Localite
End to End Responsive Web App
A travel platform where you can connect to a locale to plan a personalized trip
Platform:
Duration:
My Role:
Responsive web application
4 weeks
UX/UI Designer, Researcher, Brand designer
Deliverables:
Research, User flow, Prototype, Usability testing
Creating the Research Plan
Survey
17 participants
Did a quick survey to
validate that planning a trip is truly a
problem and also get a feel for what
people's frustrations are towards it.
Competitive Analysis
5 companies
Identified 5 top competitors, did a
SWOT Analysis and also identified gaps to
identify opportunities in the market.
User Interviews
6 participants
Conducted user
interviews in person and remote to get a
more deeper
understanding of the
pain points, needs, motivation, goals of people when planning a trip.
"Too much time" seems to be an underlying problem!
Let's Define the Research...
Research Objectives Defined:
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Understand why users want to travel
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Understand what tools are used to organize a trip
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Understand the process of how the user is planning a trip
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Learn who is helping the user plan a trip
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Discover the different methods of communication used for planning a trip
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Discover opportunities for improvement in the process of organizing a trip
Research Questions:
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How does a user plan a trip?
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Why does a user want to travel?
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What tools does the user use to organize their trip?
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What pain points and concerns does the user have with the tools used?
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Which method of communication is ideal for planning a trip?
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How to improve the process of planning a trip?
Methodologies:
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Conduct user interviews to see first hand what planning a trip means in people’s lives and how it makes them feel. It’s important to understand if the user truly wants to plan a trip or are they planning because there is no other option to? All these questions will be part of the bigger deep dive to understand why so much time is required into planning a trip.
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Survey to understand the demographic of the users and if there is any correlation with the pain points of planning a trip. It will also provide a good data point and statistic to see how to pursue this plan further.
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Conduct a competitive research to understand the following:
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What services are being offered by the competitors and if there is a gap in the market
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Understand the pricing model and figure out the range that people are comfortable and willing to spend on planning a trip.
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Participants:​
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People who currently plan their own trip
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People who outsource planning their trip to family and friends
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People who recently used a competitor to outsource planning their trip • People who want to travel but don’t because of planning issues
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People who don’t like planning a trip
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People who love planning a trip
Assumptions:​
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We might have trouble finding people who recently used a competitor to outsource planning their trip in the average income range. There might also be variation based on different ethnicities.
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We assume that people who don’t enjoy planning a trip will be our primary target and there would be multiple age ranges who fall into this category. We assume that people who don't enjoy planning a trip and whose income level is average and above who “should” outsource planning their trip but don’t. We will be open to learning if this assumptions hold true to real life users.
Competitor Analysis
Identified 5 top competitors and performed a SWOT Analysis in order to identified gaps which would turn into opportunities in the market.
User Interviews & Affinity Map
Initial Affinity Map
Themes included demographic information like "Travel companion & marital status", travel exposure, interests, research style, planner personality, organization & itinerary style, pain points, needs, motivations.
After creating a ton of post it's with vital pieces of information from the users, i started recognizing patterns and created themes.​
Pain Points & Insights
Pain Points
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Immense time involved in researching for a trip and finding unique, local and off the beaten path experiences.
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Too many nitty gritty details involved in planning and organizing travel plan.
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There is no single source of truth when researching through blogs, websites as everyone has different needs and interests and it's too much to filter and know what experience you are going to like as it's not tailored to you.
Insights
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Most users want to plan their own trip but want to find ways on optimizing their research.
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Getting validation about the activities that they have planned is something they need and will enable them to enjoy their trip knowing they didn’t miss out anything special.
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Most users want to experience something unique, local and off the beat and that’s a reason they travel - it’s to explore and learn something they haven’t before.
User Personas
Gathering insights from the user interviews and research, i created user personas to represent our target audience for Localite.
The amount of research that goes into looking for unique and local experiences is too time consuming.
I wish there was a way that i could connect with local citizens of the place i am traveling to.
