Glocalisation
Mobile Case Study App
Tanpreet Dhani
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Research Objective
THE PROBLEM:
Trip booking and itinerary management prior to travel can be such a tedious task. Having to do tons of research using various platforms can just overwhelming and tiring. So, how can we help travellers in managing their itinerary, planned or unplanned, whilst making a booking.
THE OBJECTIVE:
Therefore, the objective of this research was to find how effective itinerary management in travel apps impacts travellers’ overall experience and satisfaction when planning a trip post-pandemic.
By understanding…
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Optimal features of functionalities enhancing decision-making
Challenges or pain points of itinerary management
Changes in planning post-pandemic trips
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Proto-persona
Behaviour demographics:
Pain points and frustrations:
Goals and needs:
Demographics:
User Research
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Methodology
Using qualitative methodology, I planned and conducted five 1v1 interviews with potential users who enjoy travelling and have travelled since the COVID-19 pandemic.
I asked a series of 14 questions, followed by probing questions where necessary, in correspondence to the research objectives.
Interview objectives included:
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Trip planning process and challenges
Post-pandemic concerns
What did the people have to say?
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“I wanna have the same experience that the local people have.”
“Just having that health and safety information. Yeah, having everything, knowing what to do, and that would be quite good.”
“I really like to you know, to feel the spirit of the some place, some countries, some city … you can't really understand this place If you visit only… the famous places.”
Affinity Diagram
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After analysing all five interviews, several themes began to emerge, including…
Budgeting
Expectations
Frustrations
Information
Research
Itinerary
Avoid overspending
Wants to experience the local life
COVID-19 safety and general safety concerns
Needs to be well informed
Uses multiple sources
Needs to have some sort of an idea of what they’ll be doing
Affinity Diagram screenshots
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Empathy Map
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User Persona
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Definition & Ideation
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User Insight
Jimmy Yong needs to find a simple interface which allows travellers to find out information about local experience because of his goal to make lasting memories with new people.
During the interviews, I discovered that the majority of the individuals did not only express their desire to experience the local culture and their frustrations with lack of safety information, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, but also most strongly disliked doing research but wanted some sort of itinerary plan.
Therefore, I believe that people need help in cutting down their time on doing tedious research and that I might be able to help if I develop an app which will provide all necessary information available when booking a trip and help with itinerary management.
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Problem Statement
Many travellers looking to travel for local experiences find it difficult to find valuable information about these experiences, and are poorly informed about the health and safety rules and regulations at the location.
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I Like, I Wish, What If…
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Feature Prioritisation Matrix
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Complexity
Impact/Priority
High
High
Low
Low
Value Proposition
Glocalisation connects the global with locals. Safely integrating cultures for new and fun experiences.
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Storyboard
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User Journey Map
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Prototyping
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Homework 3
Who’s my competition?
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Spotted by locals
Doesn’t require login.
Local’s point of view.
Location details (e.g., opening times)
Helps avoid overcrowded locations.
Subscription fee.
No advanced features on home page.
No bookings.
No COVID-19 safety information.
With locals
Doesn’t require login.
User attention capturing features.
Manage itinerary.
Local tour guides available.
Difficult to navigate back and forth through pages.
Cannot scroll/flip through images.
No COVID-19 safety information.
Expedia
Airbnb
Doesn’t require login.
Brief and informative insights.
Time duration estimates provided - e.g., how long will a certain experience take.
Can’t scroll through images.
Easy to miss important information.
No COVID-19 information.
Invaluable information - e.g., no information on where and when, just what the experience is.
Simple interface.
Easy to reach pages.
Helpful and informative COVID-19 information.
DIRECT
INDIRECT
Open app
Home page
Destination
Enter sign-in/up details, or skip
Payment details
Book
Save
Pay
View itinerary
Close app
Local experience
So, how would someone use my app?
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TO…
End
Beginning
What would this look like?
Splash screen
Skip login
Login
Upcoming bookings - bookings users would have already made
Saved - gives users a chance to save those experiences they can’t book, or even those they can, and come back to them later.
The tour guides they’ve booked
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Sketches are unclear, what if we digitise the flow?
Login page
Itinerary management
Home page
Local experience information page
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Home page
Various options given to user to explore experiences using the home page.
Itinerary button which directly takes the user to their in-app itinerary lists.
Search bar with filtering option.
Menu and messages (with tour guide) accessible from the home page.
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Price information and book button will only be displayed on those pages where users can book the local experience.
The heart icon allows users to like and save the experience.
Back button, allowing users to go back to the home page.
Scrolling option allowing users to view all the information available for the experience.
Local experience information page
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Highlighted button letting the user know where they are on the itinerary page.
Information cards about the upcoming bookings - the user can horizontally scroll through the options.
