A platform to help users to explore travel destinations with a great confidence and knowledge.

My role

UX/UI Designer and UX Researcher

Key Skills, methods, and tools

UX/UI Design and Research, wire-framing, prototyping, Visual Design, Graphic Design, Stakeholder Management, Presenting and Deliver the work, Team management, Figma, Miro, and Trello

Project overview

Traveling is the most entertaining way to meet strangers and explore new. However, most of the time, with the right know-how, the risks can be minimised or mitigated, and the travel diaries fill up with unforgettable experiences. Epidemics and pandemics are two of the most frightening news for travelers or planners.

Therefore, due to travel restrictions to other countries, Go Drivin, who is a young and innovative service provider has developed a platform for travelers who explores their own country (Australia) with greater confidence and knowledge.

The brief

Go Drivin website needed a refresh, both in visually and functionality. Since the content and the easy navigation were one of the most important in this application but were lacking in their current site design, the main challenge was to make it authentic, interesting, and user-friendly.

They wanted a site that helps meet the needs and requirements of their customers and satisfies them by providing a greater service.

Goals and objectives

As the design team, we focused on the right parts of the project and identified which areas need to be addressed.

The summary of the project goals was as follows;

Commercial: To increase the reach on their website.

Functional: Educate users on services and help users to explore travel destinations with great confidence and knowledge

Emotional: Demonstrate empathy and care towards users.

Image 1 - Given problem statement

Design process

Discover / Empathise

Research Plan & Goals

Before diving in, I wanted to lay out what my research would involve. I created a research plan to help keep me aligned to the research goals at all times as well as the necessary steps that I would need to take to complete it. I mainly wanted to first answers for some of the key questions I had:

What motivates people to travel road trips?
How often do they use a trip planner platform to plan their driving holiday?
What influences a customer’s decision in using a trip planner platform?
What are people’s motivations and pain points when planning and managing a driving holiday?
What features would they expect when booking a trip online?

Methodologies

Competitive Analysis & Market Research: This helped us understand the trends and best practices in the travel market. It also allowed me to familiarise myself with the Go Drivin brand and offerings and see how they compare to their competitors.

Surveys: Conducting a well-planned survey helped us gather information from frequent travelers that might use an app or service similar to that of Go Drivin. This especially helped me understand what influences them in deciding to book a tailored trip, habits and likes during the booking process, and what they would specifically look for in the mobile app experience.

Market & Industry Research

Once I had a research plan in order, I wanted to learn and understand the trends and best practices in the travel market. I began the empathize phase by conducting secondary research first.

As a design team, our primary task was to complete a market analysis as well as a competitive analysis. Reviewing travel booking applications and companies that offered similar solutions, like tailor-made road trip planners was a great help to understand the market well. I researched each company to see what made each of them special and identified some strengths and weaknesses that I know I could use in the future when designing the app. From these research techniques, I was able to gather insights on the direction of the industry, trends, and features that may be expected of the user.

Survey and Interviews insights

The survey was conducted with 22 respondents by using Google forms and conducted one on interviews with 10 individuals to better understand the user’s needs and to gather information about user’s likes and dislikes when planning and booking travel online, and the likelihood of using a service such as Go Drivin.

The key findings of the surveys were:

Eighty-six point four percent (86.4%) responded that they liked to go on driving holidays.
Forty-five point four percent (45.4%) responded that they travel to feel a sense of adventure.
Eighty-six point four percent (86.4%) responded that they were interested in visiting local sights.
Sixty-eight percent (68%) responded that they would be happy to share images of the trip among their social network.

Results of the Interviews:

The majority of users wanted a sense of adventure and discovery
Users have not used a favorite trip planner for planning their trips
Users would prefer to use a web app to plan their trips
Interviewees were happy to share photos on social media
Respondents were frustrated about the travel restrictions imposed due to the COVID pandemic, but anxiously awaiting for lifting the travel ban to explore Australia

Persona Development - Sarah

Based on the feedback and insights gained from research, I created one persona who might use the Go Drivin site. This persona demonstrates the key user goals and frustrations that appeared in research findings.

Sara’s journey map

Sarah’s journey map included 5 scenarios: (a) dreaming (b) planning (c) booking (d) exploring and (e) sharing.

