Feel the Nature specialises in organising guided trips, active holidays and treks. Their services cover drives from and to the pickup point in the city center to the designated destination, wide range of seasonal activities, and immediate support during the whole trip.
"We need a product that can provide our customers with a wholesome experience from the minute they make the payment to the end of the trip."
How might we improve the pre-trip or real time travel experiences by building a digital product that allows users to obtain essential information about the destination beforehand and stay entertained throughout the trip?
After conversing with our client and project supervisors, we reached out to previous customers of the client, as well as outdoor enthusiasts, to grasp the whole picture of different struggles of potential users. We focus our research energy into three phases of the trip:
Getting reading for an outdoor trip can be troublesome. We understood that people commonly struggle with logistics and safety preparations. For guided tours, important information is normally accessible, yet scattered sometimes.
"I always manage to leave something behind, sometimes the important things too, no matter how I already carefully double-checked."
Experiencing the travel between the pickup point and the destination might vary among different persona types. Some find it time for relaxing, and/or connecting and networking, others might use it to study about the destination. We wondered what information we could provide to keep the latter group amused.
"Travelling to an unfamiliar destination is both exciting and worrisome for me."
We realized that the majority of people taking part of adventure trips are more likely to engage in the nature rather than spending time on their mobile devices. However, the original concept of Feel the Nature was to enhance your experiences encountering with Finnish nature through the integration of AR. If so, we would need to figure out a way to frame our questions so that we could identify what it is that could encourage people admire the nature using our goggles.
"The last thing I want to do is to spend time in front of a screen."
People have the urge to share, especially personal experiences. We took into consideration of sharing methods and types of content that are most common among travellers and nature enthusiasts.
"I do love to record and share photos and videos of my experiences with my friends, especially to Instagram and Facebook."
Based on the information collected through users interviews, we created user persona profiles, each aligning with certain users' pain points and experience expected from using the application.
Checklist categorises items into essential and optional groups, which are further classified into sub-categories regarding its function. Collapsed sections make the interface less crowded and easier to keep track.
Information relevant to the trip is broken down into three sections:
→ Real-time update agenda of the trip;
→ The route from the pickup point to the destination, real-time update displaying famous attractions and monuments of the city upon clicking on provided spots on the map; and
→ First-aid tips for common situations
Gallery allows users to store their photos and videos taken on the trip, with social media integration encouraging users to share their memories with friends and family.
We were able to validate the concept and conduct a usability testing with real users after the designing phase. Following the test result analysis, we then successfully shipped the initial design together with recommendations on design improvements to our client at the end of the project.
Even though this was a short project, I'm excited to be a part of this journey and make an impact on our client business.