HYPOTHESIS STATEMENT

I believe that enabling people to organize and share trip information with friends quickly will save time, and be more efficient. This will bring more enjoyment to the travelers and the trip experience.

USER RESEARCH

INITIAL THOUGHTS

Knowing the trip budget is my first priority before I conduct an interview. I need to find out how people determine their budget when they are planning a trip or if they determine their budget as they go. Therefore, I have interviewed ten people to understand the initial thought process of determining a budget and planning a trip. Their responses might change everything I examined the problem. Below are my questions for my initial user research.

Budget:

1. Do you normally make a budget?

2. How is your budget look like?

3. What factors do you take into consideration when creating a budget?

4. Do you think about budget at all, why not? 

I conducted ten interviews and the information that I have obtained from these interviews has changed my initial thought. I originally thought that the budget should be the first thing that people are concerned with, but it actually is”NOT”. It turns out destination is the first thing that they think about; otherwise how can they set up the budget. Due to these findings, I have to find out more to understand behaviors and attitudes in selecting the destination and planning a trip process. 

Destination and Planning:

1. How was your last traveling experience ?

2. When planning a trip, how do you decide where to go? 

3. Do you share your plans with friends if you travel as a group? 

4. How do you share your plans or ideas with friends? /What apps / websites do you use? Why? 

5. If you have used websites or apps when sharing travel plans with friends, what are their strengths and weaknesses?

Ultimately, I can achieve my interview results that show, 60% think about destination, 30 % budget and 10% of activities whenever they plan a trip.

AFFINITY MAPPING

Some of the valid data I got from what users are saying. I quoted and highlighted from answers, one-on-one interview, and survey. I also sorted these into a group to give a direction for design this tool.

KEY TAKEAWAY

Budget

• "Pick up destination, possible to go with reasonable price."

Planning a Trip

• "Time saving not to use many programs while creating a trip."

• "Creating itineraries and share them with family and friends."

Discussion Board

• "Easily to communicate with your trip members."

• "Create an easy to read itinerary with all important information."

FEATURES PRIORITIZATION

I have decided what may or may not send to a client based on what essential features also how easy and difficult to build because some features require high technical support or its relative complexity to implement.

COMPETITORS ANALYSIS

I looked at all the apps for travel that offer you to create a trip and share with friends. Surprisingly I found the main competitor which is TripHobo. As expected, there is truly nothing like Escapist. 

Even though, TripHobo offers the option to set up the price range for every trip but, there is a constraint to collaborate a trip with a friend. If you would like to discuss flight, hotel, or car, it makes you feel frustrated because of an inability to see options. It’s always lost the topic when it comes to discussion. I chose to make a clear channel of communication for friends to see ideas for a trip. No other app offers a nice discussion board chatting.

PERSONA

“My friend and I were frustrated in using different software and it causes a time consuming as we would like to create trips and make good looking itineraries.” Jay Freeman.

Jennifer Brown “I am always frustrated organizing trip with friends because they have a different budget.”

USER FLOW

Before I begin the visual design process, I wanted to highlight what users need and show what is being considered the most for them. From the interview result, the destination is the priority. So from there, the main actions that users will interact would be a plan or create a trip, preferred destination, set up a budget (optional), invite, share with friends until they decide to go the trip together.

SKETCHES

FINAL THOUGHT

THE DESIGN PROCESS

As I started to sketch and created an early wireframe based on the interview results, I have failed to accomplish my goal that I wanted to solve the problem. I paid too much attention to the additional area of concern, how the layout would be displayed, and how is going to look. I hadn’t thought about the priority that users need to see, how can they share the trip, collaborate with friends until they have a commitment, “ How would they do that?” I know that destination is the first thing that is concerned with interview results but “how about other processes that can bring users successfully booking a trip?” To define the core problem, I have to think carefully and identify up to a point, so I tried to put together the information I have created and carefully gathered. 

During the thinking process, I started to generate the idea and try to comprehend more about what users need. I’ve analyzed and synthesized my pieces of information.

MOCK UP AND ANNOTATIONS : ESCAPIST MOBILE APP

Explore or Create a trip

According to interview results, the destination is the most concerned from users. Therefore, to be sophisticated for user experience, explore or create a trip are set up as fundamental categories to explore. In any case, either you select Explore a trip or Create a Trip. The first is to work out you have to choose the destination, where are you going and when are you going accordingly. The bottom app navigation is created based on most important destination that users can directly access from anywhere in the app.

Search Result: Flights / Hotels / Cars

The interview result shows that when they are planning a trip, 60% consider about destination, 30% Budget and 10% about activities. To be sophisticated from user behavior, search Flights, Hotels, and Cars are the first articulate as the most productive of user experience to accomplish their trip experience also avoid too much pressure and keep lodging arrangement easy.  The reason that I have figured only flight, hotel, and car as fundamental because chances are you will need transportation to arrive at your destination and accommodation once you arrive.  Also Matches Budget label comes from what user has set up the price range and helps to refine a search results. 

Invite friends to join a trip

After users have got the search results and shared to trip group so now, it’s time to invite friends to join the trip. There are 2 options to invite your friends: 1. Invite through your phone contacts 2. Through social media. Selected friend will show up and On the top right corner, The user will see number of friends that have selected. Friend list can also remove or add as needed. The app will a notification or message to selected friends   sends a notification to your phone. Tab on the message box to see what is inside. 

Friend Accepted Invitation

So now presumed that after your friend's got the alert message from the app. He/she accepted an invitation and created an account with Escapist. After sign up process has completed they will see a trip detail that shared from a trip member such as options that have selected or voted additionally they will see who is a vote for the option.

To be accurate and assure users that they are looking at the right trip. Your trip overview shows your profile picture / Trip name, details also trip members because sometimes you might travel with the same group but the different destination.

Collaborate with friends

After users were seen and noticed that some of the trip members have voted for the option, so it’s time to inform team members. This feature helps user to discussing with friends about flight, hotel and car easier. This way users be able to swap to another chat room like Hotel or car. Moreover, by tapping on three buttons on the top right corner to see more functions that helps users engage with the product.. The trip details have consistent help usability and learnability of users whenever they jump to another chat room. This way is highly useful and helps users to stay focus attention without confusion. For the last screen, seeing options/vote options and pay are designated as prime functions and most efficient of user experience to accomplish their trip experience.

Payment

Because people have their budget of what they can afford for the trip, calculated fairness money to pay with less issue is a way to bring happiness to the trip. For smooth experience, Users still can see options on Flights, Hotels, Cars by the only tab on it. It is suitable for being applied payment step that says exactly what stage of the checkout process the users are right now and how many steps would take them to finish. It also gives users sense-of-control. For a design perspective, I keep using the same colors, fonts, and design on the checkout page. I would like Escapist to be the last thing on users mind so they can pay directly from the app so that they won’t be away.

Complete the trip

Again, trip details still have consistent help users even though they are entirely successful for booking a trip. This way is highly useful and helps users to stay focus on details and pay attention without confusion. I use the word " Hooray to be more friendly so I use the word that expresses feeling :)