Visit Together is a travel companion app aimed for travelers to help them find a trustful travel group and make unforgettable memories while traveling together.
As the only designer on the team, I worked closely with my team consisting of a project manager and developer, to research, design, prototype, and implement a platform that is understandable for the user's needs.
The new design is updated on the app store and is available to all for download.
For this redesign project, I thought that it was important to define the problem we should focus on. I took a look at Google Analytics and the current app features to understand the users' behavior and to assess which part of the app the user felt difficult to use.
I created a survey to collect qualitative data to gain feedback on how users think about using the current app and their travel style.
During the research I learned that many users felt the overall process of finding and matching the group was confusing. The idea of the app is to make the user select three places to visit then match the travel group of people traveling on the same date and place. But the unpolished user interface design made the user feel that the app was incomplete, but also each step of the features was not intuitive, confusing the user.
Through my research, I was able to conclude these issues for two main reasons:
I used the MoSCoW method to help ideate and address my problem using the insights I gained from my research. This helped me to narrow down the essential features.
The app features:
- Search city/country
- Place recommendation
- Selecting visiting places and being matching groups
- Group page and user profile
- Chat lists, chatroom
- Translation in a chatroom
From the research I found that successful travel apps created the ultimate user experience with simple steps. So my solution is a simple, and easy platform to help new users find a travel group they are happy with.
Users will be able to search destinations based on their locations and top attractions by scrolling down or tapping places. Users are also able to be matched to travel groups by selecting recommended destinations where they are going to visit. If there is no group, the user who selects the place will create a new group. And the user will be notified about this.
Also, when a user joins a group, any user can send short greeting messages and start conversations through the ice breaker function of the chat.
These functions will help build trust between users in the group and allow them to meet each other and ultimately lead to reuse of the app based on their experiences.
I will address the following in my design solution:
- How to make it simple searching and matching experience and less confusing
- How to build a relationship between users
- How to improve the overall visual design
To learn more about the usability of the high-fidelity designs, I gave a task to the user and observed how they used the app by giving them the task scenario of:
"You have decided that it’s time to plan your travel for your next holiday and this time you want to find travel groups to travel with you. Use Visit Together app to find travel groups and make plans together.”
Based on the user testing results, users got through the signup and startup process without any issues. But the matching process still make confusion for some of users. They wanted matching page with more detailed descriptions.
USER SCENARIO (1)
USER SCENARIO (2)
USER SCENARIO (3)
USER SCENARIO (4)
After reflecting upon my 10-weeks project, I learned that research fuels insight that is critical to concept development. I strive to give as much if not more attention to research practices in my process as the aesthetic realization of my project. If I were to revisit this project, I would further refine the interface as well as conduct A/B testing to measure the impact of my design system and deem whether or not it succeeds in the context of the environment. With new insights from this data, I can make proper improvements to my design.
- Group Matching Experience
- Improved Chatting Room
- User profile Feature
- Personalization Feature
- Synced Calendar Platform
- User Review
