EASY WAY
MOBILE TRAVEL APP
A mobile app designed to help travellers stay organized when planning a trip or vacation.
CONTEXT
A mobile app designed to help travellers with planning a trip or vacation while providing a stress-free experience. The Easy Way travel app creates a solution that allows users to have all of their information in one place and increase productivity, efficiency, and organization.
OVERVIEW
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User Research
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Proto & User Persona
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Interview Plan
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Affinity Diagram
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Empathy Map
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User Insight & Problem Statement
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I Wish, I Like, What If...?
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Feature Prioritization Matrix
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Value Proposition
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User Scenario
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Storyboard
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User Journey Map
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Competitor Analysis
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Guerilla Testing
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User Flow
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Wireframing
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Prototyping
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User Testing
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Iteration
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Group & Individual Project
Designed in 4 weeks
(July, 2022)
PROBLEM
Users who love travelling require a solution that allows them to plan all parts of their trip or vacation efficiently. Users should be able to keep all documentation and information pertaining to their trip(s) in one place to help them stay organized and reduce stress.
SOLUTION
Conduct user research and testing to develop a mobile app and prototype that assists users with a stress-free process of selecting, planning, booking, and paying for their trip or vacation all within one application.
RESEARCH
PROTO-PERSONA
My team and I started our user research by creating a proto-persona in order to determine what kind of user(s) we felt would gravitate towards this kind of app.
Some key points we included were:
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someone who has a strong sense of adventure
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saving money - being mindful of expenses and finances
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it's not always easy to stay organized
After we had a general idea of our user, we worked on defining what our research objectives were, and what kinds of questions we wanted to ask users to find the answers to our research objectives. We also wanted to gain a better understanding of their perspective, needs, and experience. Following this, we sought out users that we could interview that were familiar with and enjoyed travelling.
OBJECTIVES
Research goal: Understand what is most important to users when planning a trip.
As a user researcher, I want to understand what motivates users to travel more
As a user researcher, I want to understand how users allocate their finances to ensure they can spend carefully when traveling
As a user researcher, I want to understand what prevents users from traveling
As a user researcher, I want to understand the user's first step taken when a user starts to plan their trip
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What gets you out of bed in the morning?
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When do you find you think about travel most often?
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Tell me about the last time you traveled.
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Why did you pick that destination to travel to as compared to others?
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What do you enjoy most about traveling?
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What kind of factors drive you to start planning a trip?
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When looking into destinations and entertainment for your trips, what do you look for?
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How would you budget your trips?
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When on a trip, what kinds of things do you like to spend your money on? Why?
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When looking into transport, what are your requirements?
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How do you handle financial concerns when planning the trip?
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What were some of the gripes you had from your last trip?
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What are some things that might prevent you from traveling again?
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Tell me about some travel stories where things went wrong or didn’t go according to plan.
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What are some of your fears when planning a trip?
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How do you handle the biggest hurdles when planning your trips? Why?
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Which applications do you use when you plan your trip?
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Walk me through the beginning stages of planning your trip step-by-step.
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What is important to you when choosing a place to visit?
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What are your priorities when you first reach your travel destination?
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What motivates you to travel?
USER INSIGHTS & INTERVIEWS
We later recorded all of our user insights and then placed them into an affinity diagram, in order to organize all insights and collected data.
INTERVIEW #1
INTERVIEW #2
INTERVIEW #3
INTERVIEW #4
INTERVIEW #5
INTERVIEW #6
AFFINITY DIAGRAM
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
I also created a competitor analysis to compare and contrast direct and indirect competitors that have the same or similar concepts to see what we can improve and what works when developing our own app.
ANALYSIS
Now that we had completed our user research, we had developed a better understanding of our user(s) and were able to create a user persona and empathy map. These allowed us to define our target user(s) along with their wants, needs, likes, habits, and pains.
USER PERSONA
EMPATHY MAP
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At this time, we were also able to establish our user insight and problem statement based on our user research.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Our user who loves adventure, needs to stay organized with all the moving parts when planning a trip (flights, accommodations, food, etc).
Our solution should deliver a way for them to have all of their information in one place to increase efficiency for them to enjoy their unique experiences without any stress.
USER INSIGHT
Dylan, who loves unique experiences, needs to stay organized with the many moving parts of planning a trip (flights, accommodations, food etc.) because they can be disorganized and get distracted while planning a trip.
IDEATION
I LIKE, I WISH, WHAT IF...?
Our ideation stage started with creating our "I Wish, I Like, What If?" mind map using the information and data collected from our user interviews. This helped us to determine what features and functions were most important to our user(s) and how we could improve our app's concept.
Key Takeaways:
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Our target user group needs to have a one-stop-shop for when they are planning a trip
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Users need a tool that works for them to keep them organized and on top of the planning process
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Users require a tool that motivates them and rewards them for completing what they need to do
FEATURE PRIORITIZATION MATRIX
We then took all of our notes from our "I Wish, I Like, What If?" mind map and placed everything into a feature prioritization matrix. We did this in order to determine what would have the greatest impact on our user if it were implemented in our application. We noticed that budgeting is something that has a high impact on our user with a low complexity to execute. We also noticed that the simpler the application, the better. Many sites are overly complicated when it comes to planning a trip, our user needs everything to be straightforward and easy to use.
