NOMAD
A mobile app that helps travelers experience the world like locals.
The Challenge
Propose a solution for a problem space around international travel. Develop a solution and consult with a team of developers to create a workable prototype.
Role
UX Researcher, UX/UI Designer, Information Architect
Toolkit
User interviews, persona, journey map, information architecture, card Sorting, site map, sketching, wireframes, rapid prototyping, usability testing, specification document.
STARTING POINT
Our Team began by brainstorming the different opportunity spaces in the travel arena by creating a mind map.
Some of the areas we explored included
Culture - Food - Safety - Sustainability - Self Care - Escape - Wanderlust - Local Experiences
Competitive Landscape
We then looked into what was already available in the Travel Landscape and found there were a plethora of apps and services for planning trips, finding things to do and ways to share their experiences.
Through this process we found that the area of local norms, practices, and safety tips of various travel destinations was scattered and buried within other information. Only the State Department’s Smart Traveler App provided safety information on each country, however it did not include other information on local experiences.
We believe an app providing basic information about local norms/practices will be useful for travelers in foreign countries as it will help them feel knowledgeable and secure during their trips.
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USER RESEARCH
To validate our initial hypothesis and understand our problem area, we sent a screener to find our target users those who
GLOBAL TRAVELERS
PLAN THEIR OWN TRAVEL
TRAVELED IN THE PAST YEAR
We found 6 Users between 20-40 years old who met our criteria
KEY INSIGHTS
5/6
Users found it important to be conscientious, respectful travelers
4/6
Users like to collect information and recommendations from friends and locals
6/6
I WISH I’D KNOWN MORE ABOUT...
Every user had at least one experience they shared with us in which they had encountered a problem they had not expected in a variety of domains.
“We went to four different pharmacies and every time they were all closed”
-User 4
“I expected to use the Laos currency, Kip, but in Laos they use the Thai currency Baht!”
-User 3
“The police woman glared at me and walked around the car to find something. That day I learned it’s illegal to wear flip flops when you’re driving”
-User 2
Humanizing Data
With the information we from our interviews we developed a persona to represent them and penned a map of their journey to help us understand our user and identify pain points and opportunities to help them have a better experience.
Kiera’s Travel Journey
We looked to the experience of the our target customer through Kiera’s arrival in Palermo, Sicily and the pain points she experiences in order to identify opportunities to design solutions for.
The Problem to design for
When travelers go abroad, they are often faced with cultural norms and local practices that are different from their own.
Kiera is on an amazing trip across the world, but she wishes she had access to location-specific information that would help her avoid some sticky situations. How might we give her access to the information she needs to navigate a new place and make the most of her trip?
Design
Research in hand we entered into the development phase of the project. In this phase, we increased our ability to visualize the problem leading to the development of the first mid-fi prototype to then be tested and iterated on.
Platform Choice - Mobile App- From our screener we found that all of our users(15/15) brought a phone with them on vacation, and nearly all of them got a global plan or local sim card to access data. Thus a mobile app would serve as the most accessible platform for our users.
Our research showed a variety of topics covered. To determine the best way to present data to the user we utilized card-sorting, wherein users place topics(written on cards) into categories.
Design Studio - We quickly generated and shared many sketched ideas, which led to even more collaborative, and innovative opportunities.
Feature Prioritization
Design - Test - Iterate
With these ideas in mind we created our first mid-fidelity conducted usability tests and quickly made iterations accordingly moving from
We conducted 5 usability tests on the Mid-Fi prototype
We conducted 4 usability tests on the Hi-Fi prototype
Solution - FINAL PROTOTYPE
Information Architecture
To ensure that the developers understood the screens that were involved I created a site map indicating the different screens and their hierarchy.
Design Guide
To ensure that the developers would be able to recreate the look and feel of the app we provided a detailed explanation of the colors and typography that had been used.
Next Steps
Build and Test the functionality of other buttons: bookmark, share, translate, news.
Building out a push-notification feature for Tips; consider including tips generated and submitted by users.
Tree testing and/or do additional card sorting to organize the content even better and with user-generated hierarchies.
Consider how the app might be used as a planning tool before and after traveling.