Define

Project Strategy

After analysing the data collected from the primary and secondary research done earlier, My self and the team started to build out a list of the most important features the app should have. I put together a product feature roadmap of any features that might be needed for the app to work efficiently and meet the high-level goals and objectives of this project.

Ideation and creation

The team conducted a co-design workshop with the client to contribute and pitch ideas. This ensured that the client's voice was heard, and had a personal stake and say in how the product would be developed - allowing for a balance between user needs and business wants.

We used the following How Might We's to frame the ideation:

How might we help Sarah to find new travel experiences?
How might we highlight the features of the Go Drivin website for Sarah?
How might we let Sarah know what activities to do on the way?

After conducting the co-design workshop, It was time now to think of how users might navigate the app to review and plan their trips. It was important to keep the information architecture as simple and concise as possible since most of the users would use this regularly to communicate with.

User flow

Before we started sketching and building out wireframes, we wanted to figure out what the user flows would look like for customers trying to accomplish specific tasks. This app would allow users to customize and modify different sections of their travel plans. Therefore, a basic user flow was created, which mapped to determine how to navigate through the website.

Prototyping and user testing

This process had three iterations – each was subject to user testing and further refinement.

Iteration 1

The initial prototype is a mock-up based on our existing research, the key themes discussed in the ideation workshop, the wants and needs of our persona, and the user flows. We’ve meshed this together to craft our first draft of a prototype – iteration one.

Features;

We had a scrollable interface with categories such as – Trending trips, popular near you, narrated trips, relax, and adventure.
We had a video to play
We had an example of a trip interface that is compact and clean in its layout
We had a "click back" option to go home page and look at another example of a trending trip that showcases the visual style of the layout.
It was able to explore the "plan a trip" feature
We had a simple layout with a search bar for adding stops and being able to add them to the map in real-time.

User feedback;

“Plan a trip icon needs to be bigger. It tells the story and is exciting.”
"want more features on the map"
“Clean up buttons to be more sufficient”
“Enjoyed the scrolling menus”
“I get swept away with seeing the visuals, this is more effective for me because I get caught up by the images and see logistics later"

Iteration 2

It’s much the same in terms of layout. But we added the trip planner to the bottom of the page so it can be accessed easily. The team also added a map section to the Three Sisters which helped to see what that trip would be like if we were looking at it in a map view.

Feedback from the respondents;

“I like the images but got a bit lost”
"Plus sign needs to be clearer"
"Adding stops needs to be clearer"
"Liked it but the different map layouts threw me off"

Iteration 3

The feedback that the team obtained was extremely useful. Some feedback we received was that it wasn't clear what the object of the website was. People also liked that there was a sign-up section to the site prominently displayed on the home page. And respondents’ were generally happy with the overflow of the site itself.

High Def Version

Hundred percent (100%) of Sarah's responses needed additional information to provide a clearer understanding of Go Drivin ambitions. To eliminate this pain point we included more information on the landing and trending pages.

Also, we highlighted on the landing page and were also included in the trip to the three sisters.

Seventy percent (70%) of Sarah’s indicated that users wanted to know what is nearby, so we added in a feature to see what is around the location you are visiting.

Feedback;

"It's visually appealing and draws me in"
"I love how simple this is laid out"
"The layout is clear and easy to navigate"
The website is visually appealing, creating an inspirational impact.

Next steps

Our next steps would be to make revisions based on the second round of usability testing on the high def version. After making those revisions to the screens and prototype, I would continue to add some of the features laid out on the feature roadmap and conduct user testing again for the feedback. The app is heading in the right direction and finding any way to make further improvements to the process and experience would only make it stronger in the end.

Lessons learned

Information architecture and how to fit everything within one product smoothly and in a consistent way was a challenge. It made me realise that the UX process is holistic that we could contribute to solving more than what is happening on the website.

What I would have done differently

This was a really exciting and fun project for me because it was the first web app I created. As a team, we did a greater and fruitful job in our initial research, our surveys and long-form interviews formed a fantastic foundation for developing our insights and creating better opportunities.

With the scope of the project being 2 weeks, it was challenging trying to find the right participants that met the personas built from research. Due to the limited time frame, it was impossible to do testing with metrics to gauge the designed outcomes.

Impact:

The client was incredibly happy with this suggestion and is in the process of starting a podcast on the back of this project.