First step: see what's out there..
I began my research by conducting a competitive analysis to see what products were currently available and to conduct a SWOT analysis to see where Cobble could fit into the market place.
Competitor 1: Lonely Planet
SWOT Analysis
Strength: Expertly curated guides for 8k cities. Established following on social media.
Weakness: Focuses on large tourist attractions/destinations only. Limited listed attractions
Opportunity: More individualized curation, based on user interests. Guides/suggestions based on user location similar to Triposo.
Threat: Apps with better algorithms, which give thousands of destination ideas rather than a specific curated and limited list. More personalized guides or blogs.
Heuristic Evaluation
Usability: The overall flow of the app seems fairly intuitive, you get a feel for what the app has and doesn’t have pretty quickly, although it isn’t very exciting or fun to use.
Navigation Structure: I didn’t like how there wasn’t an always accessible home button, to get back to the home page, the user has to press the back button a number of times. Aside from that, it was straightforward.
Compatibility: Lonely Planet has great compatibility across iOS, Android, and web.
Competitor 2: TripScout
SWOT Analysis
Strength: Abundance of information. New articles daily.
Weakness: A lot of information, means difficulty in organization. Twenty Two tabs in the top navigation, which is incredibly overwhelming.
Opportunity: Better organization. More specialization to weed out unwanted articles.
Threat: Established travel apps with a large following.
Heuristic Evaluation
Layout: Overwhelming, don’t know if you’re missing pockets of content due to an abundance of content and strangely bucketed content.
Compatibility: Only for iOS, so the Android market is open for a similar product.
Calls to Action: There were a lot of pop-ups while I was researching the app, asking to rate or sign up for notifications.
Time to talk to potential users..
Utilizing insights gathered from a comprehensive competitor analysis, I conducted interviews with prospective users of a travel platform. The aim was to gain a deeper understanding of their goals and tasks in trip planning, thereby informing the development of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for the application.
Hypothesis:
Travelers seek curated experiences tailored to their interests and budget. They aim to maximize their opportunities by leveraging appropriate resources and connections, ensuring they don't miss out on valuable experiences.
Findings:
Interview participants wanted to have a unique experience at their destination
Participants were interested in having a "local" experience
Participants wanted to find affordable attractions
Participants get overwhelmed with amount of options
“Try to forget about the life back at home, going to a rural place helps achieve that because you’re not surrounded by tourists. “
From my user interviews, I identified themes, and created personas based on the variance in mental models and needs of prospective users.
Defining the MVP..
From my interview findings and Personas, I set out to understand what the MVP might look like. The goal of this MVP was to test if there is a market need for an app which offers niche filtering options, and to obtain feedback from users for requested features/changes on future iterations.
User Stories
As a busy full time employee, I want to explore a new culture and recharge.
As a full time employee, I want to easily be able to find what suits my interests, so that I don't waste time planning.
As a traveler with limited time and money, I want to be able to find nearby attractions, os that I can enjoy my environment on foot.
Success Metrics
Quantitative:
Amount of accounts created, amount of user traction, return users, most selected filters
Qualitative:
Feedback through app reviews, user studies
With user needs and success metrics determined, I wrote user stories for MVP needs, and created user flows to understand what screens and flows would be needed.
Time to Ideate..
To start ideating on potential solutions, I conducted several rounds of crazy eights to try to think outside the box on what Cobble could be.
After ideating on potential solutions and gut-checking with friends and colleagues, I created mid-fidelity wireframes to test the concept with potential future users.
Testing my concept..
After synthesizing my results from the concept test, I found the top three themes to be:
Users found the pop-ups to be annoying
Users wanted the ability to share trips and collaborate with friends
Users wanted to be able to see all saved items, not have to save them to a specific trip
