Introduction
When I was completing my Certification in UX/UI Design in Fall 2020, I had the opportunity to work on a mobile app design project. The goal of the app was to solve an everyday need of our choosing, the extensive and frustrating process of travel booking.
According to Amadeus-commissioned global study, Empowering Inspiration: The Future of Travel Search, three in 10 travelers in Europe currently have no interest in using their mobile phones for travel-related activities, but U.S. consumers show levels of interest comparable to emerging markets for mobile features such as alerts, check-in, etc. There are clear opportunities for travel sellers to inspire and convert consumers while alleviating degrees of frustrations along the way.
Information overload and the lack of confidence that they are getting a good deal has led to an astonishing 47% of U.S. online travel booking frustration. Big Picture Booking (BPB) is here to help you simplify your travel with one app that does it all.
Role and Responsibility
To complete this mobile app prototype, I worked solo as the Project Manager (PM), lead researcher, and designer, creating the digital wireframes, along with any clickable prototypes.
Tools Used
•Miro
•Adobe Illustrator
• Figma
• Adobe XD
Problem
Through the conduction of user interviews with various individuals in the target market, I discovered that the most common method of travel booking was starting with Google. Most individuals said their process for making travel plans was by sorting through various search results and manually comparing costs and amenities. The issue most of our users had with that method is that it’s extremely time-consuming and overwhelming. It can take days or even weeks to coordinate flight, stay, and any activities you want to do while traveling.
The average traveler has a very ambitious lifestyle and loves to experience new cultures while in a new place. How might we improve the simplification of experience booking so that our users can successfully plan and enjoy an entire trip through one product?
User Research
I developed a user research plan that began with creating a Proto Persona (Figure 1.a). I based the questions that I developed for our User Interviews based on this persona, which kick-started our entire process.
Research Objectives
• To understand our users' current travel booking process.
• To understand why they use that process.
• To understand how to improve that process
Figure 1.a
User Interview Results
Affinity Diagram
Empathy Map
User Persona
Ideation
After conducting the user research and gathering/organizing the data, I began the brainstorming and ideation phase of the project.
Feature Brainstorming
Using the data gathered from my user interviews and the concepts developed, I started brainstorming the main features of the mobile app. The “I like, I wish, What if” method was used to ideate some possible features, with myself then dot voting to narrow down a smaller selection (Figure 2.a). That selection was then used in a prioritization matrix (Figure 2.b) to determine which features would be most valuable to the user.
Figure 2.a
Figure 2.b
Storyboard
User Flow
Sketched Wireframes
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
User Testing
After completing the ideation phase of the project, which included a low fidelity clickable prototype, I moved on to user testing. I completed five user tests and obtained some really vital feedback, some of that being that the users didn't understand the "save for later" feature and wanted to be able to make purchases and see their itinerary step-by-step.
After organizing the feedback (Figure 3.a and 3.b) of these user tests, I decided to re-focus on the main feature of the app (all-in-one booking), and create the iOS prototype.
Figure 3.a
Firgure 3.b
Mid-Fidelity iOS Wireframes
iOS Prototype
