VacayVote

Research Phase

Screener Survey

We knew that we needed to narrow down our scope quite a bit. After about 30 minutes of group discussion, the three of us agreed that the topic of ‘trip planning and preparation’ was granular enough to perform focused user research and interviews, but broad enough to provide some flexibility in identifying an issue. We then sent out a screener survey to target the right audience across a balance of appropriate demographics. What criteria did we look for?

• Have traveled internationally in the past year

• Began trip planning at least 8 weeks prior

• Contribute to or lead the planning process

• Used resources outside of a travel agency

User Interviews

Of the 26 respondents, we interviewed 5 people that met our screener criteria. We asked them a variety of [non-leading] questions around the travel-planning problem space, including:

• What steps do you take to prepare for a trip?

• Have you encountered any pain points while planning a trip?

• What resources do you use to look up restaurants, things to do and see?

Synthesizing Our Research

Affinity Mapping

After our interviews, we synthesized the data collected through the creation of an affinity map. This process helped us identify trends when we had a lot of mixed data.

KEY INSIGHTS THROUGH AFFINITY MAP
• Coordinating and making group decisions prior to the trip is one of the biggest pain points.
• Users prefer to purchase cheap flights so they have more financial freedom to splurge on food and activities.
• Travelers turn to blogs for inspiration and travel apps and websites to book flights and accommodations, often asking locals for recommendations while experiencing.
• Cabs and ridesharing apps are the most common forms of transportation while at the destination
• Exchanging currency and taking safety precautions are not an issue, as those are obstacles they easily overcome prior to the trip.
• Travelers often have issues trusting the large amount of blogs and resources they have at their disposal.

Persona

Journey Map

Next we created a journey map to help us visualize the process that our persona goes through to currently complete his goal. We did this to pinpoint a specific problem in the travel planning journey that our responsive website would be able to deliver a solution for. To make sure we didn’t miss out on any potential opportunities, we mapped out the entire travel process, from trip conception all the way through to returning home.

Based on the emotional low points of the journey map, we considered the three following potential opportunities but ultimately decided to focus on the last one at this time as 75% of our interviewees expressed difficulty agreeing on plans.

Ideation and Design Phase

Proposed Solution

Our problem statement that we uncovered let to our proposed solution: a responsive website that allows users to seamlessly coordinate and agree on plans. Many of our interviewees expressed frustration in agreeing on accommodations, restaurants and excursions while on a group trip and we wanted to find a solution for this.

MoSCoW Mapping to Prioritize Features

We could dream up a million features to include in our website that would help our users accomplish their goal of coordinating plans; however, this being a new product, we really wanted to avoid featuritis and focus on just a few key features to achieve our MVP. We determined these features through MoSCoW mapping.

Design Studio & Low-Fidelity Wireframes

Our team performed two rounds of design studio (one shown below) to start brainstorming what our product might look like. To do this, we chose to focus on what the flow the group leader would take to initiate the voting process. My sketches are below.

The design studio proved helpful because all members agreed that voting options should be represented by images and should all be in view as opposed to hidden with the required action of scrolling right. The team also came to the conclusion that details of each restaurant should appear in an overlay, so the voters can make a more informed decision. These takeaways informed our mid-fidelity wireframes below. We made sure that each design feature we implemented was backed by research and key insights.

Key Insights to Inform Design Decisions

Usability Testing using Mid-Fidelity Wireframes

Once we felt our design decisions addressed our main needs of our users, we tested our mid-fidelity prototype. We tested three participants and gave them one scenario and three different tasks (below). 

Additional Hi-Fidelity Wireframes

Learnings

As someone with a passion for travel and a past career in the travel industry, I needed to be mindful that I wasn’t creating the product for me. I had to revisit the research and personas to remove myself from the process. Deciding on one area of opportunity was the most difficult part for our group. I wanted to focus on finding a solution for getting information and suggestions from credible sources because that’s what I (as a traveler) would be most interested in. But I had to consider what is best for Jack, our persona, and his friends. That being said, I think VacayVote has tremendous potential and we’ve received so much positive feedback since testing.