Travel Paks
Mobile app for Backpacker Travel
Project type:
Timeline:
My Role
I worked as the Lead UX Researcher & Designer. My responsibilities included user research, concept ideation, designing user flows, visual design, prototyping, user testing, and incorporating feedback from users into iterations.
About This Project
Preparing for a trip can be overwhelming for backpackers, whether it's a short weekend getaway or an extended trek. To simplify this task, Travel Paks was created to provide a dependable checklist tool accessible on mobile devices.
The Challenge
Despite various packing tips and tricks, many backpackers struggle with organization and decision-making, leading to last-minute rushes and overpacking. The aim was to address these pain points and create a more efficient packing experience.
The Solution
Using a user-centered design approach, I gained a deeper understanding of the problem space. Through surveys, I was able to empathize with my users. I surveyed 31 people to learn more about their packing habits and pain points. I then conducted user interviews to synthesize motivations and expectations into affinity and empathy maps. Next, I generated user personas to help me understand Travel Pak’s user base. Finally, I synthesized data from competitive analysis and user research to uncover key insights to generate sketches, wireframes, and a final prototype of Travel Paks App.
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Discover
Competitive Analysis:
I explored existing backpacking checklist apps, identifying usability issues and customization limitations.
While these platforms offer a reliable checklist system that is generally user-friendly, I observed limitations in customization options. Adding or editing items or images sometimes proved challenging. Additionally, one app necessitated creating an account instead of offering a single sign-on (SSO) service. Understanding these challenges provided insight into the problem space, emphasizing the need for a deeper understanding of user needs before developing a solution.
Understanding User Needs:
The app targets young backpackers aged 18-29 who travel nationally or internationally, have experience staying in backpacker hostels, and are tech-savvy. They enjoy socializing and may have diverse lifestyles such as nomads, self-employed individuals, English teachers abroad, or students. To better understand their needs, pain points, and behaviors, I conducted a screener survey to establish a foundational understanding of my target audience.
As I looked over the survey data, 4 major packing patterns emerged:
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Having reviewed the data from my survey and seen that the majority of backpackers pack last minute, it became clear that I needed to obtain a deeper understanding of the traveler's perspective on packing and travel, which led me to the interviewing process.
User Interviews:
A total of five users participated in the interview. These interviews were done remotely and were conducted via Skype. I asked them a series of questions about packing, traveling, and backpacking. During the interview process, I learned that people enjoy backpacking for the experience, freedom, and connections they make throughout their travels. I also learned that they lack organization when deciding what to pack and desire to have a tool that will expedite the packing process.
Define
Affinity Maps:
The next step of my research was to gather all of the data and make sense of it by creating an affinity map. I looked through all of my notes and re-listened to the audio recordings of my interviewees. I wrote out on sticky notes, user insights, user quotes, user needs, user demographics and more. I then organized the data according to key themes: frustrations, packing process, what kind of backpack they pack in.
To further put myself in the user’s shoes, I created an empathy map that defined one user persona. I considered what they say, do, how they would feel, what they would hear, and their pains and gains. This was such a helpful exercise since it made me understand the user better. It also gave me an idea of what kind of product to design.
I combined my findings to create one user persona that would benefit using Travel Paks App.
Michael is a travel blogger who shares his experiences on social media. Due to his busy schedule, he often packs last minute and doesn't have time to research packing ideas, so he wants a tool to make packing easier.
Asking the Right Questions:
The last step of the research phase was to create “How Might We…” statements which provided me with the basis to start defining solutions. During this exercise I took the challenges noted during the research phase and turned them into opportunities to design.
- Help relieve the frustration and stress of spending too much time packing and deciding what to wear?
- Decrease the stress and anxiety packing last minute?
- Facilitate an environment of organization and efficiency?
- Improve the all around experience backpackers have while traveling with the use of this product?
Ideate
User Story & MVP:
Next in the UX process, I defined the User Stories. I brainstormed all potential user tasks and matched each with an outcome. These outcomes were categorized into high, medium, and low priorities, establishing the MVP and outlining the next app release. Key user tasks included setting up account information, creating profiles, and following the step-by-step process of their backpacking checklist.
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MVP:
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Sitemap:
After working on the user stories and mvp, I decided to move on to the sitemap. I wanted to verify that the content of the app was nicely structured and that I was heading towards the right direction. The aim of the sitemap was to make sure that all the key features were housed together and that it would be easy to use.
User Flow:
To further relate and understand the user, I designed a user flow process. This process involved thinking about every step of their experience using Travel Paks App from onboarding to finish. This flow will be the blueprint to create sketches and prototypes.
Prototype
Sketches & Guerrilla Usability Testing:
Sketching really helped me visualize and discover features, elements, and icons, without worrying too much about the details of my sketch. Once I completed the sketches, I conducted a guerilla usability test with some users and quickly found out areas that I needed to improve. Users were confused to follow the 6 step process of the backpacking checklist. Users found it unclear as to what step was next and suggested that it would be helpful to have a loading bar. Users also mentioned removing Step 3 (Camping) since it's similar to Step 2 (Backpacking).
Wireframes:
After receiving great feedback from my users, I adjusted the sketches and proceeded to create the wireframe design. Every screen from user flows to design layouts was created by me. It really helped me see the bigger picture by showing me the main chunks of content, the outline and layout of structure, and UI elements.
Branding:
Once my wireframes were complete, it was time to create a styleguide for Travel Paks. My product would include:
- Captivating imagery that was rich in color and depth.
- 3 primary colors that embrace creativity, excitement and dependability.
- A neo-grotesque sans-serif developed by Google: Roboto
- A logo that is designed to look adventurous and rugged.
Test
High Fidelity Mockup:
The next step would be to create high fidelity mockups. During this stage, I was able to fill in the details of the low-fi wireframe and get as close as possible to the final stage of the product.
Prototyping, Usability Testing & Iterations:
Using Invision, I created prototypes from the high fidelity mockups for users to test out. With these prototypes built and linked to Invision, I conducted 2 usability tests.
Round One:
In my first round of testing, I learned that users had trouble reading, "Your Packing Checklist" and " My Checklist" due to the image background. I decided to include padding between the image and text so users have an easier time reading the texts.
Before
After
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After
Round Two:
In my second round of testing, I discovered that users were able to navigate the prototype easily and understood the process of creating their checklist. However, they did mention making minor changes on the placement of icons, loading bar and alignment of text.
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After
Final Prototype:
With the feedback that was provided, I made final tweaks to the prototypes to finalize the final product of Travel Paks App
Conclusion
The goal of this capstone project was to create an efficient, fast, user friendly product that would help backpackers. By asking the right questions, being empathetic, and listening to user feedback, I was able to create a product that solved pain points and can make the packing experience simpler. As far as the future of Travel Paks App, I hope this tool can help as many people as possible to deliver a highly intuitive, stress-free experience.
