BACKGROUND & PROBLEM

- Define key issues with current booking experiences
- Define user expectations from booking platforms
- Pinpoint direct and indirect competitors

I conducted secondary research to understand the impact on businesses when they use online platforms to connect with customers and the current behavioral trends in the online booking platforms.

Key Impacts of businesses having an online presence:
- 80% of local searches for local businesses result in conversions
- People primarily use search engines such as Google to looks for new experiences/activities locally. One has to swift through each search result and each search result has a different way of presenting information.

During my secondary research, I was able to identify the common different types of users to that use online-directory and booking platforms. I created provisional personas based of these users to highlight their main motivations and pain points. I created the provisional personas to to serve as one of the building blocks when I move on to the empathy phase where I create a persona and an empathy map.

With secondary research, I was also able to identify existing booking and online-inventory platforms that prove to be great competitors against Out & About. I conducted a competitive analysis of Out & About's direct and indirect competitors to see what features provide value to their products and if there are any existing gaps in their user experience that I can provide solutions for when designing for Out & About.

I went through the competitors' common assets and decided that I will include the following in my design:
- Easy to navigate categories
- Tailored recommendation list based on the user's preferences
- Simple and straightforward booking process
- Ability to provide reviews

DIRECT & INDIRECT COMPETITORS

Airbnb

PROS
‍
- Lists experiences for inputted location
- Easy to navigate categories
-Clean and organized UI
- Offers virtual experiences
- Straightforward booking page
‍
CONS
‍
- Does not include free events
-Does not include community events

Eventbrite

PROS
‍
- Feed based is on user's preferences
- Allows users to edit preferences
- Allows users to follow event organizers
- Offers suggestions of incoming events

CONS
‍
- Limited to bigger events
- No option to filter results by dates

Yelp

PROS
- Reviews from customers
- Gallery is organized into different categories
-Allow in-site booking or provides links to the host's website
‍
CONS‍- Reviews are subjective
- Mostly used for dining experiences

Instagram

PROS
‍
- Good for businesses and community events to gain exposure
- Allows users to book directly
- Direct social interaction with users
‍
CONS
- Difficult to filter through businesses around the area and search for specific experiences

To complete the research phase, I conducted 1-on-1 interviews. Since I this app is targeted for adults, I recruited participants ages 21-50 years old. The main goal of the interview was to observe how users find and book local activities. I also asked the participants reflection questions to dive deeper in to their motivations, frustrations and expectations from their online booking/searching experiences. Listed below are some of the key findings from the interviews:

I also analyzed the competitors' common areas of improvement and have made it a priority to find a solution for the following:
- Include events at different price points, size and community events
- Add an extensive filtering system

It was important for me to see which elements/details do the users find most important when they are looking for an activity after deciding on the location to see how I would prioritize these elements when creating visual hierarchy. This pie chart was a great visual to guide me in creating the visual hierarchy.

EMPATHIZE

Based on my research findings, I created Kathleen, a persona from 3 common user archetypes I defined the the research phase. The 3 archetypes represent 3 different kinds of users and lists their goals and pain points when it comes for searching and booking for activities. I combined the archetype's goals and pain points when creating Kathleen's profile to ensure that the design choices I make encompass most of the users' motivations and pain points.

It was important for me to put myself in the users' shoes as much as possible. I created an empathy map based on Kathleen's profile. This exercise allowed me to have a holistic view of Kathleen's experience when it comes to searching and booking for activities, The empathy map was also a useful tool to organize thoughts and observations such as Kathleen's motivations and pain point. I can use the insight I collected in addition to the previous research I conducted as foundation for the decisions I need to make in the design phase.

DEFINE

Problem Statement
The process of searching, sharing and booking activities and experiences locally require a lot of time and effort, having to interact with multiple different platforms to complete each task.

Solution
Creating a social, online directory and booking app provides a pleasant experience for the user in which they are able to search, share and book activities in one centralized platform. A centralized platform is also beneficial for local businesses, big or small, because they are able to utilize such platform for expanding their visibility as well as interact with users.

I defined the solution by seeing where the business and the user needs overlap to ensure that design choices will be made with all stakeholders in mind.

What path does the user take when using the product?

Since users are able to use Out & About to search, discover, share and book activities, it was essential to determine how each task will be completed. I created a Task Flow for the 3 main tasks a user will need to complete to book an activity for a group. I then created a User Flow based on a scenario featuring Kathleen. Kathleen was tasked to search for a free community event near her home for she and her friends to attend. This scenario covers the process of signing up, searching and booking for an activity, and sharing the activity with friends. These exercised was helpful in defining which pages and elements I need to design to ensure that the task can be completed.

I created the Site Map to organize pages and map out the structure of the websites. During this phase, I started to feel a bit overwhelmed considering the amount of pages I needed to design and the approaching deadline.

To complete the ideate phase, I conducted a hybrid card sorting exercise using UXTweak. I recruited participants to sort a variety of activities into categories. There were predefined categories but the participants also had the ability to create new categories. The predefined list of categories were taken from the competitor's current list of activity categories. Doing a hybrid card sorting exercise helped me determine if there were any other activity categories that I can add on my existing list and also helped me decide if there were any categories that I can take out.

DESIGN

I produced a handful of rough sketches based on the sitemap to start brainstorming on what the app would look like. After selecting which sketches I wanted to design, I drew more details inside the sketches and tested its functionality by making it into a low fidelity prototype. With the time crunch, I decided to bypass creating the low-fidelity wireframes, and instead sketch detailed drawing of each screen.

After creating my sketches, I created a style guide to ensure that I have consistency and hierarchy in the app's UI. I selected a simple color pallet because the app will consist of a lot of pictures and I did not want the users to be distracted by colorful UI.

After creating the foundational structure and branding of the design, I went on with designing the high-fidelity prototype. I created screens for creating an account, searching & booking an activity, and discussing an activity with friends. I found myself referring back to the pie chart I created to decide how to design and group certain elements so that I can maintain information hierarchy. Since the app contained a lot of information, I tried my best to make sure that the most important information were visible to the user as well as make the design error-friendly.

TEST & ITERATE

I conducted usability testing for Out & About's first prototype to test the designs functionality and also gather user insight of which areas need improvement.

By organizing user patterns and thoughts from the usability test into an affinity map, I was able to pinpoint areas of improvement and come up with possible solutions. I revised the prototype to address the pain points while considering the participants' suggestions

I improved the following areas after deciding that they will make the most impact in the over all flow and experience.

Splitting the sign up process into 2 screens instead of one looks less clustered and feels more organized. The first focuses in collecting basic user info while the second screens collects the users preferences.

Implementing visual cues such as the grey and yellow dots at the top of the event title lets users know that there are 2 screens for the booking process. The colored dot indicates which part of the process the user is on, whether it is the beginning or closing stage.

Implementing a carousel and fitting the image the width of the screen makes the page look put together. The 3 dots at the bottom of the image indicates that the user can swipe to see the rest of the image gallery.

CONCLUSION

This project was a great learning experience in terms of time management and learning how to pivot when in a strict deadline. Though I was not able to create all the deliverables I had planned to deliver in the project timeline, I made the most out of the deliverables I created. I was not able to deliver cleaner low-fidelity wireframes due to time constraints, but I made sure that my sketches were detailed enough and that the screens were functional before creating the prototype. If I were to do re-do the project, I would have spent more time recruiting participants who were able to be apart of interviews sooner rather later to give me more time to work on deliverables during the design phase.