VALUE PROPOSITION
Next we created a value proposition canvas to show how our app can be beneficial and combat potential or existing pains. Something we noticed is that there are lots of gaps to be filled for our users when they are planning a trip. We also noted that there were quite a few customer jobs, and that users are doing a lot of the work when planning trips. Therefore, there are likely many websites and apps being used and kept open just to begin planning. Finally, when filling in the products and services portion, we discovered the potential our app could have. Our main takeaways for this section were:
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Keeping documents in one place
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Having an in app card to load money on to keep the user on budget
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A reward system for using the card (points or stars)
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In the final stages of our ideation process, we completed a user scenario, user journey map, and storyboard to help us identify what the potential path of our user(s) could look like when using our app.
USER SCENARIO
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USER JOURNEY MAP
STORYBOARD
I then continued the project individually, and created a user flow based on how I wanted to design the app.
USER FLOW
PROTOTYPING
From the prototyping phase and onward, I continued to work on the app individually. This started by creating a paper prototype and then making those wireframes clickable to allow for a smooth user experience and to make sure everything was laid out exactly how I had envisioned it.
PAPER PROTOTYPE WIREFRAMES
Splash Screen
Log In Screen
Previous Trips Screen
Travel Screen
Coaching Screen 1
Coaching Screen 2
Coaching Screen 3
Reset Password Screen
Sign Up Screen
Homepage Screen
Plan a New Trip Screen
Book a Flight Screen
Success Screen
Choose a
Destination Screen
Scan Passport Screen
LOW-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
Using my paper prototype wireframes, I edited and created low-fidelity wireframes that were ready for user testing.
COACHING SCREEN 2
COACHING SCREEN 1
SPLASH SCREEN
VERIFY ACCOUNT SCREEN 2
VERIFY ACCOUNT SCREEN 1
RESET PASSWORD SCREEN
PREVIOUS TRIPS SCREEN
HOMEPAGE SCREEN
SIGN UP SCREEN
TRAVEL SCREEN
BOOK A FLIGHT SCREEN
SCAN PASSPORT SCREEN
FLIGHT CONFIRMATION SCREEN
LOGIN SCREEN
WELCOME SCREEN
COACHING SCREEN 3
SUCCESS SCREEN
CHOOSE A
DESTINATION SCREEN
PLAN A NEW TRIP SCREEN
USER TESTING
GUERILLA USER TESTING
I began my user testing phase by developing a guerilla user testing plan which allowed me to define my objective, my target users, and any questions I wanted answered. I then gave users 3 simple tasks to complete:
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Log into the app and attempt to reset their password
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Plan a new trip, select a destination, and add it to their trip
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Book a flight through the app and add it to their trip
The objective for the testing plan was to see if users had any difficulties or confusion when completing the onboarding process and using the mobile app. After taking notes from each of the 6 user interviews, I placed everything into a chart where I sorted the responses based on how frequently they were mentioned.
Common feedback included:
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the app was easy to navigate
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the coaching screens were confusing
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the list of destinations needed titles rather than all having the same label
Less common (but valuable) feedback included:
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adding past dates to the “Previous Trips” page
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adding some sort of confirmation after booking a flight and before scanning a passport
FEATURE PRIORITIZATION MATRIX 2.0
I then placed all of those responses into another feature prioritization matrix in order to determine what was most urgent and the least complex for editing.
I then adjusted my original user flow and created mid-fidelity wireframes using all of the acquired feedback.
USER FLOW 2.0
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MID-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
SPLASH SCREEN
COACHING SCREEN 1
COACHING SCREEN 2
COACHING SCREEN 3
WELCOME SCREEN
LOGIN SCREEN
RESET PASSWORD SCREEN
PASSWORD VERIFICATION CODE SCREEN 1
PASSWORD VERIFICATION CODE SCREEN 2
SIGN UP SCREEN
VERIFY NEW
ACCOUNT SCREEN
SIGN UP VERIFICATION
CODE SCREEN 1
SIGN UP VERIFICATION
CODE SCREEN 2
HOMEPAGE SCREEN
PREVIOUS TRIPS SCREEN
PLAN A NEW TRIP SCREEN
CHOOSE A
DESTINATION SCREEN
SUCCESS SCREEN
TRAVEL SCREEN
BOOK A FLIGHT SCREEN
FLIGHT
INFORMATION SCREEN
SCAN PASSPORT SCREEN
FLIGHT
CONFIRMATION SCREEN
FINAL THOUGHTS & OPPORTUNITIES
Overall I feel very impressed with the app in it's current stage. I think the guerilla user testing feedback was the most substantial and impactful in helping to improve the app's design. Going forward, I would like to:
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Continue developing the travel app and create more pages/screens that include other features initially discussed with my team and during the user research phase
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Continue developing the UI elements and make them more unique and less generic
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I believe coming up with a more cohesive design would improve the app exponentially and ultimately lead to a high-fidelity prototype
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Create and design a logo + UI style guide
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Add more to the user flow and develop the information architecture