Matias Pietilä, Head of Design at Qvik, joins Travel Tech Con 2018
We are happy to welcome Matias joining us for Travel Tech Con 2018! Matias is an usability expert with a strong focus on mobile design and during past 10 years he’s been involved in more than 100 projects, creating services that delight several million end-users. In his role as the Head of Design at Qvik he has focused on forming working methods that improve the collaboration between technology, design, and business stakeholders.
Together with his colleague Erika Rintala-Dikert, Matias will lead a workshop on Mobile product design strategies for consumer apps in travel.
All TTC18 pass holders are eligible to join the workshop on June 8th.
We had a chance to ask Matias a couple of questions about his vision on the future of technology.
What in your opinion drives innovation and leaps forward in tech industry today and how is it different from say 10 years ago?
During the past 10 years we’ve witnessed the raise of mobile and are likely to experience the next similar disruption soon. From a designer’s viewpoint I’d definitely say it’s the smarter use of data. First, to be able to be more data-driven when making business decisions on what gets built in the first place and then figuring out the the optimal way to execute it. Second, is the raise of AI and machine learning. There’s a need for people who can articulate business needs in a way that they can be met with new technology that didn’t exist two years ago.
What do startups building next generation travel tech products need to understand about industry evolution and future opportunities?
Despite all the technology hype, it seems that there are still many wins to be gained by understanding the users better and then meeting their needs. Defining the journey from the customer’s point of view, minimising thresholds upon channel switches, providing personalised experience and streamlining the key pain points — most notably user authentication and payments. We’ve seen that still takes you surprisingly far.
What are some of your favorite travel tech products, projects or innovation initiatives that the industry should be paying attention to?
I’m a huge fan of context sensitive, personalised information — regardless of the industry. Travel is a vertical that is especially well-suited for this kind of thinking, as we tend to know what the user is interested in and what will happen next. We see several services utilising this approach and building services around the user’s journey — and have also built a couple ourselves. One intriguing example of this is the Mobility as a service (MAAS) initiative which takes this approach further from mere holiday travelling to revolutionising the everyday mobility.
Join us in welcoming Matias to Travel Tech Con 2018!
