Creating Memorable Adventures:
The Travallure App Journey
Deliverables
Hidden Gem
Process
Travelers need personalized experience after pandemic.
1.Frame Opportunities
Our project began amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, anticipating a post-pandemic surge in travel enthusiasm and a need for innovative solutions. Notably, in 2019, tourism contributed $2.9 trillion to global GDP. Our competitor analysis, using feature inspections, VIMM load factors, and heuristic evaluations, revealed that most travel products focus primarily on booking, often neglecting other traveler decisions and social needs throughout their journey.
Our stakeholder map highlighted that individual travel choices significantly impact overall experiences and local economies. By offering personalized travel advice during trips, we aim to enhance user experiences and support local economic growth.
2. Understand Users
Accurate recommendation is key to experience, and trust drives action.
To identify our primary users, meanwhile including the edge case(we do considered about business travelers and bleisure travelers) , we selected 8 research subjects who represented a variety of ages, ethnicities, travel frequencies, and travel purposes. Based on our user interviews, generated research-based user persona, and defined our primary users as the leisure traveler and extreme leisure traveler. The following is some our takeaways from our interviews and personas.
From interviews, we know our users
prefer recommendations from friends, family, and locals
enjoy unique experiences based on interests, prefer travel options over packages
prefer videos over photos for authenticity.
Pain points of our users
cannot save information that interested
feeling rushed during the trip (need help planning)
can’t find local hidden gems.
doesn't want to get stuck only doing tourist activities.
Goals of our users
wanting to visit new places for unique experiences and enjoy as much as possible
posting pictures/videos of the trip on social media.
communicate/connect with the locals (ex: artists, musicians).
“I don’t want to go to touristy sites…I want a unique experience when I’m in a new place.”
—Sofia, Extreme Leisure Traveler
“We enrich and expand our lives through travel. Safety and comfort are the values I care about most.”
—Zoe, Leisure Traveler
Traveling like you have local friends.
3.Define Pain Points
With all the research insights, we mapped our primary user Zoe, a leisure traveler's current journey and uncovered the main pain points and opportunities in different stages, and we can know our user’s need:
Zoe needs a way to see available options, so she can easily compare her choices.
Zoe needs a way to find reliable recommendations, so she can make more informed decisions.
Zoe needs a way to find local hidden gems, so she can have unique travel experiences.
4. Design New Concepts
Find the personalized experience and the hidden gems.
We as a team brainstormed over 30 big ideas based on research. Four key features were made into epic stories and illustrated with storyboards. We also created over 80 UI sketches to explore design concepts. The following graph demonstrates this process.
5.Create Prototypes
Iterative design through multiple rounds of prototyping.
Our project was branded in a simple manner, with usability being one of the most important criteria we focused on during the selection process for the color system.
Three designers, including myself, created different workflows for the app using Adobe XD. While it was not possible to fully standardize the design system, we were able to achieve consistency in the UI design through ongoing design critiques and discussions.
6. Test and Iteration
After iteration, we received positive reviews.
We conducted two rounds of usability testing to gather user feedback on the interactive prototype. During this process, several usability design issues were identified. For instance, users expressed confusion regarding the meaning of certain icons, encountered barriers due to text size and color in reading buttons and labels, and noticed missing information and functionality. Through iterative revisions, we were able to address these issues and resolve them.
In addition to the two iterations, we conducted the following user testing:
Blink Test
Initial Impression Surveys
User Scenario Tests
Post-Scenario Questions
SUS Score (System Usability Scale)
Post-Test Survey
The overall SUS score for Travallure was 80.9 indicating a successful prototype that receives an "A", shows user ratings of overall satisfaction with the app.
Golden Thread.
07. Development
Our team collaborated with a software engineer, advancing our design to the development sprint planning phase. Using user story mapping, we transformed user requirements into actionable development tasks and prioritized them to reflect the entire user experience.
This method streamlined our workflow, allowing the development team to effectively address these user stories in a single sprint or release. Our steps included:
Reviewing User Requirements
Writing Specific User Tasks
Considering Developmental Aspects
Prioritizing Sprint/Release Phase
Forming the Golden Thread
In discussions with our engineers, we identified key factors and overlooked elements in our initial design, such as email confirmation for registration and login, establishing follower relationships, validating age and location, and ensuring information availability and privacy protection.
As for stories in development planning, we created a development backlog via Trello:
Both short-term and long-term future developments are considered.
08.Future Steps
In the development phase, we're not just addressing existing issues but also refining key features. This includes enhancing the co-created and edited travel planner, improving the travel mood board functionality, and broadening social media integration.
For our long-term vision, we plan to extend our product's reach into sales, support, and call centers. We're also aiming to provide assistance to travelers through diverse channels: web, cell phones, smartwatches, artificial intelligence, and voice commands. This expansion reflects our commitment to offering accessible, cutting-edge travel solutions.
Team
Alex Quinn, Jingwen Wang, Yiran Zhu, Nathan Smith, Kelsey Faherty