Brrrrr It’s Cold In Here…
Creating a responsive experience in Arctic Tourism
My fellow readers, the time has come. This marks the end of my journey at RED Academy. From here on out, any case studies will be done on my future employment (if allowed), or completely based on near future freelance work. I will however write a separate post on the six month journey, the rite of passage to be a Product Designer. For now, let’s talk about Alex Flaherty.
Living life in the Arctic
Living in Toronto Canada, the majority of us will ‘whine’ about the winter months. We will balk at the 4:30pm setting sun, grumble at un-shovelled paths and shiver at the thought of -20 C windchills. For Alex Flaherty though, it is a fact of life. See, Alex lives within the Arctic circle. For him those are usually ‘pleasant days’. Born in Grise Fiord, Alex Flaherty is indigenous to Canada. As an Inuit, he has all the teachings and skills of his ancestral way of living. Even with modern conveniences, the knowledge of his heritage is firmly cemented and he will not give that up for anything in the world. By the time he was a young adult, he migrated to Iqaluit, where winter temperatures average at -30 C, along with daylight only lasting for 3.5 hours. Those stats alone makes me want to simply hibernate like a bear.
But for the 7000 residents of Iqaluit, hibernation is simply for the dead. Even for a small population, residents continue with their daily lives, and operate their businesses. In fact, one of the most important business that supports such remote places on earth is tourism. Between the months of March to October, up to three thousand people come to visit Iqaluit. As the capital city of Nunavut it hosts as a gateway to the final frontiers of exploration. I’m also using the word ‘final’ in a rather un-ironic way. Due to the climate shift of our planet, caused by manmade influences, there isn’t a place on earth that is not being effected by altered weather patterns. The arctic zone is no exception. Natural wonders and native species alike are being driven to scarcity, and disappearing at worst. As a result, in recent years, there are people who have taken up ‘eco tourism’. People like Alex are advocates to the way of life for those who come to explore these remote locations. He and others want people to have the experience of living in the Arctic, to see and feel the environment. He wants outsiders to understand just how interconnected we are as people, no matter where we live or what temperatures we are comfortable with.
Polar Outfitting
Due to our community partner living in a remote location, we got to know him and his business through a telephone chat. Rachel, Shees and I sat around in a relatively quiet spot and spoke to the gentlemen living on the tundra. A video call would have been extremely difficult as the internet is still rather spotty in those locations. Even the call itself, a delay of five seconds caused a rather awkward flow in conversation. Based off the the slow drawl of his speech, Alex gave me an impression of an easy going person. He is very humble of his accomplishment, as being the first and only Inuit run tour operation. There are two other companies similar to Polar Outfitting in Iqaluit, but its something which I will discuss in the C&C analysis. He can stake his claim that his business is indigenous run. Alex spoke of the many things that his tour packages offer: from treks through the tundra landscapes, observing grey/bow whales, to gathering around elders for storytelling. There was such a variety of options available that he even offers custom built packages for those who want flexibility in what they want to participate in.
However I’ve omitted a key bit of information up till this point. Taking a tour in the Arctic is helluva of a pricey deal. A round ticket for Iqaluit alone costs nearly $2200. A ten day tour with airfare included, costs up to $20,000.
Yes for that amount, you could travel off to a five star resort and pretend to be an ‘insta-fluencer’. Maybe you will get a nice tan out of it and if thats the case, then this experience is not for you. Polar Outfitting offers tours for those who have travelled everywhere. Tours in the Arctic is all about seeing life at the ends of the earth, to be your own adventurer.
Up against a Frozen Wall…
With all the tour information that Alex was listing, the three of us already came to a singular conclusion. Polar Outfitting severely lacked in a robust amount of content. At best, the website only had 45% of tour packages with only a singular location for contact listing. There weren’t even forms available for bookings or inquiries. He also lacked an array of images to capture interest for people looking into arctic tours. As his website was low in content, you would be hard pressed to find it as a primary search result, unless keywords are added on. By no means is this an attempt to shame our client, as Alex does in fact have plenty of visitors that use his services. Some are booked with travel agent Allison Silvaggio while others are through government contracts. However a more thorough website is clearly required. Alex is humble and sincere, and acknowledges he does not have the technological prowess of establishing an online presence. By his own admission of these shortcomings, he had reached out to RED Academy and asked if they were able to help him. It is help that we gladly gave.
Scaling the Ice Wall
We immediately started to list the identified challenges and extracted the opportunities . As this was my sixth client work, it was rather straight forward to identify as to what was required for the website redesign. Not just create a website, but a responsive mobile version as well.
The way we listed out our goals was indicative of a user flow. It was imperative that we would provide a space for a full package listings and detailed information. The web navigation needed to be clear and intuitive for users to identify information, along with a communicative visual imagery. Visitors to the website should also read up on other user testimonials on their tours. Lastly, the website would provide multiple points of contact for anyone wanting to make inquiries or bookings.
Get your Air Miles ready
As usual my team and I placed out R&D hats on and got to work generating survey questions and analyzing research data. What we found that there were two distinct groups of people that would have potential interest in visiting the Arctic regions.
We found that groups in the ages of 30s and 50s were by far more inclined to travel to Northern Arctic regions. Both groups happened to be gainfully employed with a healthy incomes between $70K to $100K. Both groups usually plan their holidays two months in advance with their allotted trip averaging for a week. One of the key differences between both groups were that respondences in their 30’s (83%) preferred booking their trips wholly online, whereas the latter group in their 50’s (67%) preferred to speak with a representative. Both groups were conscious of budget but willing to spend more depending on the experiences that the packages provide. For motivations of travel, the younger group preferred the experience for more adventurous activities and off the beaten path. The older group preferred experiences relating to indigenous culture and more activity based on supporting local economy . When mocking up a user’s journey we essentially established how Polar Outfitting currently stands. We based it on how Alex usually gets his tour packages booked. So while there isn’t much for Richard and Emily (the personas) to get detailed information, their ‘contact’ with Alex is what convinces them to book his tours.
