X-plore: An effective way to plan the vacation of your dreams
When was the last time you planned and went on a vacation? What was the experience like? Hold your answers and keep reading.
Overview
X-plore is a mobile application which aims to make the entire process of planning, exploring and finding the perfect destination for your vacation very easy especially when it’s with friends and family. It also aims to give you that effortless vacation experience you have always dreamt of, by making it easy for you to find a destination, get a tour guild, make a vacation budget, book your hotels and flight.
Problem observation
“I could really use a nice weekend getaway, but where should I go?”
The idea for X-plore came up after I realized that the idea of going on a vacation with my friends, although exciting, is also tiring because we spend a really long time blindly arguing about destinations, budgets, hotels etc. and slowly, the excitement of going on a vacation wears off and we end up vacationing at the same destination or postpone it till the next month or year.
It was during one of these arguments and countless suggestions on where to vacation that an idea popped into my head “Why don’t I design an application that makes it very easy for people to find vacation destinations in Nigeria?”
Behold! The problem
Here are some of the problems I identified:
- People have no way of knowing what they should expect at their chosen destination. This includes activities to engage in, fun places etc.
- Online reviews about destinations are sometimes fabricated and users end up disappointed.
- A lot of people get confused about where they would like to vacation. This comes from not knowing places with tourist attractions in the country.
- Finding and getting affordable and quality hotels in a new state is stressful.
- People manually budget for their vacations based on estimates and end up under-budgeting.
- When people get to their vacation destination, they might not know the best locations to see or explore.
Project Goal
“Planning a vacation should be a walk in the park.”
My goals for this project were very simple and they are:
- Make it very easy for users to find, plan, budget, and book services when they vacation.
- Improve tourism amongst average income-earning Nigerians, by recommending budget-friendly destinations within the country.
- Design an application that is very easy to use and tackles the major problems user face such as: “Where do I vacation?”, “How much will it cost?”, “Who will show me around?“ etc.
My Research
For this project, I made use of two research methods.
- Quantitative (unmoderated user interviews) — To understand these problems stated above, I carried out an unmoderated user interview in the form of a user survey. It helped me filter the category of people who go on vacation, the frequency and their experiences. I sent out interview questions to people on social media ( Twitter, LinkedIn and WhatsApp), using Google form.
2. Qualitative (moderated user interview) — After the user survey, I went on to have a moderated interview session with users who indicated interest to have further discussions with me. It helped me understand how users plan for vacations, the factors they consider and what makes a vacation memorable for them in detail. Below are some of the questions I asked:
- What do you and (or) your friends consider before picking a vacation destination?
- What makes a vacation memorable to you? Tell me about the fondest memories you have of a vacation
- What are the challenges you face while choosing a vacation?
- How do you manage the cost of a vacation when it’s with your friends?
Empathizing with the users
“Put yourself in the shoes of your users”
I am not my user, and hence, why empathizing with them and putting myself in their shoes is very important. Empathizing helps me see things from their own point of view, it helps me see and feel things like they do, which in turn sets me on the part of solving problems that do bother them.
I had to create a simple and ‘easy-to-digest’ visual that captures knowledge about the users, their behaviour and their thought processes.
Using the data obtained from my research (user research and interviews), I created an empathy map for each individual to better empathize with my users.
Analysis from the Empathy Mapping
From the response I got during the moderated research and results from the user survey, I extracted the common pain points.
User persona
Being an exploration app that helps with planning travel trips and vacations, I needed to understand how the users think and experience travel planning while also keeping the goals, UX and interface design in mind. These were the thoughts that helped me identify two key user groups that emerged throughout the research phase: the single user(Solo vacationer) and the(Group vacationer). I was able to create hypothetical personas based on the research to act as a guide when designing.
Understanding more about the market and the competitions
With the number of insights obtained from researching, I realized Joyce from our user persona had previously tried out a travel planner and at that moment I knew I had to do some snooping around the travel industry to see what their processes are and how X-Plore could do better so I could avoid the mistakes of previous apps.
