Making an app for travelers to experience guided tours at their own convenience

Your pocket guide

Problem Statement

We all enjoy exploring new places, and tourism itself is a staggering US$178 billion industry. However, while traveling, we often encounter difficulties in finding places to visit. When we rely on guides, we lack the freedom to explore on our own terms.

Goals

• Make guided tours available to everyone.
• Offer a seamless experience that combines expert guidance with the freedom to explore.
• Allow travelers to enjoy the benefits of guided tours while still maintaining their independence.
• Create an inclusive platform that caters to all types of travelers, providing guidance and the flexibility to explore at their own pace.

Research

Interviews

After having a call with some of my friends who travel often or have just gone on a tour.

Set of Questions

1. How do you look for locations to visit?
2. How do you search for nearby attractions in tourist spots?
3. How often during travels do you hire guides?
4. What are the problems you faced with guides?
5. The difference in experience between a guided tour and an unguided tour?
6. How much time did you get to spend at a specific location?

Insights

1. Mostly they search on the internet, ask people who have already traveled to that place and ask the locals residing there for more places.
2. For nearby attractions also they follow the same procedure as above.
3. Most of the time they don’t hire guides, mostly they do so when they are visiting monumental sites to know the detail about the monument.
4. With tour guides, they often face the problem of having too many people and not being able to listen to the details that are being told by the guide, some being introverted are hesitant to ask their doubts.
5. On guided tours they often get to know about most of the attractions like restaurants, adventure sports, etc, sometimes they get discounts and get bookings for other experiences whereas on unguided tours they have to keep looking for things to do.
6. Often they get just ample time to look at the place and get some photos, but some wanted to stay and get more pictures clicked which they can’t do as they are with a group.

How did I go about solving the problem?

• Drafting a questionnaire for user surveys and interviews.
• Performing user interviews and user surveys on Zoom.
• Creating features based on the insights
• Building the user flow.
• Drawing wireframes and converting them into frames on Figma.
• Designing Visual Screens.

Assumptions

• The app is being built for the whole world not any specific country or continent.
• The AI and AR technology are easily implementable.

User flow

User Flow

Wireframes

Once the user flow was ready, I wireframed the sketches to get a better idea of how the flows might look.

Version-1

Problem-

1. The first main screen shows tours according to the selected location and takes the user's location as default, due to which the problem arises if the user is in a small town then there is nothing to show which is bad for the app’s reputation.
2. In the footer below Tours and attractions have the same hierarchy which might deviate from the purpose of the app.
3. No feature for users to save tours for later purposes.

Version-2

Problem-

1. On the main screen, the footer is too cluttered.
2. The problem of the same hierarchy is not solved yet.
3. No language feature.

Solution-

Visuals

I have tried to keep the app design minimal, consistent with traveling apps, and simple.

Visual Research

Color Pallete - Orange is a great color, something bright and poppy attracts people and for a traveling app something bright will give energy.

Typography - The app could be used by people of all age groups. So I’ve tried to keep it simple and professional. I went with my primary font as Lato and secondary font as Montserrat which is used to highlight just some special words.

Icons, Colors, and Fonts

Getting the tour started

This part of the app lets the users start their tour.

Hicks Law was kept in mind while designing the flow and app.

Hicks's law states that the time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices.

Main Dashboard, search tab, and details section

Adding to the wishlist and wishlist menu

This part of the app lets users add tours to their wishlist and also explore the wishlist menu.

Jakob’s Law was kept in mind.

Jakob’s Law states that users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know.

While designing the flow it was kept similar to that of AirBnb.

Wishlist

Starting the tour using an AR camera

With the help of our AR tool and audio, you can easily navigate to various locations. As you point your camera towards the main attraction, we’ll provide you with detailed information about it. Additionally, if you have any questions, our dedicated tab will provide all the answers you need.

You can also explore nearby attractions by simply clicking on the icon located at the top.

AR feature

Language change feature

As people from around the world and of every age group are going to use it, this feature helps to change the language easily.

Conclusion

Challenges I faced

The most difficult part was getting the main screen UX right, and getting a place to fit the attractions feature without disrupting the main purpose of the app.

The second was the subtitle area if someone has a question to ask or missed out on a detail how can make it so that users can rewind it or get their answers.

While making the design I had to make it in a way that provides every service that a guide can provide from language to speed of speaking etc.

Context

I did this case study to start my UI/UX journey and I got the problem statement from an Instagram post.

End

I thoroughly enjoyed tackling a problem that I have personally faced and gained valuable insights into the entire process. Working on this project has allowed me to enhance my skills and knowledge, ultimately leveling up my capabilities.