
Stories the way a phone shows them
Each of the seven stops is one story, and each dated moment in its history is one card. The home page opens with a row of story circles; a yellow ring means one you have not opened.
Directions to the next stop
After a stop's last card comes the way to the next one: its name and mile, how far it is and how long on foot, and that stretch drawn in yellow on the trail.
Listen, with the phone in your pocket
Every story can be heard as well as read. The cards turn as it reads, it carries on into the next stop, and a small player sits above the tabs so you can pause from anywhere. On a walk, reaching a stop starts its story by itself. In the prototype the phone's built-in voice does the reading.
A stop page that gets out of the way
A stop's photo is the cover of its story. Below it are only three things: this season's note with a short checklist of things to spot, the donors who built the place, and the next stop.
The trail map as the menu
On the Stories tab the real shape of the trail is the way in. Pick a stop from the drawing or from the circles under it, and a card previews its story.
Choose your walk, like a conversation
Four short questions (mood, time, company, effort) end on one loop, with its distance, climb and turns, and why it fits. It warns when a walk would run past sunset.
Directions over the camera view
On the trail, the next turn sits over the camera with the distance counting down, arrows on the ground, and a small round map that turns the way you face. It answers the walker's real question at a fork: which way, from here?
A calm brand for the outdoors
Cream and ink for reading, forest green for stories, and yellow only for the route, what is new and the next action. Serif headlines and large type, because people read this standing up, in sunlight.
Donors thanked where their gift stands
A stop built by a gift has a Donors section: one line on what the gift made, and the donors' faces. Their page puts faces first, then the invitation: the trail is free to walk, and gifts like theirs pay for its upkeep. A page of all the donors names every family, foundation and company, with the $3.1 million they gave alongside $3.4 million in federal highway grants.
Results
140,000
walkers, runners, cyclists and birdwatchers a year, by Monticello's count
The prototype works end to end: the loops measured from the trail's map data, turn-by-turn guidance over the camera, and stories for all seven stops. I have tested it on the trail myself. No one else has used it, so there are no usage numbers or quotes to report.
It also gives Monticello a voice on a trail that carries its name, walked by nearly 140,000 people a year by Monticello's own count. Events sit on the home screen, donors are thanked by name at the places their gifts built, Friends of the Trail is asked for once, at the end of a walk, and membership is offered only to regulars, after many walks. Each is a measurable step from walker to supporter.
Some things are stand-ins: a few photos are marked for placement only until Monticello photography is available, free typefaces stand in for the licensed brand faces, and the events are placeholders. Donor wording and portraits come from public sources, for Monticello's development office to confirm. It is an unofficial concept, not affiliated with or endorsed by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.
Reflection
Restraint was the hardest part. My first versions tried to show everything at once and looked like a dashboard. The version I am proud of asks one question at a time and puts one thing on the screen at a time.
Next I would test with walkers on the trail: two days at the trailheads, with regulars and first-time visitors, to see where people still hesitate at forks. Then pilot one loop end to end, and measure how often people take a wrong turn with and without the guide.