Case study: Nomad, your travel community (English)
This is our last individual project of the bootcamp. We have two weeks to build an MPV that solves a current societal problem. The first week will be dedicated to UX and the second week to the UI part.
The problem:
“I imagine that it has happened to you that you have holidays or days off and you feel like going on a trip and travelling around the world, but your friends or family don’t have time or don’t feel like travelling. What do you do when you find yourself in this situation?”
The solution:
Nomad is an application that allows users to find people who are completely similar to them thanks to a series of filters and questions that define them. Nomad also allows users to create customised trips and attend trips already planned by others. Users will be able to get to know each other before travelling and decide, together, the itinerary of their trips.
The design process of our MVP will follow the Design Thinking methodology, which is divided into the following 5 phases:
Surveys and interviews
First of all, I started the discovery stage through surveys and interviews, which provided me with very valuable information and answered all my questions: how do people feel when their holidays do not coincide with those of their environment and they want to travel but there is no one to accompany them, what do they do in this situation, do they decide to travel alone or do they give up that trip they were so eager to take, etc.?
The most relevant data from the surveys were as follows:
The quotes from the interviews that helped me the most are the following:
- “I often waste my holidays because I don’t have anyone to travel with.”
- “I usually have to stay in my city and adapt to my friends’ plans”.
- “I rarely meet up with my friends and family during my holidays”.
Competitive Analysis
In parallel to this research, I did an analysis of the competition and I found platforms focused on travelling with new people. I was struck by the fact that they are all websites, only one of them had a mobile app.
As I analysed the competition, I noticed a common mistake: none of them prioritised affinity with other travellers, and this is what matters most to users. Users are afraid of meeting people who are problematic or who have tastes and interests different from their own.Therefore, from the beginning of my research I was clear about one thing, “affinity is the most important thing for the users of my platform”.
On the other hand, another of the drawbacks I have found within the competition is that they do not take into account that if a traveller commits to the trip and finally changes his mind, “what happens?”, “do the other travellers have to bear the costs involved?”
Conclusion:
In this first stage, after obtaining a lot of information, I can highlight the most important points that I will face:
- For most people it is difficult to make their holidays coincide with those of their environment, and this is a big problem when travelling because they do not have someone to accompany them. Most people adapt to their environment and stay in their own city.
- The majority of respondents and interviewees would be willing to travel with new people.
- Users are only open to new travellers if they have a strong affinity with them and maintain contact before travelling.
I already have enough information and a clear objective. It is time to define the problem.
After the research phase, it is time to sort all the information and visualise it in a clearer way in order to analyse the needs of our users.
The Empathy Map has been a way to know where to go, to know my users better and to create my user persona.
User persona, User Stories and User Scenario
It’s time to create my User Persona, which will combine the strengths, likes and needs of my users, among other aspects. This tool has been easy for me because I did a lot of research beforehand, and I knew my users perfectly well: their way of thinking and their response to some situations they had experienced before.
Let me introduce Cristian. “Cristian is a young guy, he likes travelling, spending time with his friends and making the most of his free time. Due to his job he can’t always choose the holidays he would like to enjoy, so he doesn’t usually coincide with his environment and travel”.
Through the User Journey I have depicted Cristian’s frustrations when he finds himself alone during his days off.
After this analysis, I focused on Cristian’s points of frustration, that is, the design opportunities for me. I start thinking about possible solutions, starting the Ideation phase.
I start to organise the ideas and turn them into possible solutions with the help of the following tools:
Affinity Diagram
With the help of the Affinity Diagram I have been able to sort all the information and categorise it and therefore define the design opportunities. This is a tool that I really like and it helps me to organise my ideas and find solutions to my problems. After doing an analysis of all the information, the design opportunities (HMW) are as follows:
- How to ensure that people can find like-minded people to travel with.
- How to ensure that people are safe when travelling and do not incur extra costs if one of the travellers does not travel.
- How to get people to find trips planned and adapted to their tastes, their budget and their days off.
- How to enable people to plan trips and find other people to travel with.
With the ideas clear and the problem defined, I started to focus on the functionalities that my minimum viable product (MVP) should contain.
Moscow
I started doing the Moscow to prioritise the functionalities. This was the moment to decide which ones my MPV should contain, which ones I will leave as next steps and finally, which ones will be discarded.
Card Sorting, User flow and Site Map
When my users saw the organisation of my platform, I finalised the Site Map and elaborated the User Flow, deciding how it will be distributed and the path that my user will take within it.
With clear ideas, and the functionalities of my MVP, I created the solution: “Nomad”. Nomad is a mobile application that will allow users to find like-minded people to travel and connect with. Users will no longer feel lonely when they don’t match up with the people around them on holiday.
