TripTip is my capstone project I've created through Springboard's UX Design course. This showcases my design process from beginning to end, from conducting user research to creating iterations based off of usability testing.
Problem:
Traveling is something many people love to do, but hate planning for. I observed many people who stress out when putting together plans for a trip and I wanted to figure out why.
Hypothesis:
My initial idea was that the user's pain points mainly came from navigating through numerous websites and lacking an efficient way to keep track of trip information. I hypothesized this made the process tedious and believed a possible to solution is to bring the websites to the user rather than the user finding the websites.
Solution:
I began the process of interviewing users to see if my assumptions were true. I asked questions about the general planning process to see what part gives users the most trouble. I found out the answer was quite different from what I expected.
I sent out a screener survey and gathered 21 responses and interviewed five individuals. I discovered a lot of what people were stressed about isn't the money or how complicated the booking process is, it's the other people coming along on the trip who don't give enough valuable input during planning.
Planner Pam is a culmination of responses I've received from 21 participants from a screener survey and from interviewing 5 individuals ages ranging from 24 to 27. I wanted to summarize the needs and motivations of users who plan often and face issues along the way.
After being told that a big frustration is others not being active in planning, I wanted to find people in this group to interview to see their perspective on trip planning. Traveler Tom is a representation of two individuals who are in their late 20s who are a bit more lax when it comes to planning.
I created user stories of four tasks a user can perform on this app, keeping into consideration the MVP.
I then ran a card sorting activity with three participants who were representative of the personas created. My initial card sort produced a sitemap that made me realize I was getting off track with what the core problem is. I stepped back and redid the card sorting activity with tasks related to the user's needs, which is more communication between people. The second card sorting went much more smoother and I was able to create a sitemap that's more in line with the user's goals.
This is the sitemap created from the first card sorting activity. I noticed all of the features that were irrelevant to the user's needs, such as 'Flight,' 'Transportation,' and 'Budget.'
I conducted a second card sorting activity with new tasks that were more related to the core issue of having others communicate more. This time around the card sorting went by much smoother and quicker. The sitemap based of this activity seemed to better encompass the user's goals.
It was around this time during the process when I was discussing my idea to a friend. She said these exact words:
"Oh, it sounds just like a group chat."
I paused and tried to recollect my thoughts. I didn't want to create a solution that might already exist. I decided to run an interview with three participants to get their input about group chats.
The participants saw the convenience of group chats, but mentioned that people still don't respond when answers are needed. A participant said:
"If group chats were really that effective, then why do we still have this problem?"
After the interviews, I felt comfortable continuing on with my solution.
I mapped out Pam's task of finding a place to eat and suggesting it to her group.
This maps out Tom's task of leaving feedback on another person's suggestion.
These are wireframes based off of Pam's task of suggesting a place to eat. While creating the wireframes, I tried to not get too caught up with the designs and adding things that I thought might be handy. I had to remind myself that this should be based off of what makes sense to the user.
These wireframes are based off of Tom's task of leaving feedback for another person's suggestion.
User testing was performed on the following prototype:
I conducted user testing with three participants. I gave them the task of suggesting a place, giving feedback, and setting a reminder. Overall, the participants found the prototype easy to use. There were a few inconveniences that multiple participants noticed. I took their feedback into consideration and created design comps with the following changes:
- Added a home button
- Put suggestions that need feedback on top of the list rather than having the user filter it out
-Include a way for the user to add suggestions to the itinerary
I went through a new user journey for Pam, now taking into consideration how she feels and what she thinks during certain tasks. This highlighted a few new pain points and solutions I haven’t thought of before:
• Have a point incentive to encourage more planning engagement
• Have users choose to either be an ‘Active Planner’ or a ‘Passive Planner’
I plan to continue exploring different design elements and test these new designs with users and discover different use cases.
Ideas I want to explore:
• Should users be able to choose to be an ‘Active Planner’ or a ‘Passive Planner?’
• Do users want to have things done on a majority-rule basis?
• How do I remove bias when users vote and choose things to put on the itinerary?
•Would a point or incentive program be effective in encouraging planning engagement and also be a benefit to businesses?