Case study: Into the shoes of a family of travelers. Usability evaluation & site redesign

Empathising, interviewing and observing a target audience in order to be able to understand their needs, desires and worries while they are traveling around the world.

This post forms part of the pre-work (challenge three) for Ironhack UX & UI Design bootcamp.

Destiny London

Traveling to London as a family means to have almost everything already contemplated, have your pounds prepared and preselect your plans or at least have a really consistent idea of what you would like to do, where, and how to: accommodation, activities and transport with the plus of all being young children friendly. Said so, more parents prefer to stay in the central London because it is easier to move with young children and babies, has a huge offer of places to visit, Westminster, Soho, Covent Garden, South Bank, Bankside…museums, parks, stores, even using a bus could be a fantastic experience for the little ones! no conting on the attractions (oh London Eye by night!) and the river views… explore a city like London is an experience that everyone must have.

Best views, lovely restaurant in front of the IMO

Target audience: Young parents — young children

Parents age 30–35 years old (couple and single) that love to travel. Their children age is between 0–5 years old. Parents are willing to share their love of traveling with their children.

Pain points

• Referring to flights and accommodation, considered that a priority of offers according to the age of the children must exist. Likewise, they would like that the policy of each airline be well explained (by drop-down button, which specifies from what age you don’t´ pay or you pay the half)
• Another point that everyone agreed on was having the possibility of choosing priority-seats, more spacious seats (such as those near exits, for example).
• No options of children and/or baby menus
• Adds, they would like to have offers about what they just looked for, by email (after clear acceptance), what they have searched, for example a trip to Osaka for X price but they not buy it, so when the app detects that has an offer for that share it with them.

• They don´t have time to be looking and looking at offers that don´t fit with their profile.
• Accomodation, offer of cribs or separate beds, microwave and an icon letting them know if there´s accessibility for baby carriage are other points almost all agreed.
• Regarding the activities, what they wanted was to have activities that they could do with their children and both have a great time, there is what they called the Pixar effect “… we want -Pixar- activities and tours, that means that children are entertained with the animations and parents are entertained with the undercover jokes of $%&@!”.
• Almost everything around the trip was linked to the age of the child, “… we want that the algorithm of the app takes into account the age of the children, appropriate tours to the age range, I am not taking my two-year-old daughter climbing … but if she were eight, yes” “…with young children, it´s better to have the things -already chewed-”.
• Accommodation with a nursery, baby spa, and suitcase keeper if they arrive too early for the check-in.
• Evaluation of users (in the app itself) of the types of trips and airlines.
• If they offer vehicles to move in the destination, parents rather than think of a better model or space, what they are looking for is a safe baby seat.

Results

Parents pay more if you make life easier for them.

• They are willing to pay more if they could have a better (and more comfortable) seat (airplane and train) *By an icon which can display the information of the price and conditions
• Children age as the reference of everything
• The budget could increase, starting with a low-medium budget, it could increase to medium-hight if the comfort of the child increases (increasing also de comfort of the parents)
• They prefer an accomodation closer to the main area they are visiting
• They would like to know if the accommodation is “pram friendly” *By an icon
• They would like to know if the accommodation has a care service, spa for babies, playground area… etc. They prefer this accomodations rather than others *By an icon which can display the information of the price and conditions
• They would like to have activities that both could enjoy, but always in correlation with the age of their children
• They would change their schedules if they are able to have a more spacious seat or a more comfortable accommodation for their children

Redesign Wireframes: app chosen Trip Advisor

Why Trip Advisor? Not because of the aesthetics, functionality or looks, the reason was it sense of practicality, because is an all-in-one app.

Perfect for this target audience rather than other apps like Kayak or Hopper which focus on transport tickets and/or accommodation and do not offer activities for their users.

Also the mayority of interviewed know it and agreed on wanted to have the easiest travel experience, an app that could full-fill all their needs.

For the redesigning, and in order of the target audience preferences, I focused on the extra features for the airplane trip and the activities section on the app because it seemed the distinctive feature comparing with the other similar apps in the market.

The propose consisted in, first feature, adding the extra requirements at the -selecting ticket section- and, in the second part, to create an age-filter in order to provide the parents a list of selected activities for them and their children. The app colours were kept (if you are creating a plus for the user they must know its yours, not everywhere in the market, right?) and the perception of all-in-app.

Conclusions

The obvious thing was that parents are consumers who are either already very well informed or are concerned with being well informed. Their interests revolve around the safety of their children along to enjoy both the experience (parents and children). They do not mind paying more or changing their schedules if they can count on better seats or conditions for their children. Furthermore, they are fully aware of not disturbing other users without children; thus, increasing the comfort of children increases not only the comfort of parents but also the comfort of other travelers without children.

This case made me realise that: First, if you have the correct information you are able to redesign almost everything (but for good?). Second, as much as you want to imagine what your audience needs, rather than imagine, it is best to ask.

Thanks for reading!