TravelBot - Mobile App

Project Overview

TravelBot is a project inspired by a curiosity to understand how the travel booking process could become more user-friendly and streamlined. During a recent personal experience, I found myself wanting a service that offered a “one-stop-shop” experience that would integrate with other services I enjoy using when traveling. In addition to this, I really enjoy automation that allows the technology to be secondary to the user’s experience. Unfortunately, after my initial research to find a solution, I came up empty.

Due to time constraints and the complex nature of this concept, I decided to focus on trying to understand why users might feel frustrated during the travel booking process. With this in mind, I decided on 3 research objectives:

• As a user researcher, I want to understand the specific step-by-step process about how an average traveler books flights, hotels and cars.
  

• As a user researcher, I want to understand how people around the world think about the travel booking process.
  

• As a user researcher, I want to understand the pain points people have about the overall travel booking experience.

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The Problem

Travelers are searching for an all-in-one platform that allows them to easily book flights, hotels and cars as well as provide location-specific itineraries through social/collaborative integrations.

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The Solution

To create an automated travel agent mobile app that gives travelers a one-stop-shop experience on curated travel experiences.

(1) RESEARCH

Industry Analysis

COVID-19 Crisis

“Over the past decades, travel saw consistent growth even when financial crises and pandemics affected the global economy.

Today’s situation is different.”
Source: The Travel Industry Turned Upside Down, Skift Research in Partnership with McKinsey & Company (September 2020)

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Initial Research Insights

Although the travel industry has seen major hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been significant leadership from companies that are pivoting their strategies to maintain long-term growth.

Key Factors

Demand: People want to travel again and they are booking.
‍Leisure: Travelers are forced to prioritize relaxing spaces.
‍Location: Work-from-anywhere trend is on the rise.
‍Price: Non-price factors have increased importance.

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Initial Interview Process

5 interviews lasting no more than 20 minutes were conducted in order to learn more about travel habits, patterns, and behaviors from a variety of personality types. The names of the interviewees have been changed for anonymity.
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“Sheri” is a mom of 2 who likes to travel, but feels burdened by the difficulty of creating an itinerary for her whole family.
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“Mark” loves the outdoors and hiking with friends, but has a hard time finding time to book his vacations due to his busy work schedule.
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“Aubrey” enjoys spending money for fun activities and travel, but gets overwhelmed with all of the options and various applications.
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“David” is a first-class traveler who enjoys luxury amenities, but isn’t tech savvy and relies on a in-person travel agent to ensure his trip goes smoothly.

“Rebecca” appreciates cleanliness and safety while traveling to lesser known areas. She uses all the tech her phone will allow, but is looking for an all-in-one travel solution.

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Affinity Diagram

This data was then categorized into topics:

• Location
• Budget
• Activities
• Pain Points
• Research

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Empathy Map

‍Pains:

• Limited time to plan
• Hard to stay within budget
• Difficult to find affordable food
• Stressful to book affordable family resorts

Gains:

• Able to splurge
• Finds resorts that offer value
• Able to travel greater distance with rental car
• Spends quality time with family

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User Persona

I create a realistic representation of the key user segment I wanted to design for. This was based on qualitative and some quantitative user research. It allowed me to begin empathizing with the user as I moved into the Define phase.

(2) DEFINE

User Insight

After conducting my research, I was interested in further understanding what my user’s needs were. I began developing my user insight statement to allow me to get in the mind of my user.

‍“Draft 1: Sophie needs help booking her travel arrangements because it’s hard to manage multiple apps and websites for a single trip.”

‍During a feedback session, I was able to iterate my insight statement to further my understanding of the user persona that has been developed throughout the interview process.

‍“Draft 2: Sophie, who is family-oriented with a busy work schedule, needs a quick way to research and book travel arrangements for her family vacations because it is hard to manage multiple resources efficiently with her current process that she’s developed out of frustration.”

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How Might We Questions

RESEARCHING FOR TRAVEL TAKES TOO MUCH TIME.

Impact: To decrease the amount of time it takes to research travel experiences.

“How might we streamline the travel research process that users go through?”
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BOOKING TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS CAN BE COMPLICATED.

‍Impact: To make the travel booking process more efficient.

“How might we simplify the way users interact with a travel app?”
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TOO MANY WEBSITES & APPS TO MANAGE.

‍Impact: To consolidate other travel service functions into a single app format.
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“How might we integrate into other travel services?”

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Insight Discovery

During user interviews, I’ve discovered that Sophie, who is family-oriented and has a busy work schedule, needs a quick way to book travel arrangements for her family vacations. Therefore, I believe that making the travel booking process more efficient would help simplify Sophie’s current process and that I might be able to help if I provide automation services. I might do this by leveraging existing APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to bring existing travel services closer to the user. Doing this will allow TravelBot to provide an automated travel booking process that enables the user to have a one-stop-shop experience.

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Problem Statement

TravelBot was designed to achieve a one-stop-shop solution for researching and booking travel arrangements. We have observed through user insight discovery that our service needs to collaborate with other companies in order to streamline the booking process, which is causing a development roadblock to our business. How might we integrate existing structures into TravelBot so that our customers are able to successfully research/book travel arrangements based on usability factors?

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Brainstorming

I Like...
‍that TravelBot is simple and easy to use
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that TravelBot allows me to research and book at the same time

that TravelBot shows me reviews

that TravelBot saves me time

I Wish...
‍I could share my itinerary with friends and family

I could manage other services in one place

I could chat with my group

I could be recommended curated experiences

What if...
‍TravelBot could book trips for you

TravelBot could recommend deals based on my schedule

TravelBot had a rewards system

TravelBot had a referral program

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How, Now, Wow

Using this feature prioritization matrix, I was able to better understand what to tackle first based on the ratio of difficulty to innovation.

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Value Proposition Statement

TravelBot: Travel Smart. Live More.

‍"Quickly automate your travel arrangements in one, simple place so you can save time and live more."

‍Using a Madlib format, I conceptualized a value proposition statement that addresses how TravelBot could help users and why it could potentially compete with other apps.

"My organization TravelBot LLC is developing a mobile app to help travelers automate and manage their travel booking experience quickly and efficiently so that they have more time to experience life.

We're better than our competition because we offer a unique solution that consolidates multiple aspects of booking travel arrangements into one, simple app.

We're believable because our ability to integrate into 3rd parties allows us to provide a one-stop-shop experience while maintaining professional relationships with other travel booking services."

(3) DESIGN

Sketching

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User Onboarding Flow

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Low Fidelity Wireframes

It was useful for me to transition my sketches to low-fidelity wireframes in order to start forming the skeleton of the app. I used Figma to create the onboarding process wireframes leading up to the app Home Screen.

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Mid-Fidelity Mockups

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High Fidelity Prototype

(4) TEST

Usability Testing Plan

By creating a plan, this allowed me to conduct repeatable tests with users in order to have a consistent approach.

• TASK 1: Create an account with email
• TASK 2: Create an account with social media account
• TASK 3: Sign in with email
• TASK 4: Sign in with social media account
• TASK 5: Reset password and create a new one

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Insight Discovery:

Users wanted a personalized, interactive walkthrough experience.

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Final Prototype Demo

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What have I learned?

This case study has taught me how to conduct user research to further understand how I might be able to offer a travel booking solution within a large competitive market.
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Through the defining and ideation stages, I was able to hone in on who I might want to target within this market which ultimately contributed to my development of a value proposition.
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During the prototyping phase, I was interested in conducting user tests and using the feedback received to iterate on top of my existing mockups allowing me to get closer to a final prototype.

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