Too many nitty gritty details in planning inside and outside of the trip.
Narrowing down on ideas...
Idea #1 was the winner!!
User Flows
While doing this project, i did run into a ROADBLOCK where i had to decide between working on one of the two ideas. I created 2 user flows as the scope was wide and this process helped to narrow down on what journey was feasible. I narrowed down and focused on User Flow #2 as it was a key feature to ensure a minimum viable product.
User Flow #2: Enables the user to search and purchase for a predesigned experience under the Food & Drink Category.
User flow #2
Task Flows
I designed the task flow with minimum steps required and as simple as possible to avoid any confusion for the user.
Focused on Task Flow #2: How to find a "Localite" advisor profile matching with an existing user profile and book time with them?
Low-fi to Mid-Fi Wireframes
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
UI Library
Usability Testing
Goal
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Validate if the user knows how to find a localite profile and book time with them.
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Validate what the user's understanding is of the term “localite”.
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Validate if the user knows how to access the details of their booking with a localite.
Objective
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Validate understanding of what a "localite" means and the "Explore" functionality.
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Validate how users perform the search and if they are able to navigate to find a localite under the Food & Drink Category and book a time slot with them.
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Discover friction points for the user when booking time with a localite and also the overall user interface and experience.
Methodology
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Conducting the usability testing of high fidelity prototypes via remote video calls or in person meetings based on availability.
Participants
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6 Participants, Ages 30-60, 4 remote, 2 in-person usability test interviews
Usability Test Learnings
Usability Testing was a very informative and eye opening process as it reminded me how complex a human mind is. The art of learning, accepting and executing the different perspectives of human tendencies is what makes usability testing so crucial to the entire user experience of design.
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From the usability testing interviews, i consolidated a list of themes that i learnt across all users:
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things that worked
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friction and pain points
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ideas and suggestions
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Identified 7 Friction points and gave each one a priority level and narrowed down to 3 points that were highest priority. Priority to each friction was an accumulation of the impact it had and the number of users who faced this issue.
I decided to work on the friction points that had the most impact on the user and kept in mind that the time and effort to make those changes would be justifiable to the project to meet the deadline.
#1 Iteration: Redesign the Breakpoint for Explore Screens to include CTA button without the user having to scroll.
BEFORE
Reorganized the Top Navigation
by removing the "Explore" text as it was redundant and also gave a cleaner look. With this, i was able to give back more space on the screen and allow the CTA button to be visible on initial screen.
Break Point of the Explore Screens
AFTER
Users struggled to look for the Continue button after picking the date as they had to scroll down.
#2 Iteration: Reevaluate on how to charge consultation as the "Who" 's meaning was unclear to users and looked at it more from a time slot vs number of folks attending the video call.
BEFORE
by removing it and using the time slot as a way to book the video call.
Re-evaluated the "Who"
BEFORE
Removed the "Who"
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Replaced with functionality of adding or reducing time for Time Slot.
AFTER
AFTER
#3 Iteration: The Search Results Page was the biggest friction point for all users as they were confused on the experience they felt. I redesigned this page so that the user didn't feel like they were shopping for things to do or the activities they were searching for but instead profile images of the localite's that they were actually "shopping" for.
BEFORE
AFTER
Re-evaluated the Entire Results Screen
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to give the experience that the user was expecting which was to look at localite profiles and not images of the activity they were searching.
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I also removed the "Elite" and "Pro" ratings as it was confusing for most users on how that was defined.
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Added a short bio of the localite profile and categorizes that they specialize in to give the user a better understanding into who the localite is and they can make an educated decision on which profile they would want to pick.
This was a very fun, ambitious yet challenging project with so many ideas to grow it into an actual business. If i had more time, i would have done the following:
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Develop a strong business model to create a sustainable revenue stream while working on the surplus of ideas on the Roadmap.
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Worked on a user journey where users could create their individualized user profile to help match them with a localite advisor that has a similar travel style.