Nowadays, tourism in Saudi Arabia is rising. Gladly we had the chance to work on a project based on Saudi Tourism for Misk Academy UX course. Each team had a city to design an experience for its tourists. We went with Al-Ahsa. It was very interesting since I never visited Al-Ahsa but hopefully one day I will as I discovered how beautiful it is through this project.
To get started we had to put a plan and divide the tasks to be delivered in two weeks. We used Asana to organize, track and manage our work.
We followed the Double Dimond design approach, going through the four phases: Discover the problem, Define the area to focus upon, Develop possible solutions and Deliver a solution that works.
1. Discover the Problem
Discovering the problem was done through business analysis and user research.
1.1 Business Analysis
We did a c&c analysis for local and international platforms to find out the following:
- Not flexible: Travel apps and websites provide multiple services, but the more it’s well organized the more it’s structured and not flexible.
- Details: There is a lot of information when it comes to a city or an activity that some websites only give the main information. The hierarchy of information and images should be considered to make the user informed but not overwhelmed.
- Competitive Advantage: A lot of apps and websites are already in the market. Therefore, our solution needs to have key features that are considered a competitive advantage so it stands out among the competitors.
Leaf Diagram Findings:
- Airbnb offers you more than a place to stay in, and this is the direction we want to follow in our solution. We want to give our user a unique experience, a feeling of wonder, and excitement that he’s going to book the adventure of his life!
- We’d like to design an app that reflects Saudi culture and make the brand localized with a cultural spirit.
- Like Careem, we want to include a trusted rating system where the user and the service provider can be rated. Also, define criteria for service providers to be confirmed by our platform.
- Sharing and downloading features would be as easy as Google drive. Providing the user the flexibility of sharing that includes viewing or editing options.
- Youtube traveling vloggers give you information about cities in a fun way, more like a story being told, and that really got us inspired. We’re looking to deliver a solution where our users feel connected, and what we’re thinking of is something far from boredom and the traditional way.
In the previous diagram, we collected the apps that are related to traveling in a direct and indirect way. The reason behind this is to understand travelers' behavior and needed services. This would give us a full picture of the competitors and services out there.
1.2 User Research
Research Goals:
Methodologies used to reach the output we needed:
- Screening
- Interviews and surveys
From the interviews, we managed to form a user journey map of the current behavior of the user. We wanted to find an opportunity in which we deliver our solution in order to make it a more enjoyable and satisfying experience.
2. Define the area to focus upon
From the interviews, we received a lot of information that we grouped in an affinity map, in order to detect patterns and find insights.
User Research Findings:
Research Insights:
Based on user research we formed the following persona, which goes by the name Sara.
Sara is social, cultural, and adventurous. She also loves photo shooting in historical places. Hence the picture :D She finds it really difficult to satisfy all her family during traveling especially when it comes to cultural trips.
The following storyboard shows what Sara faces…
Problem Statement
“Families struggle in planning a genuine, adventurous and cultural trips that is suitable and flexible for all family members, including knowing the locals and explore interested places.”
3. Develop Possible Solutions
After Defining the problem statement we generated solutions, and we came up with plenty. Therefore, we went and prioritize it to start working on it.
Our App Key Features
- Storyteller is a local tour guide from Al Ahsa, that tells you Al Ahsa stories, history, and traditions. Fulfilling Sara’s need to reach the local, learn, explore and enjoy the stories of the new places.
- Since Sara cares about good deals as well as knowing the city culture, what’s better than an expert shopper assistant? that takes her on a shopping tour where she can buy products that Al Ahsa is famous for. This way she’ll live a different experience, and get to know the people of Al Ahsa from close.
- Sara needs to plan her trip in a convenient way. Therefore, she can add attractions, storytellers, and shopper assistants to her plan once she created a trip and specified the trip days.
- To make all Sara’s family agree on the trip’s plan, she can invite them to plan with her or share the plan so they could view it.
Based on the previous features, we decided to include in our app we formed the following site map. This is the final version of it since we’ve changed it based on users' feedback.
Then, we created the user flow
Case Study
Based on the best practices apps in the market, we see that users are used to scrolling, and their favorite social media feeds are scrollable. This shows that in mobile apps, scrolling is the most comfortable and intuitive type of navigation. Also, Scrolling and Attention study summarises that people scroll vertically more than they used to, but new eye-tracking data shows that they will still look more above the page fold than below it. Based on that, in our app, we’ll make it scrollable with the most important sections at the top.
At this stage, we created a medium-fidelity wireframe and tested it on 8 users. We had positive feedback but also a lot of complaints.
based on the usability testing we changed the following things in the med-fi wireframes:
1.Home and Activity Page: We made the pictures bigger, with fewer words, bigger font, and some changes in the terminologies.
2.Plan page: Many changes have been done because the first version of it was very confusing for the users. We changed the hierarchy of the buttons and the flow, making it more clear and easier.
3.Shopper assistant: This a new feature that is not very common. Therefore, we added an intro page for it to get users to understand the concept before getting into it or simply skip if they already get it. Also, we made the guide name and pictures area bigger.
4.Based on the testing, the main menu wasn’t convenient to users as they wanted direct access to activities. Also, they were confused by the “plan” category as travel apps usually use “trips” instead.
Before we go into designing the high-fidelity mockup, we made the following guideline to assure consistency and integrity in design. We went for the green color as it represents the palms that Al Ahsa is famous for. Also, during the interviews, we asked the users what first comes to their mind when they hear Al Ahsa word. All answers were between palms and nature. So we thought it would reflect the city’s atmosphere and feeling.
3. Deliver the solution
Mockup Prototype Video
Future work:
- Add videos to the activity page, and motion graphics to the logo page.
- Use more user-friendly terminologies (For example replacing included and excluded)
- Customize button in the storyteller page is not clear to the user, also the delete option. It needs to be re-designed and enhanced.
And finally, we presented our work to our class and we got really positive feedbacks and some enhancement suggestions that we’ll consider.
Many thanks to the awesome team I worked with: Hanadi and Noor Khuraidah. And thanks to you readers :D
