Development: Nomadisch, your digital nomad website 🌍
In today’s article I would like to tell you about a web project made by three people from scratch that aims to improve the quality of life of digital nomads.
This project has been developed for the company Innomads.
Note: This project has been developed from the beginning in the Spanish language.
I want to mention my colleagues for their great work:
I would like to explain the process that led to the creation of Nomadisch using the Design Thinking methodology. In this way, I will explain step by step how the development has been until the creation of the high fidelity prototype.
Phase 1 - Empathize (Research)
The first thing we had to do was to understand the concept of digital nomad, understanding these digital nomads could only happen by having knowledge about them.
Once we have informed ourselves about these people and about the digital nomad concept, we started to locate these digital nomads, which was not easy at all. To locate them, we used all kinds of media and digital channels such as international digital nomad forums on Discord, Facebook forums, Twitter, Instagram, communities, etc.
At the same time that we were trying to find them, we were preparing personal interviews in both English and Spanish with them and with people in their environment who could provide us with valuable information, and we were also preparing surveys, with the objective of collecting quantitative data through indirect observation.
Note: The Lean Survey Canvas was previously used to carry out the surveys, a tool that can be of great help to prepare them before their launching. I show below what it looks like. 👇
Once we have conducted the interviews and obtained qualitative data through direct observation (a minimum of 5 is recommended) and we have also obtained quantitative data from the surveys (a minimum of 50 target persons is recommended) we realized that the ideal product to develop should be a website.
So we proceed to organize all the insights we have so far. To do this, we develop the well-known Affinity Diagram. 👇
Once we have made the Affinity Diagram, we develop the popular Empathy Map, this map will help us to understand the user by putting ourselves in the user’s shoes. 👇
Now that we have done the Affinity Diagram and the Empathy Map has been elaborated, we are ready to create our User Persona. I show you below who it is. 👇
Having this information, we create the User Story of our user Apolo. 👇
We already have a lot of information, now it’s time to create the User Journey Map to see and understand the steps that Apolo follows and what his experience is like.👇
Phase 2 - Define (Research)
With all this information we have, the next step is to define the Problem Statement or POV (Point of view). 👇
After the Problem Statement, it is time to elaborate the Value Proposition, which is a tool that will help us to define the reason why a customer (Apolo) would choose our product or service, that is, what would be the clearest benefit. I show it below. 👇
And finally in this research phase, the well-known Business Model was developed, which is a very useful tool for entrepreneurs, business owners or strategists to analyze and structure a business. I show below what it looks like👇
Phase 3 - Ideate
In this third phase, the ideation process begins using different known techniques.
- We started by applying the technique known as “Worst Possible Ideas”, which consists of thinking of bad ideas for our solution. Now it’s a matter of picking some of these bad ideas that might seem interesting and turning them into good ideas. We give ourselves only 3 minutes to think about the worst possible ideas and other 3 minutes to think about the possible good ideas.
- The second ideation exercise consists of using the famous “Trigger Cards” that include questions that we think best fit our project and we think solutions to these questions.
- In this third exercise we perform a “Benchmarking”, that is, a study of direct and indirect competitors in order to find possible solutions for our design.
- Finally, we elaborate the well-known HMW’s (How might we) with the objective of turning problems into opportunities.
I show below our Figjam (working tool) so far with all the ideation exercises carried out. 👇
Once we have done several ideation exercises and have decided which ideas to work on, it will be useful to develop the product Sitemap. This will help us to have a vision of how we want the product to be organized. Below I show you what it looks like. 👇
Finally, before taking action and designing the concept, we elaborate a Flow Chart, which will help us a lot to have a clear idea of how to tackle the design of our concept. 👇
Phase 4 - Prototype
Now, with everything we have and have elaborated, we are more than ready to develop the Concept Design of what we want our product to look like. And for this, we used a tool called Balsamiq which is ideal in this design phase to test and make sketches or wireframes. Let me show you the first wireframe of Nomadisch in its earliest phase. 👇
Phase 5 - Test
In this last phase we focused on testing with users this version of the product made with Balsamiq and we were able to get very interesting feedback from them that helped us to develop a more elaborated version known as a low fidelity prototype, with a more developed look and feel and with interactivity included. Let me show you below what this prototype looked like. 👇
Once we tested this prototype with several users, we got much more positive feedback than before and our users found Nomadisch a product they would definitely use once it was released. We had to go through several iteration processes to improve it, but we were ready to develop the prototype to high fidelity so that Nomadisch could be appreciated in its final appearance.
Please let me show you what Nomadisch finally looks like. 😊 👇
This animated image shows the main flow that Apolo goes through to book an experience at a destination he has chosen as a digital nomad.
During this flow, Apolo will not only be able to choose how many people will do it and the time, but also the type of experience he wants to live, where he wants to live it and all the amenities included in the chosen pack. Depending on the pack he has selected, Apolo will have certain things included (type of accommodation, work space, type of activities, events or workshops) and others that you can include in the pack as an add-on.
Nomadisch includes many other sections, but these I will show in the next article explaining its case study!! 😉
As always, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your reading and company, I look forward to seeing you in the next article in which I will talk about the Nomadisch case study.
😊💪🏼
