Goal: Design a travel app that focus on local culture exploration based on client’s initial concept for IOS devices.

Background: The project was handed to me with some basic low-fidelity wireframes from the client , who also described the features and the purpose of the app, meanwhile specifying that they are looking for a “clean and modern” look.

Problem: For people who believe that embracing different cultures will richen their travel experience, the information is overwhelming nowadays. There are so many travel sites out there but there’s barely one focus on local culture exploration.

Solution: Design an app that is building a bridge between two different culture. Users can read and save different guides (focused on culture) of different countries with offline access. Users can also contribute their cultural experiences to the built-in forum and communicate with other travelers.

Approach

Since I already had a list of what features the client (stakeholder)is expecting and a few hand-drawing wireframe screens, I was mainly focus on building wireframes and visual design. However, in order to ensure the product is user-center designed, I also decided to analyze the project and to see how to make it meet user’s need better. So I started the process with understanding users.

Step 1: Analyze

1. Understand the Goal

Interview the stakeholder/client:

• What’s the goal of this app?

• why do you want to build this app?

From communicating with the client, I learned that she is passionate about traveling herself and has been doing volunteer job abroad in third world countries. She usually takes longer trips abroad and her purpose of traveling is to explore the local culture instead of hanging in a resort. However, it is really difficult for her to find cultural related travel information from all these travel websites, her only method is through google and the information is all over the place.

Main Goal of this app:

When a user (Sarah, I use Sarah as my user) travels to a new country (no matter for leisure or business), she can easily pull out the app and find about cultural related information and gets to understand local culture better and enjoy her trip without spending time googling. If there’s no related information listed, she can go to the built-in forum to look for answers and discuss with other travelers.

2. Understand the User

Who are the users?

People who travel and are interested in exploring local culture.

How users might feel at the specific point of time when they want to use this app?

When users are prepare to travel abroad for business or leisure, they are:

— not sure what to pack/wear for difference occasions

— confused about what local manners are

— it takes so much time to put everything together (take pictures, take notes, write down)

— it’s tedious to find related information on the internet

When users are traveling, they:

—have to keep going through the information they brought and find the one they need

Users’ pain points:

— going through the whole internet to search for specific cultural related information

— put all travel information together and go through them when needed

Based on Sarah’s goals and needs, and combining with the features the clients wants, the app should have below features:

• Countries guides. Each guide has different sections & tips covering the some basic and cultural information of this country.

• Users can save the tips and the country’s guide.

• A forum for users to discuss and communicate.

• User profile for users to access the guide they saved and read the information they saved.

From client’s business perspective, there are two features must be included as well:

• Users need to purchase premium tips - or purchase a whole guide.

• Purchase different templates for users to use when read the tips they save.

Micro Goals & Tasks breakdown: (Goals of the users and user tasks)

Goals: ( listed by priorities)

1. Read the information of a specific country

2. Save some useful information and users can read it anytime

3. Go to the forum to ask questions or find answers

Tasks :

1. Search & find a country

2. Read the information under the country and save the ones which are useful

3. Access the travel information which are saved

4. Read and contribute to the forum of a specific country

User stories:

• When I plan for a trip, I want to find related travel information quickly and easily, so I can save time and pack right

• When I’m in a foreign country, I want to access to the travel tips I have saved previously anytime so I know how to behave and what to wear for a specific occasion.

Storyboard:

I walked through the journey of how Sarah uses the app before, during and after her trip. It helps me with the empathy for Sarah and understand the contexts from users’ perspective,

Constraints :

Limit the countries to a specific amount (popular ones first) so it’s easier to built the data and also more usable for users.

App specific requirements:

— Offline access: Users need to use the app abroad, they should be able to access the information anywhere and anytime when there’s no internet connection.

— Log in and Sign up: Since users need to post in forum and save the country guide, users need to create a profile to access their own information.

Task 1: Log in/ Sign up

Task2: Read a guide

Task3: Save a tip

Task 4: Access Forum

Task 5: Go to the my profile and see my activities

Task 6: Read the tips I saved

Task 7: Purchase the premium tip or guide

Task 8: Purchase different template when reading the tips (The template makes the tips display nicer and more fun)

I gave different color combinations for clients to choose from. The theme color is too bright to match with other colors with bright hues. I kept the rest of the colors a white/black/grey scale, while added a little purple/orange accent for a dynamic look.

The client has a website set up already introducing this app, the theme color they used is aqua blue (hex#33D1B6) so I kept the same color for the app. Clients also want to use Open Sans as the fonts of the app.