Project In Progress...
Experience Finding App.
To discover life in other people's shoes
Overview
The Challenge
Find new user needs regarding travel & leisure and create an innovative digital solution that responds to the findings
Time Frame
5 weeks
Team: 4 people
My Role:
- Prepare and Facilitate group meeting discussions. (Includes a list of meeting objectives, questions & issues to go over, and restating/conclude the members' responses & group decisions.
- Wireframing contrasting ideas for comparison.
- Make flow charts and 2nd stage Wireframes (which responds to our group discussions and was edited based on feedback)
- Assign & organize jobs for each member
- ensure feedback is given for each member
- notify group members of each other's current state in the process and the group's overall process.
- Wireframe and Prototype my assigned frames. (All our frames are subject to the group's critic and decided change)

NeedsResearch
Findings
Following Others
Most people find experiences by looking at what others have done, this includes:
- asking friends
- watching Youtube Influencers
- Getting info from online blogs & social media
- Reviews and recommendations on Yelp, Google, Google map
Unified experience
Users desire to have the experience of finding events and route-finding to be unified in one place.
- Users think that by combining the planning part and action part of the experience, they could get a quicker and more convenient experience
Personal
Users want more customization in all aspects, this includes:
- Recommendation results
- Filters choices
Users want the system to remember who they are with customizations so that they don't have to start fresh each time
Local
Users want more local experiences that are not always organized by the city.
e.g. Drag show at a bar, moon cake making event, Parties, Birdwatching, etc.



Features
A surprising way people find new experiences is to search up "Attractions" on Google Maps. This could be a potential solution for our User need of having a "unified experience for planning & action"
Users

Users keep bringing up the idea of having a customed feature that shows them the reviews, events, etc. that are related to their personality and interest.
Based on these feedbacks, the idea of a platform that shows users similar people's travel plans started to emerge.
Business Studies
2015:
53% Leisure Travel
27% Friend & Relative Visits, Religious, Health
Future Projection:
54% Leisure,
31% religious, Friends & relative visits, heath
Unexpected Validation of an Early Concept
The idea of having a platform where users post and find travel plans for people of similar lifestyle and interests applies both to the Leisure user group and the religious & Friends user group. (visits often involve group activities e.g. dinner & night out) With health being the exception.
Learning from Existing Products
Market Validation
Reviews
It is easier to gather review if the related "transaction" happens on the platform. One can directly ask users to provide feedback after the "transaction" take place.
Relationship to users through user habits
When the system takes in user habits and provides relevant outputs, Users feel more engaged towards the platform.
Learning from Failed Travel Startups
Why Startups Failed:
Market Knowledge
Travel data is complex, it's hard to keep the User experience simple.
Adapt to Changing Landscape
Consumers have high expectations for usability, convenience, and immediate information. The geography and traffic information is constantly changing.
Vulnerable Business Model
When are returns going to be generated?
Volatile Customer Memory
Users don't travel all the time. How do we leave a lasting impression on the users so they come back next time they travel?
Now that we have an understanding of what the market needs, market size, and existing products & problems are, we can clearly define our users and design objectives
MarketResearch




Target&Users
Target Goals:
Connective - connect with user-generated content, real people, and real experiences
Unified - A planning to doing all together app
Personal - Customizable & tailored experiences
Local & within the nation - Discover life right around you (nation to nation would be a future design focus)
Focused User Segments:
Local explorer
Young single user
Young small group users
Travelers (city to city)
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RoughIdeas
Discussion
& Decisions
Platform - Mobile
Mobile app is chosen as the platform because our product is about real-time connected experiences. It is for younger independent and more spontaneous users. An app allows the flexibility and freedom such users and experiences require.
Features:
Questionnaire & System Memory
When an account is made, users would go through a short questionnaire to present their lifestyles and interests.
The system would then continuously update the user's interest profile according to the user's recent activities.
Suggested Routes & Experiences & map
Experience and route suggestions are the main components and would be closer to if not on the home page.
They should be visually connected to the map and be easy to access from the map. Trip overviews and the "start trip" action should also be easily accessible from the suggestions.
Create, Share, Review
Users can create their own routes and experiences, share them, and give reviews to other users' experiences.
FlowChart
WireFrames

Initial Wireframes
2nd Stage
Wireframes
Made changes & edits on selected frames based on the user feedback
1st Stage Wireframing
& UserTest Feedbacks & Changes


Love Friends' activity feature & seeing others' routes
" I want to be able to see what people I know are doing and maybe join them if I don't know what to do on a Friday afternoon."
" I would go on here just to stalk on what other people are doing."
Users confused about whom the routes on the map belong to and when they were made.
Users were curious about what determines the categories for suggestions (they are suggested to and selected by the users during the profile making process.
Overall Users feel that there are too many frames

Search location suggestions are too short, and the “refine your search” section is too long
Users would finish their search first, then select filters, so why let filters appear so soon?
user: "Why not hide the options under 'refine your search' and show them only when users click on refine your search?"
Tackled in 2nd stage Wireframe
Simplifying the Design
We realized the suggestion tab and the suggested routes on the map are 2 different visual representations of the same function. Thus, we got rid of the suggestion tab entirely.
This gives us the space for filters on the first page, which allows users to apply filters on their current location without any location input (which would result in more spontaneous results)
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List View
List view button is introduced to retain the clear visualization that the previous suggestion page design provides.
The Argument of the Search Bar
We neglected to be intentional about the search bar and questioning if it is necessary.
After long discussions of where filter options should be in relation to the search bar, we realized that we haven't look at the search bar itself.
Search bars indicate defined locations and at the most abstract, the category name of the place a user is looking for (e.g. coffee shop). These ideas are not what our objective and feature is about at all.
Our search feature is about inputting the type of experience users are looking for, perhaps an area where the experience is based, but never the exact locations. After all, this is not a navigation app, but an experience finding app.
Not to mention, having a search bar would limit the results users get because users would feel the need to sceificfy exactly where they want to go.

When users tap on a route, details for each experience on the route would appear, This allows users to tap on the individual experiences instead of the whole trip.
This function was not utilized by the users because the changes on the map were too small to satisfy them, by then they already want to go to the next page
Change on Design:
We deleted the process of showing details of each experiences on the rout entirly







Repetitive Screens & Designs
Users were confused by the number of frames and the function of each. Users get lost and couldn't reach back to the home screen.
Tackled in 2nd stage Wireframe
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Home Button
To prevent users from getting lost, Home Navigation button is added on top left of all the screens. When activated, user can select path options from the Navigation Manu
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Screens combined
Current Trip Planning, Saved Experiences, and Saved Trips are combined as tabs on one main page. Now users can quickly switch between these pages to add experiences to a trip they are planning.
Trip History is separate because it is viewed in different contexts.
User Feedback
Analysis Form
New FlowChart
Prototypes
Project in Progress,
Check back in 2 weeks!
Thank you!