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Elevating Exploration: Designing an Engaging Travel Challenge Feature for EXPEDIA

This case study aims to create a user-friendly travel challenge feature to tackle the lack of inspiration, motivation and rewards in travel on Expedia.

Expedia is an online travel platform that helps travelers find and book various travel products and services, such as flights, hotels, car rentals, cruises, and more.

About me and this project:

I’m Ankita Patil, a passionate product design enthusiast. This project represents a collaborative effort with my talented groupmates — Kiran Datla, Cherian John, Spurthi Sudheer, Preetika Taneja, Lakshmi, Aditya, and Muskaan — during our UXM programme. Throughout this rewarding journey, I’ve had the privilege of receiving valuable guidance and mentorship from UX Anudeep.

My Role:

Collaboration, user research, user interviews, desk research, design sprint, ideation, user types, journey mapping, user flows, information architecture, lo-fi wireframes, user testing

Timeline:

3 Weeks

What’s the problem?

In the world of travel apps, there’s a big problem. Even though these apps make planning and booking trips easier, users often face three main issues:

1. Not sure where to go: With so many options, travelers feel unsure about where to go and what experiences to choose.
2. Lack of motivation: Planning and achieving travel goals can be tough. Without a clear and fun way to stay motivated, people often give up on their travel dreams.
3. No rewards: Even after exploring many places, travelers don’t get rewarded. Without tangible recognition, there’s less excitement to keep exploring.

Ever felt lost scrolling through travel ideas? So many choices, right? Picking where to go can be a real head-scratcher.

Ever dreamed of cool places, made a list, but then… lost steam? Keeping up travel excitement is hard. Motivation drops, and the dream trip feels far away.

Ever climbed a mountain, explored cool spots, and then… nothing? No cheers for your travel wins? Every adventure deserves a high-five!

How is this even a problem?

🧳 Choice Overload 🌍

An abundance of travel options can overwhelm users, making it challenging to decide on destinations and experiences, leading to decision paralysis.

🏔️ Lack of Excitement 🚶

Without a clear and fun way to set and achieve travel goals, users might feel less motivated to explore new places.

🏆 No Rewards for Exploring 🎁

Despite exploring various destinations, users often lack tangible rewards for their travel accomplishments, diminishing the sense of achievement.

⏱️ Time-Consuming Processes ⌛

Cumbersome processes for booking and planning can result in time-consuming experiences, reducing overall user engagement and satisfaction with the travel app.

🎯Solution: designing a travel challenge feature for the app

The Travel Challenges Section in the Expedia app will be a place where users can discover, register for, participate in, track, finish, and get rewarded for travel challenges of all kinds. The goal is to provide users with a fun and engaging way to explore new places, try new things, and achieve their travel goals.

☮️TL; DR. Here’s a glimpse of the final solution

Introducing Travel Challenges

Challenge Section

Challenge Overview

❇️User interface breakdown

Let’s have a quick go-through of the final solution.

Home Page

Challenge List

Challenge Description

Task Description and Post a Review

Rewards and Updated Challenge Description

❇️Feature Enhancements for Enhanced User Experience

As we delved into our design, we anticipated various scenarios and challenges that users might encounter. Our approach involved envisioning edgy situations to ensure a thorough understanding of potential pain points. Subsequently, we meticulously incorporated solutions into our design to elevate the overall user experience.

1️⃣Enhancement: Efficient Challenge Exploration

Problem:

• Users face difficulties navigating through a diverse array of travel challenges.
• Difficulty in finding challenges that match their preferences, interests, and travel constraints.

Solution:

• Implementation of a robust sorting and filtering system.

Sorting:

• Latest Challenges: Users can quickly find and engage with the most recently added challenges.
• Severity Sorting: Allows users to explore challenges based on difficulty, catering to varying adventure preferences.
• Popular Challenges: Highlights challenges that have garnered significant interest and participation.

Filtering:

• Location: Users can narrow down challenges based on their desired location, such as Hyderabad.
• Category Filtering: Enables users to focus on challenges aligned with their interests, like Destination, Culinary, Heritage Explorer.
• Duration Filtering: Users can efficiently find challenges that match their available time, from short 1–3 day adventures to longer journeys exceeding 7 days.

User Benefits:

• Saves time: Users can quickly locate challenges that align with their preferences.
• Enhances relevance: Filtering options ensure users see challenges that match their desired criteria.
• Improved engagement: Popular challenges and diverse sorting options keep users excited about new adventures.

Enhancement 1

2️⃣Enhancement: Curating Personalized Adventure Lists

Problem:

• Users may come across challenges that capture their interest but want to explore them later.
• No mechanism to save or bookmark challenges for future reference.

Solution:

• Introduction of a “Like” button on individual challenge screens.

Benefits:

• Users can express interest in challenges they find intriguing.
• A simple and intuitive way to save challenges without interrupting browsing.

User Benefits:

• Users can curate a collection of challenges that align with their interests.
• Convenient access to a wishlisted challenges section for future exploration.

Enhancement 2

3️⃣Enhancement: Seamless Continuation of Ongoing Challenges

Problem:

• Users may exit the app while in the middle of an ongoing challenge.
• No straightforward way to quickly resume their in-progress challenges.

Solution:

• Introduction of a carousel of Active (ongoing) challenges on the home screen.

Benefits:

• Users can easily identify and tap on ongoing challenges for quick resumption.
• Eliminates the need to navigate through the app to find in-progress challenges.

User Benefits:

• Users can seamlessly pick up where they left off without searching for ongoing challenges.
• Instant access to the challenge UI from the home screen.