Back button which leads the user back to the home page.
Tour guide section which lets the user know about which tour guides they have booked.
Itinerary management: ‘Upcoming bookings’
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Back button which leads the user back to the home page.
Book button lets users book those experiences that they’ve saved but not yet booked.
Itinerary management:
‘Saved’
Highlighted button letting the user know where they are on the itinerary page.
Information cards about the upcoming bookings - the user can horizontally scroll through the options.
Back button which leads the user back to the home page.
Testing and Iterating
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Guerilla Testing
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE:
Testing if users can find local experiences and both a booking and save the experience, using the search bar and home page.
TARGET USERS:
Preferably travellers without children.
KEY QUESTION TO ANSWER:
Are users able to book and save a local experience using various approach and options, as well as navigate the itinerary in the app?
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The testing plan
The plan is to conducted four guerilla tests, each testing five simple tasks:
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Reach the home page
Book a local experience and a local tour guide.
Save a local experience to the itinerary
Use the search bar and filter options
Access and navigate the itinerary
User Tests
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Saving an experience
Booking an experience
What patterns are emerged from testing?
After conducted guerrilla tests and analysing them using affinity diagram and feature prioritisation, I’ve noticed that there are functionality difficulties that need to be improved, but there are also features that work.
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Information overload on certain pages
Somewhat unsure if they had reached the home page
Liked the booking saved experience directly from the itinerary
Had some trouble navigating the itinerary
Quick and ease options available to help reach the home page
Information layout encouraged scrolling
Confused about the booking tour guide page.
Helpful icons and buttons navigated the user
Breakdown of results: features that need to be improved
Information overload on certain pages
Somewhat unsure if they had reached the home page
Had some trouble navigating the itinerary
Confused about the booking tour guide page.
Some users said there was too much information on some pages which confused them about where to click.
Tour guide section could’ve been next to the information card on the itinerary page
Users were unsure on the difference between the ‘upcoming bookings’ and ‘saved’ sections in the itinerary.
Only clicked on information cards with the book button suggested confusion and unawareness.
If the ‘Pick me!’ button and information card on the tour guide page were together, it would’ve made more sense to me.
Breakdown of results: features that work
Majority of the users chose to skip login and expressed that they liked this option was available.
Google or other sign-in/up and payment made it quicker and easier to complete the task.
Heart icon correctly suggested to save the experience to itinerary.
Users smoothly navigated the search bar.
Information layout correctly encouraged the user to scroll up vertically or horizontally on the page.
Liked the booking saved experience directly from the itinerary
Quick and ease options available to help reach the home page
Information layout encouraged scrolling
Helpful icons and buttons navigated the user
Iterations Made Based on User Test
No iterations were made to the user flow because I found the app flowed as suggested by the flow, however, iterations needed to be made to some features and pages on the digital wireframes.
Changes made:
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Home page
Low → Mid
Decreased the amount of information shown on the home page.
Simpler and visually clickable search bar. Also shows that users can filter searches.
Bottom app bar remained the same.
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Low → Mid
Back button next to the search bar.
Search options pages
‘Done’ button incorporated into the search bar, and made visually clickable.
Booking and only saving experiences are now separated to make it clear.
Important to mention that these experiences don’t require bookings.
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Picking a tour guide page
Low → Mid
Information card design remained the same.
‘Pick me’ button is now located under each information card to make it clear which tour guide users pick.
Added a title to make it clear where the user is in their journey.
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Itinerary pages - ‘upcoming bookings’
Low → Mid
‘Upcoming bookings’ changed to ‘bookings’ to make it simple and easy to read/understand.
Changed layout: important information bigger, such as the words since the image is not the focus on this page.
Tour guide section changed to a button, which leads to a separate page to their information.
Help button for users unsure about this page.
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Itinerary pages - ‘saved’
Low → Mid
Same information card layout as bookings page.
Information separated - experiences yet to book made clear.
Book button to guide user to experience information page.
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Itinerary pages - coaching
Clicking on the question mark (help button) opens up a coaching screen, guiding users through the purposes of the page.
Coaching screen pops up telling the user about what the bookings and the saved tabs do.
‘Next’ button allows the user to navigate through the coaching screens.
Darkened background to divert the user’s attention to the coaching pop-up.
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New tour guide information page
Information about what they’ll be doing with the guide on the experience.
Same information card layout, but with the additional information at the bottom.
Tour guide’s contact details lets the user trust the app and the guide a little more - increases feeling of safety.
Back button leads back to the itinerary page.
IOS Prototyping
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iOS Prototype - Mid-fidelity
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iOS Mockups
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Key take home points
Take home message is to keep note of all the new learnings throughout the process, making sure to implement these findings wherever required, and always think like an oblivious user.
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