Two-faced Interfaces
How Priceline capitalized on competitors that said one thing, but did another.
Nary a day goes by that I don’t give myself a headslap, right after clicking on something that doesn’t do what it promised. An article that doesn’t match its headline. A free offer that costs money to redeem. And even whole apps that promise to make a something easier, and then the app sucks up all your time.
Interfaces lie to us all the time.
Your Competitors “Lies” are Your Opportunity
Booking.com, a division of Priceline group, realized that a vast majority of customers were booking hotel rooms within driving distance of their homes. However, while the experience of air travel has a certain flow of convenience — food and restrooms at the airport, more food and restrooms and even entertainment options on the plane itself — you’re pretty much left to your own devices on a roadtrip.
Unless you use one of the handful of mobile apps that claim to optimize the roadtrip experience. Or so they say.
After trying out most of these apps, we found that they mostly did one thing: provide suggestions of what to do at your destination. While that’s great, there are a couple issues. First, Yelp and Foursquare are already the best at that, and these roadtrip apps failed to provide anything better. But more importantly, they don’t help with the roadtrip itself! Before I can paruse restaurants and entertainment options near my hotel, I need to drive there first! And I’m probably going to need to stop for food, or a restroom, or possibly make an interesting pitstop along the way.
The roadtrip apps promised to make roadtrips better, when in fact they didn’t even address the actual experience of being on the road. They did, however, provide a window of opportunity.Designing a Truthful Interface
RoadScout was our answer. Setting out to build the optimal app for road trips, we knew that we could create something truly unique by simply staying true to the actual experience of being on the road.
From an interface perspective, that meant running on autopilot; an experience that always knows where you are on the road, what you might need at that point, and an easy hands-free way to take it all in. However, an interface is only as good as its content; so we not only put in the must-haves of restaurant, restroom, and gas station locations, but we also tapped into the Foursquare API to suggest worthwhile sightseeing to check out along the way, as well as fun trivia about landmarks you may not have even know you were passing.
An experience that not only assists in the roadtrip experience, but using technology to make it even better than it was before.
