Concept - Wanderlust
A concept for Travel itinerary app
The problem statement
Traveling is one of the best ways to wind down. You can be away from all your stress for few days without worrying about your office or social obligation and have "me" time.
However, planning for traveling isn't always an easy task. Most services which help you in traveling are scattered. Once you book a flight or Hotel, you are on your own.
Wanderlust tries to solve this problem by aggregating data for each travel destination and exposing it to user in a manner to create a timeline for his journey.
Design thinking
Design is an iterative process which never ends. As Product designers and Product managers, one should never fall in love with their work. Instead, we should always be ready to modify and iterate.
Key factors of a good product UX
1. Value
A consumer will use a product or service if it is valuable to him in terms of money. It can be cost, discount coupons, offers or other factors which can help him get the best value and experience for the money he has decided to spend.
2. Time
A consumer will use a product or service if it saves his time. This can be in terms of execution speed, download speed, intuitive UI in which he doesn't need to spend time to figure things out etc.
3. Happiness
A consumer will use a product or service if it brings him happiness by integrating in his daily life and becoming a part of it instead of trying to take over his life. It needs to delight him, make him feel emotionally better about himself and give a helping hand.
What makes a user's experience intuitive?
Research
In order to learn how a consumer goes about planning his vacations and what all information he seeks himself and what all he needs help for from others, I created a questionnaire to ask few friends.
Open ended questions
1. How do you book your flight tickets? Online through some app or service or through a travel agent?
2. How do you find out where to stay? Do you read online reviews or check Facebook groups or ask friends?
3. How do you find out where to eat? Is it at accommodation or do you ask people for good places to eat?
4. How do you find out which places are good to visit and how to reach there? What about mode of transport?
5. How do you exchange currency? Do you use cash in those countries or your credit card?
6. How do you deal with local language? Do you keep a guide with you?
7. How do you stay online in new countries? Do you use International Roaming on your local number or buy a local SIM?
Findings
1. People these days prefer to book their flight tickets online due to the convenience and time saving in terms of comparing prices and finding availability quickly from anywhere using a phone or laptop.
2. People book accommodation based on their age or budget. Youngsters usually prefer hostels because they are cheap and they are able to meet like minded people in those hostels. They don't mind living a D.I.Y lifestyle.
As age increases, mostly the spending ability also increases due to which people over 30 are ok in paying a little more for experiencing a convenient lifestyle of a hotel & feel secure where they don't have to think much and services are given to them.
3. Youngsters have an exploratory lifestyle and they explore new places to eat often. On the other hand, Middle aged people usually don't like to change their eating habits much. People find out about which places to eat at by either word of mouth or looking at reviews online on Google in the country they are at.
4. For sight seeing, people again rely mostly on word of mouth by asking their friends or asking hotel staff or cab driver or other local people. Even when looking online, they prefer reading reviews of places to visit or eat at or about night life .
5. Youngsters are cautious about spending money so they prefer to exchange currency before traveling either by searching for a currency exchange nearby in their home country or at the Airport. Even old people prefer currency but they still prefer to activate international banking on their credit card to use it in case they are out of cash at an odd time even with charges.
6. When it comes to local language, the world has almost moved to English as a common language. Youngsters due to their exploratory nature install apps like Duolingo or Google Translate to learn some basic words like "Yes" "No", "I Need help" etc.
However, it is also not uncommon to keep a guide or cab drivers around by paying him little extra who speaks both local language as well as English as a common language. Elder people usually tend to keep a guide or hire someone to help them with these.
7. Since smartphones are available easily these days with dual SIM functionality and everyone is online, it is a growing trend to buy a "Traveller SIM card" in the country people are visiting. These are usually available at Airports and the vendor themselves set the SIM card in your phone. On the other hand, a minor number of consumers keep international roaming activated. These are usually consumers traveling due to office purpose.
Persona
Empathy map
User journey
The Final output
