UX Case Study: Introducing “Influencer Itineraries, Discounts & Travel Tips” as a new feature to expand the reach and engagement of travelers using Zostel app, all within 48 hour hours timeline
We all crave for a vacation and time-off with an elevating experience, needed to getaway from the everyday hustle-bustle. Now, while planning a trip you may wonder if you need to have a travel itinerary which includes all the nitty-gritties of the trip, the experience, estimated cost, food options etc..
But planning an itinerary for travel is time consuming and requires thorough research for a better foresight. Moreso, its difficult to travel in current times without someone sharing its perspectives, reviews of the place and options available there.
So does this hint towards having a pre-planned travel itinerary?
No! many websites and apps does offer a range of pre-planned itineraries that may be effective for anyone. However, getting an overview, added tips & recommendations of the place by influencers who are avid travelers provides comfort of foresight of a particular place, off-beat places to explore and some of the great experiences for travelers which otherwise requires tremendous research.
In this 48 hours challenge, I attempted to introduce a feature of Influencer Itineraries, Discounts & Travel Tips to ZOSTEL, a budget-friendly hostel chain catering to backpackers and digital nomads to expand the engagement and reach for the travelers
Contents
[💡TL;DR? Feel free to select the topics that interests you by clicking on the specific link].
About the 48hour Product Design Challenge
Brainstorming and Collaboration- Design Thinking Porcess
Introduction of the feature- The Solution
The process of reaching up to the solution
Reflecting on learning and scope for future
About the 48hour Product Design Challenge
The challenge kicked off at 9:30pm just when all my folks were in weekend mode (TGIF)😑. Our mentor Anudeep Ayyagari started off with the call and shared the necessary instructions, timelines to follow and a hope of edification at the end of the seemingly arduous challenge. [The 48 hour challenge included working throughout the 48 hours following the time schedule shared to us on Notion. Check out the snippet of the schedule below].
The challenge was interesting. It entailed working and producing work individually, while still being in a group set-up with a same product. It was indeed a simulation of real world collaboration that is often found in the companies. As a team we got Zostel app to work on. Each individual chose separate topics to solve the problem for the same product. Therefore, it was utmost necessary that we align well, communicate clearly and be on the same page at each stage.
Good to know fact: The word company itself explains that one will be working in collaboration. Being able to collaborate and work effectively with a team is one of the most important skill in a designer’s kitty. Never underestimate its potential!
My chosen topic: Influencer Itinerary, Discounts and Travel Tips.
Brainstorming and Collaboration- The Design Thinking Process
As a team, we all started to first explore the Zostel App as well as website since it was new for most of us. This helped us to understand the app and its offering in a better way and also allowed us to do some secondary research to be able to empathise with its users.
As soon as the topics were finalised, we moved on to another interesting part of challenge, outsourcing our brains to ChatGPT for making our task easier. Kind of cognitive offloading Now, it is essential to know how to effectively leverage the chatGPT to extract its usefulness. Using it as our second brain!
Psychological fact: Since the advent of google search, by large the whole millenials as well as newer generation have developed something called transactive memory a.k.a “The google effect”. Our brain has gradually evolved to learn how to extract information from our transcative memory-Google search, people whom we depend on and now even to solve problems through artificial intelligence.
And that’s what we did. Used AI to help us build the problem statement and jump right into solutioning. Here below, you can see how I got the necessary information which proved to be extremely helpful for solutions. It almost did half of the work to be honest!
With the help of ChatGPT and some more finesse using my own brain I was able to define the topic into a problem statement, its impact on business, usefulness for the users and the constraints of costs and legalities that will require legal assistance which in itself will lead to further iterations in future. So I decided to jump right into devising the solution and create a workable mock up that shall be tested to understand if users will be interested to use such a feature.
Throughout this challenge we were constantly collaborating virtually to share our ideas as the important part of the challenge was to communicate clearly and share since we were working on the same product. Which means, our components, styles, UI elements should turn out to be same.
As soon as the defining stage was found to be satisfactory, I proceeded to build a user flow for the new feature, followed by paper wireframes and finally adding the life to the prototypes with the help of UI elements.
Timeline that I followed in 48hours.
Introduction of the feature — The solution
Below is the solution and and the screens added for the Influencer Itinerary feature.
I added minimal screens to be able to keep the essence of the app intact while still the feature getting seamlessly blended with the existing app design. My inspiration came from my consistent observation of apps like Swiggy, Zomato and Zepto who bring in different features based on occasion and are so seamless that users definitley get enagaed or are at least willing to explore.
Keeping that in mind, I added the following post ideation stage:
- A influencer itinerary card within the original screen with the side scroll to also explore other influencer’s itineraries. This way users get more options.
- The influencer itinerary card opens up to a new added screen where the details of itinerary are listed for the users along with a call-to-action button to select and edit dates for using the same itinerary.
Post Usability testing, following changes were incorporated:
- Clarified which parts of the itinerary are exclusive (Which means the user gets the information but isn’t included a part of the itinerary)- This makes it more transparent for the user.