Enhancement 3

❇️3 Critical decisions that shaped my design journey

Critical Decision 1

Critical Decision 2

Critical Decision 3

❇️Identifying Business Metrics Targeted:

Our plan to make Expedia’s Travel Challenges Section better is all about helping the business grow in important ways. Here’s how:

1. User Engagement Boost: We want to make the app more interesting so that people use it more. With fun challenges, users can explore more places, and that means they’ll spend more time on the app.
2. Increased Booking Conversion: When users are excited and engaged, they’re more likely to book their travels through Expedia. Our aim is to turn this excitement into real bookings, helping the business grow.
3. Market Distinction through Unique Features: The Travel Challenges Section isn’t just a small addition. It’s a cool feature that makes Expedia unique. We believe this will make more people notice Expedia and choose it over other travel apps.

❇️Let’s explore all the steps from start to finish

Phase 1

1️⃣ Letting Ideas Flow

At the beginning of our design journey, we didn’t dive into heavy research. Instead, we let our imaginations run wild, brainstorming ideas to solve the problem. This imaginative phase was our first step, a starting point for shaping our approach. Additionally, we collectively defined our assumptions and constraints, laying down the groundwork for a thoughtful and purposeful design exploration.

Idea, Assumptions and Constraints

2️⃣ Checking out other apps

We analyzed other apps with challenge features to understand how they structure contests and recognize users. Evaluating their designs provided valuable insights for improving our app’s aesthetics. This research contributed to making our app more enjoyable and user-friendly by adopting successful elements from other apps.

Evaluation

3️⃣ Creating macro flow

We then outlined the main steps users would take in our solution. Think of it like a simple roadmap, showing the major stops along the way. Nothing too detailed — just a big picture view.

Macro Flow

4️⃣ Who will use this?

We thought about different kinds of users who will interact with our solution and identified characteristics that defined these user types.

We then outlined the main steps users would take in our solution. Think of it like a simple roadmap, showing the major stops along the way. Nothing too detailed — just a big picture view.

User Types

5️⃣How users feel along the way

We then matched up the macro flow with how users might do, think, feel, and say at each step. This helped us find problems and good things in our plan.

Empathy Mapping

6️⃣Turning problems into ideas

For each problem or good thing, we found, we turned it into a question: “How might we…?” Then, we came up with tons of ideas to answer those questions.

How might we

7️⃣Stories about our ideas

With our ideas ready, we wrote stories to explain how they’d work. We sorted these stories into three groups: one for when everything goes smoothly (Happy case stories), one for when things mess up (Error case stories), and one for weird situations (Edge case stories).

User Stories

8️⃣ Wireframes to visualize

We took a close look at our stories and decided which ones were super important. We ranked them, thinking about what’s crucial and what’s nice to have. At the same time, we each drew pictures to show how these important stories would look on the screen. After sharing and talking about our sketches, we put together the best parts into one final sketch that captured what we all agreed on. This step was a big deal — it helped turn our ideas into a clear and unified vision for the project.

Low-fidelity wireframes

9️⃣ Pre-iteration design solution:

Initially, we delved into Expedia to understand its functionality and design elements. This exploration involved observing the design consistency and language employed in the Expedia app. Once we grasped these aspects, we proceeded to craft high-fidelity designs based on our wireframes.

Phase 2

1️⃣ User testing for validation:

The most crucial step was now to put the first design solution to the test. The outcome of conducting user testing:

1. Identify Usability Issues: User testing helped me identify usability issues and challenges that users encountered while interacting with the product.
2. Validate Design Decisions: I validated my design decisions by gathering feedback directly from users. It helped me determine whether the design met the needs and expectations of the target audience.
3. Gather Actionable Feedback: Generated actionable feedback that called for design iterations. It provided specific insights into what worked well and what needed improvement.

Usability Testing

Usability Testing Insights

2️⃣ Iteration was a must:

Following the invaluable insights gained from usability testing, we proceeded to refine and iterate on our designs.

❇️Future Scope

Looking ahead, there are exciting possibilities to elevate the Expedia app’s design further:

1. Community Building:

• Idea: Establish an in-app community for users to share travel experiences and tips.
• Benefits: Enhances interactivity and user engagement, fostering a sense of belonging.

2. User-Generated Challenges:

• Idea: Enable users to create and share their travel challenges.
• Benefits: Adds a personal touch, diversifying challenges and catering to various interests.

3. Recognition Badges:

• Idea: Introduce badges for user achievements in completing challenges.
• Benefits: Offers tangible rewards, enhancing the sense of accomplishment.

4. Leaderboard for Ranking:

• Idea: Implement a leaderboard showcasing top users in challenge completion.
• Benefits: Encourages friendly competition, motivating sustained engagement.

❇️Learnings

1. Integrating New Features: Navigating complexities in integrating features requires seamlessly adding new functionalities to the existing product without causing disruptions to the overall user experience.
2. Unified Brand Experience: Understanding design system creation involves developing a consistent set of design elements (colors, typography, etc.) to ensure a cohesive and recognizable brand identity.
3. Effective Prioritization: Understanding the importance of prioritizing discussions involves streamlining conversations to achieve efficient results within given time constraints. It’s about identifying and focusing on the most critical aspects.
4. Mastering Usability Testing: Acquiring skills in usability testing is about conducting thorough evaluations with real users to gather insights. These insights are then used to refine and improve the product, making it more user-friendly.

Thank you for joining me on this design adventure!
Your thoughts matter, and I would love to hear your feedback.
If you have any questions, suggestions, or just want to share your experiences, feel free to reach out. Your input is crucial in making our design not just good but great!