Learnings from conversations with fellow divers

Through surveys and interviews over the past few weeks, we've been learning about the diving community's experiences and needs to enhance Marla, our diving forecasting tool (Marla UK, Marla AU).

A huge thanks to those divers we spoke to. It was incredibly helpful to understand the world of diving through your eyes. I'd like to share our findings, and share how we will be using this to shape Marla's product and algorithm development.

Our aim at Marla is to create a tool that truly works for divers. Through interviews and surveys, we're employing human-centred design techniques to ensure Marla meets divers' needs.

Findings 

Our conversations with divers uncovered a wealth of fascinating insights.

We spoke to divers who lived by the coast and would jump in whenever they could. Divers who lived 3 hours away from the coast but still went diving as soon as the conditions allowed. We spoke to instructors who were in the water all day every day - and they all loved it. We spoke to divers who spearfished in 2-3m of visibility. Divers who had mapped out new dive sites in remote parts of Mozambique, and divers who conduct marine research and conservation. 

Each and every experience was unique and fascinating to hear about, all with their own unique challenges.

A word cloud showing what divers currently use to check the diving conditions.

A few of the key findings:

Understanding the conditions

Currently, in order to predict visibility and conditions, divers need to know what the conditions have been for the days leading up to a planned dive. They want to know: 

• The strength and direction of the wind and swell, and the amount of rainfall for the days leading up to the dive. 

• The tide times, water temperature, pollution incidents and surface conditions for the day of the dive. 

• Divers are checking many different tools, apps and websites to compare, get an average or see different aspects of the conditions. No one tool does it all.
  

Go / no go

Divers are checking the conditions in the week leading up to a planned dive for a ‘go /no go’. They want to cancel a planned dive as soon as possible if the conditions are not good. Some divers live 2+hr drive from the sea, so they:

• Can’t see conditions throughout the week, are reliant on forecasting tools.

• Worried about driving the distance, only to not be able to dive.

Sceptical of forecasts

Divers think the viz is unpredictable, and are sceptical this project will work. Weather forecasts in general are not that accurate.

Divers don’t want to waste a dive

There is only a limited window of diving opportunity, where conditions and schedules meetup.

• Divers prefer to do an ‘ok’ dive in a place they know well, compared to diving somewhere new, where the dive is unknown. They don’t want to ‘waste a dive’ by risking not seeing anything.

• They do get bored of spots, but there are so many unknowns about a new spot. At a spot they know, they are safer as they can read the conditions, and know there will be something to see, over the risk of a bad dive, poor conditions, unknown underwater features or nature or to look at.

Passion for diving

Divers just love being underwater, and will dive with poor viz, just to get in the water!

• Divers cited they dived for: a love of nature, being able to explore a new world, no one being able to contact them “I can’t get any emails underwater”, 

• Diving in a familiar spot is “like taking a walk in your neighbourhood.”

To a diver, ( if I’ve done my research correctly )  these may seem obvious! We needed to distil the experiences of all the divers we spoke to so we can align Marla's development with divers' real needs.

Participants

We conducted a survey to gather insights from divers across the UK, Ireland, and Australia, receiving hundreds of responses from divers of varying experience levels. 

We had a pretty even split of respondents across the UK and ireland and Australia

Survey participants ocean activity and frequency. We can see we have a lot of regular scuba divers and snorkelers

Additionally, we had in-depth one-on-one conversations with divers to dive deeper into their stories and experiences.

The 1-1 discussions were held with a divers with a range of experiences

Further discussions

The 1-1 discussions were primarily from passionate and experienced divers. They were very knowledgeable about how to read weather data and local conditions. We're aiming to hear more from open-water swimmers, snorkelers, from a wide range of experience, as well as talking to boat skippers and other people in or around the industry.

Building on these findings

We’re using these insights to improve Marla. We’ll be adding new features and improving the tool, with the aim of solving some of these problems, and helping divers find the best time to dive. 

We shared a little of what we’ve been working on in our March update.

If you're a seasoned diver or simply intrigued by our project, we invite you to join our journey. Stay updated on our progress, share your thoughts, and be part of Marla's evolution by taking part in our next survey:

Take survey