To derive a random sample representative of a diverse population, each group member recruited friends and family members of various demographics to be interviewed to gain a better understanding of what aspects of travel-assistant applications allow for seamless and efficient travel planning.
From the results, we gleaned several key insights and trends:
Conclusively, users are currently unable to attain the optimal travel planning experience and seek:
A simple and intuitive multi-device compatible app that addresses users’ pain points by streamlining services and allowing users to efficiently craft their desired travel itinerary.
During team meetings, we discussed the feasibility of various app interface designs that incorporated the findings from the interviews and developed the low-fidelity wireframes and flowcharts to be referenced for the development of the app prototype below:
These flowcharts display the sequence of events in order to add a set itinerary in the mobile application and sync it to the smartwatch. We hypothesized that this would be an ideal design because...
- Each aspect of the design directly addresses a key insight and/or trend.
- The limited set of functions increase accessibility and user understanding of navigation options.
- Users are able to see personalized content (potential travel destinations) while giving them the opportunity to explore other content, increasing user engagement.
A majority of our interview participants belonged to several overlapping demographics. From this insight, we chose and developed a target user persona to best represent Sojourn’s intended user.
- Stress-free exploration of potential travel destinations
- Simple management of desired trip itinerary
- Easy calculation of costs and trip duration
- Travel apps and websites have poor navigation and accessibility with high visual clutter and noise
- Too many options to plan trip overwhelms the user
Based on various feedback from user testing conducted with the interview participants, the course professor, and fellow classmates, we repeatedly designed several iterations over the span of several weeks:
- Based on feedback from several test users, we decided to add several filter options to improve navigation by allowing users to select specific categories to search by when arranging their trip itinerary.
- This new feature streamlines user navigation by optimizing efficiency through sorting of desirable travel attractions.
- To further simplify travel planning, we included pre-planned travel packages to act as an additional option for potential travelers.
- This additional feature improves user experience by offering additional tailored travel options with lowered costs and time spent planning your travel itinerary by recommending plans related to your personal interests.
Below are the final prototype designs! All high-fidelity designs were created using Figma and Adobe Creative Cloud. All screens include updated functions based on our user testing insights.
Designing a high-fidelity prototype of a mobile and smartwatch application such as Sojourn was a challenging yet fulfilling task. Moving forward, I would slow down during the design process and try to envision the product from the user’s perspective in addition to utilizing user testing and interview feedback. This would have allowed me to gain a better sense of the pain points faced by users who seek the functions and services of such an application and thus better design for it.
One of the greatest things I learned while designing Sojourn was to not get frustrated when an iteration (or several) are unsuccessful. They may have not been the optimal design, but they serve as a model for the future of what went wrong. Moving forward, I now recognize that in doing so that I did not fail, but instead identified ways that did not work.