The goal was to see what was available and how I could improve on the existing experiences to help back up my findings and provide X-Plore with an edge over its competitors. Things I focused on while researching were:
- Direct and indirect competitors
- Identifying core features that users enjoy.
- Identifying competitors’ flaws and considering how I may improve on them to increase the app’s performance.
Brainstorming Ideas
“Brainstorming is the nexus of ideas.” — Asa Don Brown
At this stage of the project, I had to ask myself “How might we solve this problem”? This entails me picking one pain point at a time and tackling it by coming up with every idea I can think of. I wrote down the ideas no matter how far-fetched it was because I knew I would still sieve through and select the solutions that were feasible. This method helps me ensure that I don’t leave any ideas behind.
Finding the right solution to build for
“To every problem, there is a most simple solution” — Agatha Christie
One problem I faced was figuring out the best solutions to help direct me on what to design for, thankfully the key user groups that emerged from the research were the deciding factor for helping me pick the right solutions that solve their pain points, one other factor was prioritizing solutions that don’t require too much time to design and build for, getting the designs to the hand of the users to test and validate the solutions early mattered more than spending time designing all the solutions. Here are the solutions:
- Budgeting form — This will help our key users Joyce (from our user persona) plan and budget for things such as food, drinks, accommodation etc. which they complained about.
- Maps to help Joyce see hotels in their location and get around easily — This feature will help them effortlessly get around and find their way around any new state. It will also help the app recommend destinations close to their current location.
- Option of getting a tour guide- this option is available to people who pay for the pro version of the application.
- Details of a particular destination, including hotels meals, distance etc.- This feature aims to make it easier for Joyce to know the details of a new state, including the best hotels available, activities to engage in and the best hangout spots available.
- Bookmark and save for later- Save your favourite locations for the future or for when you need to vacation.
- Expected amount for each destination- Knowing the estimated amount for each destination will make it easy to know just how much to budget.
- Rating from people about destinations — For this feature, I considered the fact that Joyce could receive false reviews, so I included a little icon which shows reviews from authentic users.
- Book flights and hotels from the app
- See pictures of vacations
My User flow
“Let me be your guild on this app”
Having mapped out the solutions/features, I needed to translate these into a flow for the app, taking the user through a journey with the user experience in mind right from the moment the app is opened, instructing the user on how to reach a goal.
Paper sketch
With research and user flows done, it was time to put all of these insights and resources into designing the app. Finding inspiration from industry standard guidelines, IOS GUI and competitors led me to sketch and generate UI concepts, which allows me to work on multiple ideas rather than focusing on one and tinkering with it until it’s perfect.
Digital Wireframe
I had not worked on a travel app prior to X-Plore before, so following a sketch-to-wireframe process was the most ideal path for me to help guide my creative process and UI designs. This helps a lot cause they act as blueprints to ensure I am heading in the right direction before putting a lot of time into full mockups of the user interface complete with colours, fonts, and other design elements.
High fidelity design
“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you x-plore”
User Testing
Upon completion of the high-fidelity design and prototyping, I went on to test the application using real users, using Google Forms to record their responses.
The goal was to find out if the application solves the view pain points users encounter and if it is easy to navigate while identifying key features that made their experience smooth.
My Findings
- 13 out of 14 participants, found the app user friendly
- 14 of the participants successfully completed their tasks
- 14 of the participants had an overall good impression of the application
Conclusion
Working on this project was a fantastic opportunity to explore how research, design and usability are intertwined. It seemed impossible at first to focus on my users’ key problems, but by following the design thinking process, I was able to better analyze the data and discover the primary needs. I learnt how important it is to pay attention to users; during the interviews, a problem that I hadn’t anticipated arose, which proved to be critical in the development of one of the app’s core features. One of the most difficult challenges I had was translating my UX designs into UI designs that people could easily explore and comprehend. To fix this, I mood-boarded and sketched, putting myself in my users’ shoes, and went with a simple approach.