Nomad will offer users the following functionalities:
- Find like-minded people through filters and preferences selected by the user during registration.
- Contact with other travellers before the trip. This will be through a chat and once the booking has been made. The purpose of this functionality is to create bonds between companions and get to know each other before travelling.
- Plan trips to your liking by specifying destinations, dates, budget and reason for the trip. Once created, you can share it with other users and find your ideal travel companions.
- Find planned trips and connect with new people. In this case, the host organising the trip and the traveller have to accept the request to improve the affinity between them.
- As an additional benefit Nomad offers security to travellers, what happens if one of them decides not to travel, and do the other travellers bear the costs? Answering these questions: Nomad requires a reservation deposit that is held until the end of the trip. This deposit is refunded at the end of the trip. In case of non-attendance, the deposit is not refunded and is divided among the other travellers. There is no extra charge to those who kept their commitment to travel.
Crazy8, Low fidelity, Mid fidelity
I already know how my App is divided, my user journey and the functionalities. I start thinking about the screens; the organisation, the components and the presentation.
I start Crazy8 by creating screens with pencil and paper and imagine in 40 seconds what each of them will look like. I had clear ideas, I felt I knew what my platform was going to look like. I had a lot of clarity. This first contact with it has helped me a lot to shape it and imagine the final result.
I started to create the Low Fidelity. I had clearer user flow and clearer screens than in Crazy8.
I had to test Low Fidelity. I find this very useful because sometimes it seems to me that everything is clear and that my user is going to do what I expect him to do. In this case I asked the users to perform the following task:
“After registering on the application, fill in your details and select your interests, search for travellers with whom you have an affinity using the filters. After filtering, select a user to travel with. Finally, make payment and contact your travel group.”
With this testing I have observed the following mistakes within the prototype:
- There was a gap between two of the screens. An intermediate screen needed to be created where the user could confirm payment for the booking.
- One of the screens only had a back button, the close button was missing. This made it difficult to go back to the start.
When I had solved the errors of the Low Fidelity I started to make the Mid-fidelity from Wireframes. This was the result:
This Mid fidelity is not the final one. I show it like this because, after testing it several times, some users who participated suggested important modifications. These modifications were added later.
On the left I show some of the modifications proposed by users. On the right, the modifications made on the basis of the proposals.
All the suggestions were very useful and constructive. I understood the symbols perfectly and I assumed that my users did too.In this situation sometimes you are surprised and you have to consider a new design approach to the user to make them understand everything perfectly and improve the usability.
This is the before and after of the same screen after making the changes:
After testing and modifying it as many times as necessary to make the prototype work properly, it’s time to add colour and style to my design.
We are in the UI phase, we have to put style and colour to the design. I love this part because you see how your MVP becomes real and attractive.
I start creating the Moodboard and looking for the visual style of my App. It was not complicated because I was very clear about where to focus my app, so from the first moment the moodboard conveyed to the users what I expected: “Adventurous, friendly, exciting, joyful and festive”.
When deciding on the colours, it was clear to me that white would dominate in my application because I was looking for cleanliness, transparency and clarity. The most complicated thing was to choose an accent colour for the buttons and details to highlight. I started with a very bright and striking blue, but it stood out too much against the white background. After several colour changes, I finally chose a less intense and easier to read blue.
In order to have a clearer picture of the elements of my application I elaborated the Styte Tile and the UI Kit. This helped me a lot to keep them all in agreement.
Finally, taking into account all the elements of my MPV, this was the result of the Hi-Fidelity.
Monetisation
Nomad has a handling fee during the payment of the booking. These fees represent a part of the trip. This is the profit the app makes for each traveller.
Within Next Steps, Nomad will offer scheduled trips with fixed costs. From these, the app will make a profit.
Another form of monetisation within the future steps will be to generate agreements with hotel and flight companies. This will offer itinerary and accommodation options to travellers.
Hi Fidelity Prototype
Conclusions
I really enjoyed doing this project, it was a challenge for me especially to find a solution that differentiates me from the competition because there are applications with similar characteristics. When I found a viable, complete and differentiated solution, I felt very proud of my work. I really enjoyed seeing how the project developed and took shape.
Since the beginning of the Bootcamp I have seen that my skills have increased a lot. I had more ease using the tools, during the ideation process and looking for solutions. I am very happy and proud of my progress.
Thank you very much for your time, I hope you liked it very much!!!! 👏🏽👏🏽 Any comment or feedback is welcome!
You can contact me on LinkedIn to find out more
See you soon! ❤️
