Let’s make connecting with the past an adventure!
Designing a time traveling app in a new market
The Research
Objective
Zeit is a new endeavour by Virgin Galactic that offers adventures to 289 different time travel destinations around the world. Time travelers will be able to filter and browse the trips that they want and book their preferred trip itinerary on the go or at home via any device.
To make this happen, it is necessary to design Zeit as a responsive e-commerce website that showcases trips/bookings/itineraries, as well as branding that overcomes barriers over adopting a whole new way of traveling.
My Role
Researcher
Information architecture
Wireframe
Branding
Visual Design
Prototype
Implementation
Assumptions
User adoption towards a whole new travel concept will require trust.
Today’s travelers seek unique travel experience that span beyond what they already know
How might we design a user experience that instills a sense of comfort and excitement for an entirely new concept of travel, ensuring users are not only willing but eager to adopt this groundbreaking technology?
Process & Discovery
Competitive Analysis
Time travel doesn’t currently exist, therefore there’s no direct competition to analyze. However, there are a handful of indirect competitors. Here are a few travel companies to analyze that are either the top of the line or offer unique travel experiences.
Summary
Burning Man provides an all around unique outworldly experience and their organization provides instructions and guides on surviving the experience. Even though they have a high demand for the experience, they purposefully keep the supply low. Therefore they haven’t prioritized making their outdated UI/UX more intuitive and/or user friendly.
Airbnb is one of the top leaders of experience platforms, digital hospitality, online marketplace, and digital disruptor. Their user interaction can be one to be modeled off of.
Altezza is not as widely known and operates internationally, which initially causes some uncertainty. However, their user experience has been effective at connecting adventure seekers with one of their many adventure travel packages. Their customer reviews and customer service experience representatives drive whole trip booking experience.
Customer testimonials given by credible people, credentials/certificates, an intuitive user interface, accessible travel information, and virtual agents help build trust and reduce the stress of planning a big adventure.
1:1 Interview
Interviews were carried out to enhance insight into users' behaviors, perspectives, and anticipations concerning travel/time travel. Interviews were conducted amongst Four individuals ages 26 years old and above, mid-high income earners, travel 1-4x annualy, and plan/book trips using online booking systems or travel agencies.
Key findings
3/4 live an active lifestyle and seek a more explorative experience when going on a trip.
4/4 individuals booked trips through online travel systems.
4/4 report that at least 1 of their trips are inspired by social media travel posts.
3/4 get frustrated at too many flights with layovers, lack of seat assignments, expensive travel deals, and uncomfortable seats.
1/4 cancel trips due to safety or high prices.
Synthesis
Persona
Generated through research, Tiffany is the type of user we want to target. She’s in her 30s, a remote tech worker by day, activity seeker by night, and ultimately seeks experiences to enrich her life.
Card sorting
Goal:
To understand how people naturally think and organize information
To make it easy for users to find what they’re looking for.
Findings:
All 4 participants had different ways to organize the cards, therefore all of their results differed from one another.
4/4 participants were confident about grouping US events together
2/4 participants weren’t able to categorize a few events
2/4 participants reported that it was difficult to groups events together because there were categories that were too similar
The collective data gathered from the card sorting exercise is helpful to generate more simplistic trip names and categories.
Design
Strategize & Ideate
Information Architecture
How might we effectively present information to users when there is an array of 289 destinations available through Zeit?
Sitemap
The findings from the card sorting exercise serves as a foundation for the creation and refinement of this sitemap, ensuring that the website's structure and organization are rooted in user preferences; which focused around a more simplistic way to categorize events, leading to an improved user experience.
Task Flow
Given that Zeit's over arching goal is to convert folks into happy customers and boost the bottom line, a simple task flow was created in order to understand demonstrate how a user goes from the homepage all the way to booking confirmation page.
User Flow
With a deep understanding of our user base, the crafted user flow takes into account the various pathways users might explore while navigating the site. It kicks off with our persona, Tiffany, “liking” a Zeit vacation posted by one of her friends on Instagram— a scenario mirroring her real-world interaction with Zeit, influenced by friends' posts and recommendations.
Wireframes
We enhanced the visualization of information by creating wireframes, offering a comprehensive preview of how the site designs will function.
Implementation
Putting it all together
Homepage (Mobile, Tablet, & Desktop)
Putting it all together
Product Page (Mobile, Tablet, & Desktop)
Findings
Testing the prototype
Affinity Map
4 traveling enthusiasts were invited to participate in the product usability test. They were given instructions to learn about the services Zeit offers through various means of navigating to the Viking Era tour and to book it.
Revisions
Simplified Header to look more seamless.
Replaced welcome banner with a more visually pleasing image.
Revamped the visual style of the travel search input field and added departure, arrival, and # of travelers features.
Redesigned the product carousel with smaller images to look cleaner and work smoother.
Added new payment feature to appear more secure.
Next Steps
Conduct user test based off of revised version
Reiterate and test as needed
Design and build out the testimonials page
Key takeaways
Designing a time travel tour company was a challenge because it's a totally new idea. I realized that it shares similarities to products that already exist, like online tour companies. This made designing for Zeit easier by using familiar elements and keeping everything consistent. Even though time travel isn't real, it felt more relatable and user-friendly by sticking to what people already know.
Thanks for visiting! :)