GOEXPP - TRAVEL APP - Study Case

The Problem

Travelers struggle planning their trips in advance and feel stressed when they get to their destination and don't know where to go or what to do.

STORYBOARD OF THE PROBLEM

The Solution

“goexpp” is the easiest way to find all the must-do activities and must-see places according to your interests whether planning your trip in advance or making a last minute decision.

My Approach

User Research

As a guy who loves to frequently travel, I got pretty excited about figuring out what are other people’s opinions when it comes to planning their trips. I was also very curious to understand how the global pandemic changed their travel habits.

User Interview

In this initial research phase, I crafted a user research plan and selected 6 people in the San Francisco area to interview based on a previous proto-persona I defined. My goal was to find out users pain points of how they want to travel in the future. I determined the hypothesis I wanted to explore and set 3 key questions I wanted to be sure to answer:

How people currently make travel decisions?
What are their travel habits?
How was their last travel experience?

My other two objectives were to find out what resources people are using to plan and use during their trips and also, what activities travelers are doing and how they find out about them?

USER QUOTES:

“I want to travel like a local and really take something away from the experience”.

“The most stressful part of planning a trip for me is to find things to do on my destination and if I’m traveling with friends, finding things that everybody wants to do”.

“I feel the need to have everything planned, where I’m going, who I’m going with and all the activities I’m going to do.”

Interview Insights

Next step was to synthesize my research using an affinity diagram. On this Miro board I translated valuable insights and other data onto sticky notes. I looked for patterns and organized them into categories.

INTERVIEW INSIGHTS:

AFFINITY DIAGRAM:

User Persona

Developing a user persona at this point helped me create a realistic representation of the appropriate audience and a way to test and prioritize features throughout the development process.

Sam Gomez, a young traveling woman, needs to keep herself occupied with unique and memorable local attractions. When traveling she likes to explore the most and doesn't want to feel like she is missing out on anything.

Definition & Ideation

In order to transform my research insights into meaningful next steps, I used my user persona to create a problem statement and ideate on potential solutions.

PROBLEM STATEMENT:

It is difficult and time consuming for young travelers to find an activity and/or event to do when traveling to a unfamiliar location, causing them to feel overwhelmed and frustrated when planning their trips. I believe I might improve a user’s traveling experiences by developing a mobile app that offers them an easier way to plan their trip in advance or last minute, ensuring they always get back home feeling they enjoyed the most of their trips.

Brainstorming & Ideate

With a problem statement defined, it was brainstorming time. Using the I like, I wish, What if Ideation Method on a Miro board, I came up with a bunch of ideas even including the craziest ones. After ideation, using a feature prioritization matrix I sorted my ideas to prioritize the app features and selected 3 main features:

Users will be able to find all kind of different activities to do at their destinations on only one app
Users will be able to book last minute things to do when they didn't have enough time to plan their trips in advance
The app will learn users interests and give them curated recommendations when they search for a new travel destination

Next, I define a value proposition for those features and I asked myself: “What does my app do better than any other in its category?

VALUE PROPOSITION:

Enjoy the most of your trips, don't miss out on anything. “goexpp” is the most easy and smart way to find all the must-do activities and must-see places according to your own interests at your destination whether planning your trip in advance or making a last minute decision.

User Scenario

The Value Proposition statement was my jumping-off point as I moved into storytelling, it informed me how to create my user scenario.

Prototyping

It’s time to define and represent the interactions my user will have with the product. Before I start paper sketching, I like to map out the user experience and add logic and understanding of my user’s interactions to accomplish a task. I did this by creating a user flowchart. I first focused on drawing the main flow of the app where users will search and book an activity to do.

User Flow

Using my mobile app user flow, I grabbed some paper sheets and started sketching wireframes. Each step of the flow corresponds to one screen that I sketch. While designing my product, I wanted to keep it as simple as possible with a very standard process.

Sketches

Digital Wireframes

Turning my paper sketches into digital wireframes...

Testing & Iterating

Before sinking a lot of time on turning my wireframes in a high-fidelity, I decided to test the product to ensure the design concept was working as intended and if people find the product usable. On Figma I added interactions to my wireframes and created a guerrilla user testing plan to test 6 potential users. While completing the tasks users were asked to, I was observing and taking notes. The most issue they faced were related to the app navigation.

Iterate & iOS Mockups

After testing the product, I gathered enough feedback to start converting the digital wireframes into iOS wireframes and iterating them.

Red arrows: Added some missing crucial navigation buttons
Yellow arrows: Added some features users questioned about

Final Prototype

LESSONS LEARNED:

UX/UI design process takes time, the more time you have the better will be your final product
UX/UI design is an iterative process, and there is always room for improvement, just keep iterating
Understanding the users paint point deeply at the beginning of a project can go a long way
Focus on the problem, don’t jump to solutions before it’s time to

GOEXPP - TRAVEL APP

MOBILE APP PRODUCT DESIGN

OVERVIEW: