Off The Grid
Experiential travel guide for travellers on the move.
Role : Ux UI designer, Ux research
Duration : 8 weeks
Team : Individual
Tool : Adobe xd
Methodology : Design thinking driven product concept development.
Research by TripAdvisor has found that travellers seek out for a mixture of new experiences and unique visits to iconic places. Tourists and travellers are constantly evolving in the kind of expectations they have from a destination. What one wants out of a vacation is no more limited to guided tours of the highlights of a city or a region. There is a desire, an urge to go beyond the superficial elements of a place and explore it more comprehensively. Travelling has taken a more experience-driven route, which is why experiential travel has steadily been on the rise over the last few years.
What is OFF THE GRID? This is a mobile app, my personal project that facilitates the trend change happening towards the "experiential travel" in the sector of tourism, world wide.
OTG facilitates this by helping the travelers on the move to explore places in their organic essence i.e. how the place actually triggers our senses towards the native culture, traditions and most importantly, the cuisines, making it more engaging with the users. Along with this, OTG enables the users to experience the unknown to the fullest by making sincere connections — genuine, local, and authentic connections, by finding the suitable host/guide around their location. Hence, motivating the travelers to go out and explore, even if they are unable to find a partner or convince their friends or family for the trip.
Project
Take aways from the brief:
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More immersive experience options for travelers.
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Connecting travelers to locals/guides/docents.
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Broadening the traveler's horizon.
The User?
Through a rigorous background research, it was seen that this trend change was introduced by millennials and is growing as the gen - z has hopped on board with the trend. So the target users defined were from the age group of 18 years to 40 years.
This group of users are mostly the people who are seeking more fulfilling experiences as opposed to the previous trend of resort vacations, being imprisoned within the four walls of a luxury hotel. They are looking for interactive travel experiences that will afford them the luxury of communicating with the locals and visiting places off the accustomed tourist maps.
User Goal
The travelers are looking for more engaging and experiential way for travelling. They requires the stimulation that is offered to them in the relatively new concept of “Experiential Tourism.”
The Problem
Research by TripAdvisor has found that
travellers of new age, resources, and experience are looking for more engaging, authentic and meaningful experiences while touring a place. They crave off the beaten path adventures that aren't available on the Top 10 list of things. Often facing problem finding experiential things to do on their vacation other than just the touristy things n places. So the problem arises how can we make the travel experience more engaging and experiential?
While travelling to an un-explored destination, they often face the following problems:
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Top 10 list doesn't satisfy their wants and expectations.
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Missing out on important local pop up events while touring a place.
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Lack of reliable local recommendations.
The Solution
An application to enable travelers on the move, to discover un-explored destinations, which helps them explore and experience natural essence of the place. With a platform for the users to connect and meet with other travelers, guides and docents in their proximity to make their travel more experiential. An App that stand out as a go-to travel resource and a must-download for any trip.
The application offers the following features based on the problems faced by users:
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Variety of immersive experience for the users to choose from.
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Easy connectivity btw the user and locals.
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Community for accessing more information about the place.
My role :
Approching problem solving with a hands-on, user centric mindset leads to innovation, and innovation can lead to diffrentiation and a competitive advantage.
Research
Ideate
Userflow
Wireframe
Ui design
Before jumping into the process of design, I had to understand the depths of experiential travel and all it's aspects in order to generate better and creative solutions. To reduce the knowledge gap, I started with secondary study. Reading various articles on Google, related to how and why the trend is changing, what is the new mindset that users are coming up with for their travel.
Phase
What is experiential travel?
Understand your destination better in order to actually see how people live, argue, love, eat, shop and have fun, which allows us to respect our differences and acknowledge our similarities.
See places fewer people see, that " off the beaten path" we're so keen to travel.
What Experiential Travel aims to carry out?
Break out of the bubble we use to protect ourselves and remove the barriers that isolate us from others – the tour group, the all-inclusive resort or the well-worn tourist circuit.
Connect with individuals,
locals and travelers. Some of these connections can turn into true friendships
Bordern our horizon, open our minds and provide insight into our own lives and cultures.
Experiential travel revolves around cultural exploration and activity-based travel experiences. Tourists and travelers don’t want to simply check things off their bucket list any more. They want to seek out experiences that enrich them and helps them to engage with a place and a culture in a more intimate way. Authenticity has become a core principle for a lot of travelers today. Tourists want to go beyond gazing out of a tourist bus and actually spend time interacting with locals.
The idea behind “experiential travel” is that it’s a way to get travelers closer to the local culture and population. As Wikipedia says, “The goal is to more deeply understand a travel destination’s culture, people, and history by connecting with it, more than just by visiting it.”
Become better global citizens, because so many policies and decision are underpinned by ignorance or fear of others.
When I talk about experiential travel some people will argue that travel is inherently “experiential” by definition, and that the phrase is overused, but the focus here is on the shift toward the mainstream. With travel consumer behaviors varying wildly in this space, it’s a matter of degree how we define and approach the overall trend.
Project
My reseach goal was to understand about the user psychology, habits, preferences and travel concerns with relation to experiential travelling. In order to get better understanding about experiential travelling I started my research with secondary study. Through various blog and online surveys done in this field I was able to learn about people expectation with this kind of travel form, evolving gradually in the market.
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Interviews
While researching about it the following questions started popping up.... Who’s to say what is truly authentic travel? How much authenticity do today’s travelers want? How experiential or adventurous? And how can travel marketers differentiate their product as more experiential experiences amid an increasingly crowded travel landscape?
Some of the answers to those questions were found by one on one interview.
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I interviewed 5 people to solidify my research and I kept it open ended so that I can understand their point of view in depth. The age range for the interview were between 18 to 40 years old. Questions asked in the interview is as follow:
Few interview questions
Q. What does experiential travel mean to you?
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Immersive experience
Local lifestyle
Connecting with people
Anything excieting
For me, I think when I connect with a person, the place, the culture in a way that is meaningful to me. How one defines “meaningful” is a personal question.
Relatedly, I’m a planner by nature but I know the best plans are the ones you are willing to leave behind.
I think to fully experience one has to step outside the boundaries of an organized or top 10 things to do but I think ‘boundaries’ can be defined in the sense of stepping outside of the expected and planned. I’ll share my own experience as an example. When we visited Jaipur some years ago, my husband and I booked a private tour with a local guide. Much of our experience was not so ‘authentic’ in that we went to the famous sites, our guide told us about their history, shared interesting tidbits and made sure he snapped plenty of photos of us. As he chatted, we got glimpses into his personal life and he into ours. By the second day, when our tour was wrapping up, he took us to a place not on the tour schedule – the temple where he worshiped. Then he took us to visit the school he attended as a boy and a home across the street run by nuns who cared for the mentally disabled. The time we spent there, playing and laughing with the residents was a very genuine experience – and one that never would have happened had we not first been on a tour.
Q. Do you think current portal offers engaging and immersive travel experience to you?
Yes
No
This is a tough one. I think they can provide an authentic experience if they work with local family-owned businesses and if they show us the main sights with experiences that are difficult to find on your own in a short time period. It is also good if they give you downtime, so you can go out and discover things on your own.
No they dont, for me it's always a hustle to find what I like. All the portals just offers the mainstream thing which doesn't fits my travel expectations. I mostly find it by making friends or by talking to the locals.
Q.What excites you when you're exploring a new place?
Unconvential diurnal
Local lifestyle
Food
Meeting new people
I think meeting new people is what excites me the most. I being a very social person love interacting with new people, making friends all over the world. I mean it's just one life n to experience so many perspectives to borden yours is something I live for. You never know who you meet and just click with them. It's a very beautiful feeling.
The food. I'm a big time foodie and can eat non stop. While exploring a new place my main focus is on food. What to eat, where to eat, what's the tasitest food available there. Be it street food or something in a fancy resturant I just love exploring good taste.
Q.What problems do you experience when you're exploring a new place?
FOMO
Authentic info
Meeting new people
Safety
I being a very passitionate traveller, the problem I face is not getting enough information about the place and things the place offer. I always have to ask around the locals or do deep research on the blog or youtube to find out what all adventures, food, spots the place is offering.
I have experienced this a few times and I thing I can consider this a problem. It gets lonely sometimes though all the travelling and exploring part is fun to me and I enjoy it a lot but sometimes when I'm done with all the exploring part I feel it would be great to find someone around and chill.
Q: What features/information would you like to have in an application while exploring a place?
Engaging/authentic info
Local POV
User friendly
Socializing platform
Updates n news
1. What do you like to do on your holiday?
2. How you do gather authentic information about the place you're visiting?
3. Do you like connecting with other travelers ?
4. Would you be interested to know what the fellow travelers are doing around you?
Few other question I asked in the interview
Interview Analysis
I was beginning to see a theme with regards to psychology, pain points and motivation that my interviewees faced while wanting to have an experiential travel. For the generation of Millennials and Gen z the travelling pattern have changed dramatically. Through the interviews I could figure out that those times have passed when people wanted to visit the most popular places, stay in a hotels, eat locally available food and return to their regular schedules. People wanted to connect to the surroundings i.e. people, food and nature, visit places which no one has seen. People wanted to explore the untouched, they wanted to visit exclusive places which are mostly explored by the locals, which made them feel like they've accomplished something unique, and gave them the feeling of excitement and thrill. This feeling of inventing something new and off the beat was the driving force which could hook the users on this app. Posting them on social media and showing the world added more to this feeling. There answers gave me a direction towards what the travelers are expecting, how to ease out their vacation struggles and what is needed to enhance their experience of visiting a place.
Authentic information
Exclusive Access
Local POV
Easy networking
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Travelers wanting more “local” experiences and recommendations from a wider variety of voices (i.e. bloggers, locals).
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They want to connect better to the surroundings.
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A platform where the travelers can get both the stuff ie. mixture of both the touristy and off the beat stuff.
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More creative and imaginative options of things to do, adventures, experiences on travel.
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They want connect and socialize with other travelers.
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Wants to know what the other travelers are doing around them.
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“Experiential tourism” means different things to different people. For some interviewee, experiential travel meant doing anything that falls outside of a standard sightseeing, museum-going itinerary. For others, it was defined by interactions with locals or by going to places that might not be considered tourist attractions at all.
Phase
User Personas
Empathy Map
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Knowing the competition
When I began my research on the various competitors, I couldn’t find any app that acknowledged the product I was proposing to develop. There are various companies out there, offering travel guidance, places to go, private and group tours and travels, top 10 list of things but what I was proposing was to cut out the middle man and let the communication happen directly between the traveler and the locals n docents, either through experiences online or by booking and talking directly.
I had previous knowledge of the market, but this time I was looking at those apps with a fresh perspective. I didn’t want my app to be just another booking tool. I wanted it to have a warm feeling. My goal was for it to be the “go to” app for all travelers looking for experiential travel on the move and I wanted people to be able to find a friend on the other side of the world. The perfect travel match. I searched for direct and non-direct competition to find out how were they solving problems. Some of the apps I used were excellent but were not touching this particular issue.
During this brain storming phase ,I came up with options for possible solutions that could add value to the application. These pointer helped me to create interesting features for the app. The prime focus was the quality for solution not the quantity of solution.
Phase
Showing reviews/pov of locals and previous travelers add trust value
Users wanted exclusive and authentic information. Showing locals pov and reccomandation can help user differentiate btw what's touristy and what's experience based.
Unique and creative ways to experience the place
Providing different varieties of local experiences and activities to do from different fields of culture and interest can give travelers more options for choose from. User can choose an activity matching to their interest and hobbies instead of top 10 touristy things.
Connecting hosts/locals/docents to the users
The locals/docents play an important in providing an experiential experience to the users. Connecting these two parties can help and benefit both the parties and create an amazing experience.
A forum for experiential traveler's community
A forum for travelers interested in experiential travel can bring them together to share their insights and experiences. It can open the user to a large access of information about the place, coming from a valid and trust worthy source.
User Scenario
Task flow
Wireframes
Branding :
From the research it was concluded that users wanted reccomdations and suggestion from the locals to trust the information presented. Hence a review and rating system about the experience from travellers and locals for better trust building.
Sorting option for filtering the comments.
Sort By
Reviews
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Sign Up and Login
The goal of the onboarding experience was to collect user’s information most importantly, travel interest so the app can suggest to users where they might want to go or see around the world.
The goal of the onboarding experience was to collect user’s information most importantly, travel interest so the app can suggest to users where they might want to go or see around the world.
Onboarding Flow
01
Detail Page
Users Story
Stories of travellers nearby to give the users access to more information about what's happening around and to allow users to share their moments of the day.
Trending Experiences
Based on the search habits and survey results after the user registers an account. This section will show variety of popular experiences in different sectors shared by travellers, bloggers, locals to help user find their unique experience.
Travel Stories
Experiences and stories of travellers, bloggers and locals to showcase their adventure to the world. This gives access to tangible as well as intangible aspect of the place to the users.
Popular Categories
To help user simplfy their search n get to the desired info without any confusion.
Side Menu Design
Homepage
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Discover and Choices
This section of Home is where the fun begins. After onboarding the user successfully, the user is redirected to the homepage or exploring screen. User is provided with experiences, blogger stories and popular categories to choose from. The experience and the stories part contains the information uploaded by the users who have already visited the place or by the locals. This gives the user access to raw experiences to choose from, keeping it in the direction of authentic travel.
Pop up
Event of the Day
The primary purpose of pop-up is to generate leads. It will show the most booked events of the day to the user, giving them quick and easy access to what's trending around them.
This section of Home is where the fun begins. After onboarding the user successfully, the user is redirected to the homepage or exploring screen. User is provided with experiences, blogger stories and popular categories to choose from. The experience and the stories part contains the information uploaded by the users who have already visited the place or by the locals. This gives the user access to raw experiences to choose from, keeping it in the direction of authentic travel.
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OTG Community
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Profile
Forum
A forums for the user to see what's happening nearby, post about an local/small events or for collab or ask questions about where to stay, how to get there, what to do and where to eat etc
Post
Post acts as an feed section for the users. They can see pictures of travellers nearby. Like, comment and connect with them.
Filters
Quick filter for better searching.
Conclusion
What did I learn?
Designing has been a challenging and fun experience. From brainstorming ideas, understanding the needs of the user, and the countless research iterations, it has been a rewarding journey. The major challenge for me was presently both friendly and usable app as well as an intuitive experience for travelers. I understood the need of users through the survey and research. Finally, I had the challenge of creating an enthralling app both from the user experience perspective and the visual perspective
What are the next steps?
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Usability testing of prototypes
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Research iteration for newer features
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Improve user flow
Future Features
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Add a feature for safety of the traveller.
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Add a feature that allows users to earn badges or achievements based on their travel history in a gamified manner.
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In app translator feature that will allow users to translate the language quickly without opening any other app.