Problem Space

As a child, I was always fascinated by traveling. During my local family vacations, I never realized the pain of planning a trip until I took my first flight to US in 2018. My dreams were associated with a realization - “Crap! I don’t know anything about this place”. I started using plenty of travel apps that help me move around, find inspiration and tips, or buy tickets and book accommodation online. I also called my seniors to know more about the places there and how I can utilize my time well. I had many questions like which places I should visit locally on weekends, where should I stay if I visit an unknown place, how much should my bags weigh according to airline policy, etc. The list of questions got pretty overwhelming.

01

Empathize

Before diving in, I wanted to lay out what my research would involve. I created a research plan to stay aligned with the research goals as well as to note the necessary steps required to take to complete it. Some of the key questions I addressed:

• What motivates people to use personalized travel services?

• How often do they communicate with a travel agent? When they do, do they do it in-person or online?

• What influences a customer’s decision in purchasing a trip?

• What are people’s motivations and pain points when planning and managing a trip?

• What features would they expect when booking a vacation online with a travel company?

Surveys

I created and conducted a survey using Google Forms to better understand the users needs and to gather information about user’s likes and dislikes when planning and booking travel online. I was able to collect results from 16 total participants. The target audience were people that traveled 2+ times a year, use travel booking applications, and are between the age group of 25–65.

The key findings of the surveys were:

• 94.74% of participants mentioned that planning a general outline without a specific schedule when planning for trips was their main preference.

• 72% of participants said that their hotel was not as described in the app.

• 26% of the participants mentioned that their bags were oversized and were not airline compliant.

• 97% of the participants said that they would not risk their lives and travel in the pandemic environment

Secondary Research

To increase the overall effectiveness of research, I performed secondary research by referring to the research reports and Think with Google. It gave me an overall idea about the effectiveness of primary research. It helped me understand the travelers’ behavior and booking patterns. This, in turn, helped me brainstorm my product features effectively.

Some of the key statistics of the research were:

02

Define

To synthesize my observations about the users from the research stage, an appropriate definition of the problem space will get me to kick-started with the ideation process in the right direction. This is the third stage of the design process.

Personas

After getting insights from user research, I had a clear understanding of who my target user will be and accordingly, created a persona. User personas will help me make better design decisions that will satisfy the users’ needs. Personas helped in understanding the goals and characteristics that represent the needs of a larger group of users.

Phases of Traveler

To get a sense of your customers' motivations towards an online booking app, I identified various phases of traveler’s journey. These phases help me see if the customers are reaching their goals. With a complete view of the customer journey, it's easier to pick out areas where the app can stand to improve it.

03

Ideate

My goal at this stage was to just spark off ideas - in the form of questions and solutions, through creative and curious activities such as brainstorms and storyboarding. The aim was to generate a large quantity of ideas — ideas that potentially inspire newer, better idea.

Storyboarding

I performed storyboarding to visually predict and explore a user’s experience with a product. It helped me understand the flow of people’s interactions with a product over time, giving me a clear sense of what’s really important for users. I think stories are an effective and inexpensive way to capture, convey, and explore experiences in the design process. They helped me put a associate a human face to my analytics data and research findings.

Brainstorming Features

To perform the brainstorming technique, I started by laying out the problem I wanted to solve and identifying the objectives of a possible solution. Then, try to generate solutions individually. Some of these thoughts and ideas are crafted into original and creative solutions to problems, whereas help to spark additional ideas.

04

Build

This stage involves UI definition of required features. I build user flows, wireframes and high-fidelity prototypes to share my ideas with stakeholders. This stage was an iterative process.

High-level User Flow

To find a quick and easy way to translate high-level design concepts into tangible and testable artifacts, I decided to sketch out my low-fidelity prototype. The main aim was to check and test functionality rather than the visual appearance of the product.

Low-Fidelity Prototype

To find a quick and easy way to translate high-level design concepts into tangible and testable artifacts, I decided to sketch out my low-fidelity prototype. The main aim was to check and test functionality rather than the visual appearance of the product.

High-Fidelity Prototype

At this stage, I had a solid understanding of what I’m going to build to test with real users and get final-design approval from my stakeholders. The main idea behind the high-fidelity design was to gain meaningful feedback during usability testing.

05

Usability Testing

To gain insights from our users and to see if I meet user’s expectations, I decided to perform usability testing. It helped me find problems when they are still easy and cheap to fix. I decided to test my prototype with 10 users. I have detailed major findings and recommendations for improving the Caravan’s usability.

Goals

• To test the product concept with the target audience

• To find difficulties faced while using the product

Key Findings

Room for Improvement

• User had difficulty locating the ‘Plan Your Trip’ option

  Upon being prompted to book a moderate flight from Boston to New York under $200, user couldn’t spot the ‘Plan Your Trip’ option  at the bottom of the screen at first. Later he figured out and completed the task. Some CTAs needed to be improved in terms of visibility.

• The app could be aided with more travel-oriented tools

  The scope of the app could be increased by alerting the traveler about any flight delays, language translator which will in turn make the app as one-stop solution for all the travelers. The users mentioned tools such as baggage tracker, digital boarding pass etc. would be helpful.

• Filters for flight-search

  Users found it difficult to search through the whole list of flights. Prototyping filters for flight-search will aid the user to search for an appropriate flight based on their needs faster than the regular scrolling. 

User Testing Retrospective

The following are quotes from participants of my User Testing. 

• “Overall the app seems to be really impressive, I love the fact that it is easy to navigate”

• “The first thing I do when I plan to travel is to look for rewards and deals. Caravan does a good job at showing deals the moment I land on the homepage.”

• “I usually travel for business trips. I do not care much about the budget and can book it right away. I like how Caravan has labelled their ratings and their recommended hotel”

• “The app is quite straightforward and saves my time. I like how they have activity add-ons and readily presented packages”

• “I have had many bad experiences with hotel booking. The rooms look totally different than the pictures. I loved the idea of virtual room tour”

My next steps would be to make revisions based on the second round of usability testing. 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 feedback. The app is heading on the right direction and finding any way to make further improvements to the process and experience would only make it stronger in the end.

Style Guide

Reflection

Caravan was one of my first major end-to-end UX project. It made me realize that a designer’s job is not only to delight users but also to bring value to the business. Information architecture and the ability to fit everything within one product smoothly and in a consistent way was a challenge. It made me realize that creating a well-functioning app is not an easy job. In fact, if done properly, it is one of the toughest things a UX Designer can tackle.

Designing of Caravan app has has had a positive impact on the trip planning and stress-free travel. However, there is still scope in building more travel friendly tools like live baggage tracker, language translator, designing a better travel guide within the app. I believe Caravan gives a more social twist to trip planning.

There is still a lot more to explore with Caravan. It’s an iterative process that I will continue to work on the application. Please feel free to check my interactive prototype.