Designing a responsive website for a travel startup, helping travellers find off the beaten track experiences they'll remember.

My role: UX strategy, information architecture, user and competitor research, wire framing & visual design, prototyping, testing. I worked with the founders and a small team of engineers.

01_Understanding the opportunity
02_User & competitor research
03_Defining the user need
04_Developing the product

01. Understanding the opportunity

The brief

I was asked by travel start up, Seek Sophie, to help them research user needs in travel services, develop a content strategy and information architecture, and to design their responsive website to help travellers find off the beaten track experiences.

The opportunity 

User interviews identified that many users are keen to find unique experiences that aren't on the typical "gringo trail", but found it difficult to find the right information about what to do/where to go, and felt unsure about relying on local guides. 

The solution

A responsive website that helps users find inspiration for travelling, and find and book trips with tried and trusted local guides.

02. User & competitor research

User interviews

User interviews demonstrated that users appreciate off the beaten track travelling, where they can meet locals and have more authentic experiences, but find it difficult to find information they could rely on. 

Key findings were that users: 
- were often disappointed by guidebooks, which are sometimes out of date; 
- use booking sites such as trip advisor but cross reference reviews as they don't always trust them;
- find it difficult to find local guides, and are worried about price, quality and safety;
- often take part in "touristy" experiences because they feel like there isn't an alternative. 

Competitor research

Our aim was to find what travel sites were doing well, and what could be improved upon. Our main findings were that:
- many booking sites feel very commercial, and not unique or authentic; 
- there is little personalisation or curation;
- nothing that helps users plan itineraries and compare operators/guides.

03. Defining the user need

Personas

The findings from our user interviews formed the basis for our 3 personas. Jessica the explorer, who needs help finding local experiences, making it easier to get off of the beaten track. Sam the social traveller, who would like to find like-minded travellers to travel with. Livy the luxury traveller, who is adventurous but requires comfort and is most concerned about safety and quality.

User flows & experience mapping

Jessica is trying to plan a trip for a long weekend away somewhere new in South East Asia. She would like some inspiration for her trip, to find something different to do that isn't touristy, and then bookmark items to build an itinerary. The simplified user flow below shows the key steps of Jessica's journey:

04. Developing the product

We used rapid ideation sessions to come up with creative solutions that could meet the user needs identified by our research and user flows and experience mapping. For phase one of the project we are focusing on designing and building the basic structure of the site so that users can browse by destination or experience, see what guides/operators are available, and compare and book them. We have also been working on functions that allow users to build up an itinerary for a trip. 

Some key visuals from this project are displayed below.