“Making traveling simple as pie.”
UX role
User Research
Interaction
Visual Design
Prototyping & Testing
Information Architecture
Tools
Figma, Miro, Trello,
Google forms, Otter
Problem
How might we create a travel app that our customers are successful based on collaboration with the group travellers’ ideas and expectations, simplify the travel planning process, allow for detailed travel planning ahead of time and give the flexibility to quickly lookup and adjust the plans on transportation time due to unpredictable reasons to use the Trip Gather app?
‘TripGather’ was designed to achieve an easy and efficient way to organize trips and reach a consensus on itinerary amongst a group of fellow travelers.
Usability Testing Round 2
Usability Testing Round 1
Starting
the Process
Conducted user interviews to collect qualitative data. Synthesizing the data that was collected into proto-persona, empathy and affinity maps created an ideal user-persona.
Ten participants conducted the survey, ages 26-35, who interact with the community. Our team set up for the quantitative research to look into how users experience in looking for a non-profit website, and what experience to donating money before.
Background: Travel planning is a lengthy and time-consuming process involving discovering an ideal travel destination by browsing social media sites, searching for travel information, and reading reviews from numerous travel apps. ‘Trip Gather’ is a mobile app that helps people who vacation in groups to collaborate their ideas and expectations for their travel plans and be encouraged to participate in the planning process
.
Objectives: This study aims to understand users how communicate with their peers and understand the user's decision to simplify choosing travel planning.
Research Schedule
March 12-14th, 2022
User Interviews, Online Survey Distribution
March 15, 2022
Synthesize research using an Affinity Diagram
March 16, 2022
Empathy Map
March 17, 2022.
Create User Personas
I conducted an online survey using Google Forms and distributed it via social media. I decided to do a quantitative survey to understand people’s travel habits. The critical question is how users experience the travelling plann
ing process and the time spent in travel planning.
I receive
d 64 responses, with most participants between 18 and 35. This survey ruled out users who travel once a year and usua
l
ly go in a group. They spent at least a week on travel planning. The survey results are indicated below.
To better understand the planning process, I conducted six interviews via Zoom during the COVID pandemic. The commonalities among these demographics were a love of travelling in groups but concerns about the places with inconvenient traffic and want to make a clear itinerary schedule.
Once my user interviews were completed, I could construct an affinity diagram from the results. It allowed me to process, sort, and identify critical insights into the information we gained from the users. I generated and consolidated the data related to the product and the problems that I wanted to solve.
I created this empathy map to collect what our users do, think, feel and say so I can get a better understanding regarding their experience.
Based on the interviews conducted with potential users, I formulated a new persona.
User Persona Helen needs to use consolidated information to build an itinerary to reduce her anxiety w
ith time
management d
uring travel because of wanting to have better control of travel planning and organizing during the group travelers to enjoy the memorable trips with her friends and family.
My survey discovered that most users spend at least a week planning a trip. Also, most users commended that it w
as important for the group to work together and compromise to make firm decisions. Therefore, we believe that users need a platform where they can record and share information.
I have observed that travelers feel lost and anxious when gathering the information from multi-sources and apps,
for example, Expedia, Trivago etc. A potential traveler like Helen need to consolidate information to make a group traveli
ng fun and memorable experience.
Ho
w might we create a travel app that our customers are successful based on collaboration with the group travellers’ ideas
and expectations, simplify the travel planning process, allow for detailed travel planning ahead of time and give the flexibility to quickly lookup and adjust the plans on transportation time due to unpredictable reasons to use the Trip Gather app?
I conducted a brainstorm ing session to develop specific features based on user research. It helps me have a clearer idea of the themes and considerations.
The insights d eemed of high value were the main pain points that was identified in the user journey map .
‘TripGather’ was designed to achieve an easy and efficient way to organize trips and reach a consensus on itinerary am ongst a group of fellow travelers.
Creating a storyboard helped me to make t he app internally and externally. It helped me address: who was my design targeting? Why would a user want to use my app? It also allowed us to understand the flow of interactions someone might have with the app.
For my competitive analysis, I identified two direct competitors in Expedia, TripAdvisor and an indirect competitor in Trivago, Costco Travel. I mapped out each competitor’s onboarding process and compared all features, strengths and weaknesses of each competitor.
The
user flow diagram added much more depth to the design. The more granular view of the project showed more specifically what the processes are and what goals I’m hoping the user will complete as they navigate the app.
This feature user flow gave me a m
uch clearer idea of how the users would build the trips, where they would be required to enter data, how they could access travel documents, and more of the necessary functionality of the app.
I enjoy the process of sketching out wireframes. Also, I started planning out how the app would look, and feels good to see it come together once I get started. Once everything was fully illustr ated, I had enough screens to have a clear idea of how the app will look and function.
As it is the first project I have completed by myself, there were various UX, UI and visual design aspects I had to learn how to use the tool Figma.
Key Takeaways
- Learning empathy is an ongoing process; I learned to be open to the idea and open to different experiences and ideas that come with it.
- Test early: If I were to do this project again, I would test the prototype in Figma. I have learnt a lot about the user’s behaviour when using the app.
- Better Competitive Analysis: I wish I had done more research on what travel planning apps already existed before starting my project.
Next Steps
- Enhancing the prototype and evolving the concept more to the best practices.
- Continue on the high-fidelity mockups and continue the user testing using prototypes to ensure the design is handed off to developers after thorough user testing, increasing the possibility of bringing a successful app to the users.
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