- Added the scroll signifier which helps users know there is more information below.
- Removed the extra discount coupon screen and instead added it within the same screen for removing extra click and thus saving time.
- The revised price is immediately seen besides the original price to help retain users to accomplish the booking flow.
The solution for travel tips from influencer section:
- During the ideation I added one more screen of travel tips that is handy for the users to get ideas and things they must know before travelling to the selected location. The screen before usability testing just included generic tips from major influencers.
- However, after usability testing I understood that the tips section lacked details and context for users. This helped me to revise my screen making the first part — travels tips from the influencer whom the user has selected and the second part — similar influencers tips & feedback who have visited the same place.
Overall, post usability test iteration, the feature definitely came out to be useful for the new generation travellers, backpackers, digital nomads (This has become quite a norm post covid) who are likely to use influencer itinerary due to social media fan following.
Below, you can find the workable mockup of the feature post usability testing. “I urge you to definitely try it and share feedback on the comments section. I will be happy to add iterations and make this feature as robust and usable as possible”.
The process of reaching up to the solution
First up, I downloaded the Zostel app and explored it on my phone to explore all the features, its offerings the colour scheme through the app as well as on the website, the iconography and the UI elements that are put to use. In short, I was actually identifying the brand identity. Below is the brand Identity of the Zostel app that I created post my observations. This helped me to get the clarity about how I need to proceed when I start with my prototype.
Post some preliminary exploration of the original Zostel app and building brand identity, I observed the existing user flow and build a quick new flow to add with my feature.
Along with the user flow, I also did a quick competitor analysis to understand if such feature already existed and how it was implemented. The analysis was based on the following criteria’s:
- Target Audience
- Features available
Through this audit, I understood that pre-planned itineraries are available in other apps but none have used the influencer based itineraries as a feature in the app itself. So I started to find some inspirations and existing itineraries on how influencers share their travels vlogs using Instagram reels and Youtube handles.
I identified Wanderlog app that was similar but which was more for international travel than domestic. This provided me a rough plan in my mind on what components I would like to add to make the influencer itinerary to attract, engage, and inspire the users for booking at the end of the user flow.
Good to know fact: You must have heard of the “writer’s block”. Similarly, all creative heads are also hit by the wall sometimes. Whose the saviour? Inspiration! To be inspired is to open our mind to new avenues and possibilities. We can break the block by simply getting inspired from other’s work. It’s not imitation. We must give the due credits to our inspirations too and never shy from sharing that we took inspiration!
With all the inspiration in hand, I headed to create my rough low-fidelity wireframe with pen and paper — The most easiest and convenient method followed by creating a high-fidelity mockup ready for usability testing.
I struggled to get participants for usability testing. Due to which I got delayed. However, next day I was able to get a couple of participants to test my designs and they ended up giving me some great insights that I couldn’t have thought off. That was the moment I learnt the importance of usability testing is immense and one cannot succeed in making a product successful if it doesn’t align with the users who are going to use it.
The usability testing interview was conducted online via Discord VC and was moderated by me. Each user explored the feature following my prompts. Below is the screenshot of my analysis post the testing.
After analysing the user feedback, I weighted all the pain points in to P0 and P1. Implementing P0 feedback first followed by P1.
P0 (Priority 0)- Adding Signifier, clarifying exclusive aspects, Discount coupon and revised price on the same page.
P1 (Priority 1)- Date editor, rating of itinerary, tags for type Travel tips by selected influencer and other influencers
Once the P0 & P1 was clearly defined, I proceeded to prepare a iteration wireframe to visualize the changes that I will be making to the screen. Below is the wireframe of only 2 screens where I made changes along with the final mockup.
Reflecting on learning and scope for future
Throughout this 48 hour product design challenge journey I processed some major reflections about my approach which are:
- Never underestimate yourself. I felt jittery with the thought of participating in this challenge considering such bold timelines. But ended up really enjoying it.
- Importance of following a clear process. I felt that being able to use the design thinking process that has been imbibed in me helped me to stay on the task. Had I not planned, I would have done a shabby job.
- Leveraging tools doesn’t mean we do not use our human brain. Using AI must be as a guide rather than an escape. Using it skillfully whilst still bringing originality is an art worth learning in this ever changing digital life. Which means, never forget to use our brains.
- Managing time and productivity. It is of utmost importance that we set realistic goals and divide the work into smaller steps to be able to accomplish our goals. This requires managing time effectively and also being able to forecast what might work and take the best of the judgement further. I felt I could have done a better job at managing time because I had to rush in the end to submit the deliverables.
Future Scope: This feature still needs to be iterated further using hallway testing which can give candid feedback about user’s journey into the feature and how they interpret it. Also, the edge cases are yet to be identified and taken into consideration before making any further iterations.
Thank you! I appreciate your time for reading this until the end. I hope you were able to find some inspiration/ learning or maybe simply enjoying the problem solving journey that I have shared here.
I would love to connect and learn from you.
You can reach out to me on
Email: juhi.ux90@gmail.com
