IMPACT
We eventually won the User Experience Design Award China 2016 Bronze Medal from 417 teams, and the Best Popularity Award and the Best Defense Award as well. We've got a lot of positive feedback from users who participated in the design tests and they all look forward to launching the Mappin project as soon as possible.
CHALLENGE
There are many travel information services nowadays, from online to offline. It is hard to find a service that has yet be created. Our most difficult challenge was to find a problem that hasn't been well solved.
BACKGROUND
The global travel market grows rapidly, and Chinese self-guided travel is the fastest-growing. According to China government study, about 70% of abroad traveling is self-guided in China. The tourism market is highly competitive and tourism-related products are constantly changing. Our challenge was to find market gaps from user insights and competing products. Making a better travel experience for travelers.
With the internet, travelers can easily search and gather travel information through different information channels, and there are also a lot of tools helping them arrange their unique trip; however, the travel information collecting process is still exhausting to users.
RESEARCH AND INSIGHT
Design process:
We interviewed three rounds of 16 target user to find traveler needs and problem. We Planned and conducted the user research in accordance with project stages. Our research method is to observe how user planning a trip and qualitative interviews with them.
We turned research findings into design opportunities and executed customer journey map, wireframes, prototypes, did two rounds of iterations between design and testing.
About Traveler:
1. Preparation is necessary
Self-guided trip means you need to organize everything yourself. To arrange a perfect and unique trip, collecting all kinds of travel information is necessary, including traffic info, hotel, attractions, food and so on. Preparation is comprehensive and not a one-day job.
2. Location and distance
According to our research, location and distance information, amongst all kinds of travel information, is the most important thing to travelers. When finding travel info that interest them, they will check it up via map to identify its location and the distance between other attractions. Location and distance of attractions are also the key for helping travelers arrange their travel schedule.
3. Searching is enjoyable
Although arrange a trip is not a easy job, self-guided travel lovers enjoy the time of searching and collecting those information. Even they are not about to travel, they still love to reading and gathering interesting travel information.
Problem Finding:
1. Hard to integrate
Users are overwhelmed by so many tools. The information comes from different channels, but users can’t save all the information in just one integrated tool.
2. Hard to review and arrange
As mentioned above, users almost cannot find where the information is. What’s more, they will find it difficult to decide the schedules merely by the word descriptions or pictures, they need to know the relative location on the maps.
3. Schedule changes all the time
Even though travelers have carefully arranged their tours, something unexpected will still happen and break all the schedule. It will be a big challenge for users to quickly respond to the urgent situation and decide a plan B.
DESIGN AND FEATURES
1. Intuitive save with web-plugin
By installing a web-plugin, users can easily "pin”, which means “save", all the information on websites, including attractions, text description, and image. When selecting words or hovering on images, MAPPIN button will suddenly pop out and users can save the info to MAPPIN. After pressing MAPPIN button, MAPPIN will automatically search the related location of the info and mark on the map. Users can also use the mobile-plugin and camera with the smartphone to collecting both online and offline info. Let users save information from different channels in the most intuitive and simplest way.
2. Save information offline
For offline information collection, users can take the photo through the phone camera to identify the picture and quickly convert to notes for collection.
3. Share and arrange easily
The collection of attractions can be used to plan and arrange with travel partner. Even you are not planning a trip, MAPPIN is still a great notebook for you to save any information that attracts you.
4. Whenever and wherever
MAPPIN is not just designed for arranging a trip, users can use MAPPIN on no matter which devices or under whatever scenarios, MAPPIN can always provide appropriate services. Even you are not planning a trip, MAPPIN is still a great notebook with for you to save any information that attracts you.
5. Easily review memories
Upload photos of the journey and easily organize into a memoir. Mappin automatically organizes your photos into an online album so you can review it anytime. Let making each trip a special memory!
CONCLUSION
We are a group of 6 members, three designers, one researcher and two programmers. We learned solid research skills, decision making based on insights, making a high-fidelity prototype and convincing video to test ideas. Working with teammates with different professions taught me how to communicate with members of different background and mindset.