Winter is Coming
Like all good boys and girls who are product designers, it is necessary to chart out who Polar Outfitting’s rivals are.
Two of our directs competitors are located within Iqaluit proper whereas the indirect competitors are not based in the city but do provide Arctic tours. Arctic Kingdom by far had the most comprehensive categories available while Polar Outfitting had the least.
To be fair, we did say that Alex is not tech savvy person. It is up to my team and I to rectify the challenges. We would add the missing elements that were listed on our project goals. To bolster up the site to be just as capable as his rivals. I did also mention in the prior paragraphs that being the only Inuit run Arctic tour operation is advantageous to his business. So when we started construction we made sure to include a more detailed section about him and the Polar Outfitting operations.
Ice Sculpting
On the start of our second week, we had our site map ready and showed solid navigation layout. Plus we had wonderful little doodles ready for assessment and conversions to Mid fidelities.
As you can see, imagery is heavily emphasized to generate users interests along with detailed listings. With ‘Our Tours’ mid fidelities, I created an index tab button to cycle between tours. On ‘Our Tours’ page, the primary tours would always be the first to be highlighted while the secondary of custom tours is for those who want flexibility. One aspect we added was a ‘sticky’ call to action button that would be placed on the detailed tour information . This allows for users to immediately start a booking process should they wish to do so. We placed inquiry forms and other booking processes all through out the mid-fidelities. Remember, part of our goal was to ensure that we had a comprehensive amount of booking and inquiries throughout the website. Another part I’m sure you have noticed is that right next to the mid fidelities we placed a responsive mobile version. The imagery and content details would stack on top of one another, with the navigation header enveloped and hidden away with the hamburger menu system. Another added detail is placing a weather widget on both desktop and mobile. We felt that this gave a more realistic sense of what temperatures are actually like when you opt to visit the tundra. Make no mistake, you are not packing your swimsuit for this trip.
Hit with a Snow ball
Now as a team, we got to once again work on Figma. The collaboration tool was super effective as we worked on a singular file to get the mid fidelities up and prototyped. I handled mainly the tours, gallery and about us pages, while working in parallel on its mobile counterpart. With everything seemingly hunky-dory, we were ready to start the handover process to Sara Teso, my UI partner in crime. But alas during our usability testing we got hit.
It was apparent that we didn’t fully flesh out some key elements.
In the following we made some key changes:
On the ‘sticky button’ we relocated Quick Facts onto it as to provide a better clarity of salient information while looking through the tour informations
We further clarified on the the forms and content to cement on what is Included and Not Included on the trip.
Lastly we added tool tips to show what sort level of activity the tours would be like. This is very important because as our survey data suggests, the older age category generally avoid strenuous activities, whereas the younger age group don’t mind the vigorous ones. So with that in mind a tool tip is wonderful bit of info that would be appreciated by the user when it comes to looking over tour information.
Cool as a Tundra Breeze
Once we got the alterations all squared out, Sara Teso took over. On her part, she really gave Polar Outfitting the visual language that brought in uniqueness and standout from the other competitors.
You can see the icy cool colours of the blues and green that evoke the breathtaking vistas. The typefaces give out the old school vibes of a ‘Kodak Adventure’. Everything about the direction gave me the chills (in a good way).
Under the ‘Northern Lights’
I have to admit that I never took a peek into her files (Figma feature). Why you ask, well for one thing, I do not want to be nosy. The other was that I wanted to give myself a little bit of a surprise. And I was not disappointed.
One the best aspects Sara did was create the icy frost textures . Those textures really pushed the feeling of the users potential trip to the Arctic regions of Iqaluit and beyond. It even translated well onto the mobile version. Plus she helped nail down to what I and my team wanted to accomplish on our goals. Be it our imaginary personas or an actual user, the refreshed site now gives full package listings and detailed information. The layout and navigation are clear for users to to find out relevant information. As they browse through the site, they are able to appreciate the visual imagery of what it would be like to visit the tundra. They would be able to read other user testimonials that have taken up the tour. And should the user every want to find out more, we have multiple points of contact for inquiries or bookings.
Once we sent over our presentation deck, we got on call with Alex. He greatly appreciated the amount of time we spent giving him a new design for his website. He felt confident that this would greatly generate more online presence and bookings. Though we were unable to fully flesh out the copywriting, Alex appreciated on expanding the majority of the site content. With all that we were able to accomplish in three weeks, this was a resounding success for all parties involved. May the next person bring life to Polar Outfitting V.2.0.
With that, we bid our community partner adieu. For we have come to the ….
Finale
I must admit that as I’m typing this, I am quite unsure as what to say. Anyone who has read my case studies up till now, pretty much assumes that I have a witty line to dish here and there (and maybe I do ). But for all intents and purposes, I feel rather odd that there will be a period of silence. Up till now, my six months has been documenting the path I took to be a Product Designer. I got reacquainted in the art of typography. Prototyped a mobile app to give artist a leg up in their profession. And grinned like that of Cheshire Cat when I watched a child test our learning game app and wanted to play some more. To be sure there will be more case studies but it won’t be same without the other classmates, some that I have grown close with. The silence though is all but temporary. All must leave the nest and go out into the great wide world. As I get my portfolio ready (which looks bombastic) I know that this only marks the new adventures that I will embark on. Not quite sure what company I would be joining or what my role would be. But I know that something is starting.
Until then…… :D
