KonradBieniek | UX

Background

Our team was tasked with developing a new product for an existing brand and then presenting it to two UX Instructors in the form of a pitch. We started with travel:

“What are the challenges travelers face today despite all of the latest technology available at their fingertips?”

• According to an AirBnB survey of 2000 online participants, 79% of US travelers said they’ve been on multiple group trips in the last five years.

• According to interviews the biggest headaches with travel planning stem from coordinating group trips.

Problem

group trips involve a lot of planning and decision making. The group needs to stay in constant communication to ensure they are coordinated on flights, accommodations, and shared expenses.

How might we help streamline the coordination, communication, and planning of group trips for travelers all in one place?

Discover

Competitive Matrix and Feature Analysis:

The competitor matrix on the left shows the landscape of the travel app market. We were able to identify Tripper Keeper’s 3 main competitors: Prava, Travefy. and GrupTrip. We then delved into each application to see what features they brought to the table. The table below has a quick rundown of the main features.

Survey & Interviews

After the feature analysis was complete the next question to tackle was: “What apps and resources do trip goers actually use?” We found that users rely mostly on Google Sheets and Google Docs to collaborate on creating travel plans.

• 5 in-person interviews of both trip organizers and participants

• Questions asked:
  — Past experience with group trips
  — Coordinating plans with group
  — Flight & hotel plan communication
  — Activity & food decisions
  — Settling expenses

“It’s fine as long as everyone has a similar strategy for planning. Coordinating the trip is like working on project, some people who are more engaged and others less engaged. It’s better if one person plans everything and the others just say ‘yes’.”

Define

Feedback showed there is usually an organizer, the trip planner and coordinator, a person who takes the reins. Secondly there are the participants, those willing to go along with the picks and planning of the main organizer or ones who really want to be involved.

Personas

Target Brand

Google & Trips, with their APIs, simple design and E-mail trip itinerary gathering technology seemed like a great company to engage. 

Google Trips is a new app that helps you plan an upcoming trip.

• Provides suggestions suggestions for activities and dining

• Helps you develop trip day plans

• Automatically syncs hotel and flight information from your Gmail

• Provides downloadable travel guides for offline viewing

Google Trips vs Tripper Keeper for Group Travel

Google Trip Problems: It is made for the individual, there is fragmented communication, separate plan-making.

Tripper Keeper Solutions: Made for the group, a central chat, consolidated and shared itinerary and plan-making.

Design

usability test 1 findings

usability testing 2 findings

Delivery - prototype

Conclusion

Through research the team identified key areas that needed remedy to ensure that group travel planning and coordinating became more of a pleasant experience.

• Having powerful GMail APIs as well as Maps and Flights, Google was a great brand to entice into Tripper Keeper. 

• Google Trips, their current offering for coordinating travel, lacked the ability for group collaboration. As backed by insights from our interviews, issues don’t arise from individual travel but from coordinating large group travel. It is that insight which lead to our solution and a great addition for the brand to explore.
  We validated our prototype with users and the feedback was that it was a simple app, clear and easy to understand and something they were all excited to use in the the future.