Examples of UX and UI work
Beginning from scratch I was developing the concept of a time travel tour operator. ‘Zeit’ provides clients with the opportunity to travel back to key periods in history. Through research planning, project goal setting, creating personas, user interviews, and wireframing I created the basic concepts of the site.
UX - UI
Current Pain Points
First and foremost ‘Zeit’ is the first product of its kind in this space so this presents many unique issues to overcome. There are examples of great products out there offering intuitive holiday booking platforms but not one that offers time travel. Gaining trust from our audience will be key and establishing a relationship worthy of a booking through limited marketing materials will be a challenge. Content to show the physical holiday experiences and reviews at this stage are limited so the user experience and customer service have to make up for these shortcomings in a big way.
Target users & their needs
Through user research using interviews, persona creation, and task analysis learning we can establish what our clients will look like, what motivates them and ultimately what will get them over the line when it comes to booking with us. Our users want flawless, clean, intuitive design. The UI is familiar to them, they can liken it to experiences they have had before on excellent holiday booking sites, this gives comfort to the user but ‘Zeit’ still retains a sense of individuality through custom site style and brand guidelines. They can access information through visual assets such as videos and pictures to help them understand this new technology and gain trust in its safety. Reviews and ‘Zeit’ advocates provide reassurance in the process and holidays on offer.
Solutions
Market research in the best and closest products to ‘Zeit’ provides insight into what works and what doesn’t for users. Our interviews made it clear our users don’t want to be overwhelmed with information. They want clean search pages that offer the ability to go deeper but leave breadcrumbs so navigation back to where they started is easy to find. Customer service was key and the ability to start a conversation with an actual human on the site through a chat window was required. Making this chat service clear on all pages was necessary so that at any point in the journey a user can ask a question and receive an answer in real time. An excellent concise mobile site for initial browsing as this was going to be the first point of contact for most users.
User Flow
Understanding the most likely journey a user will take to ‘Zeit’ helps design a more intuitive experience. In the user research, it was clear many travel enthusiasts gain their inspiration from social media. In this case, we found Instagram a huge forwarding platform for interest in particular areas around the world. Stunning imagery drives interest to explore. Once on the site, it is a case of getting the user to where they want to be quickly. As this is a totally new concept we can’t reduce the search parameters too quickly but through filters, the user can gain an understanding as soon as possible.
Learnings
After being drawn to a holiday through excellent PR, social media and content campaigns users place a large importance on reviews in the holiday booking universe. Community-driven ratings act as certification of the value of a product. It provides a sense of safety and gives confidence to a user to book somewhere they have not experienced before. ‘Zeit’ will need to act quickly to generate the content required to really showcase experiences that have never been experienced before. Users will pay a premium for the experience ‘Zeit’ offers but without getting a sense of the product through virtual tours, well-designed visuals and ratings they will not gain the trust needed for users to commit to a booking. As soon as possible testimonials advocating the trips will appear on the site. The UX will not shock the user, the product is already strange enough without introducing an alien journey on the site. The style will appear familiar to sites they already trust in this market.
