VOLI XD
Purpose
Voli XD is an itinerary tool that advocates exchanging experiences with the locals, allows users to record and share their activities of a day, ask for help when they need while away from home.
Problem
A thorough research takes lots of time, online content and travel marketing are deemed to be unreliable
A common way to organise a trip is to document it in a spreadsheet, which is not mobile friendly for both viewing and editing during a trip
Lack of local knowledge and support during travels, especially at places that speaks different languages or with huge cultural differences
Booking a packaged trip with tour guide is disappointing and lack of flexibility
Problems faced by travellers
• Travellers who are time poor, hate wasting time and don’t want to miss a thing during travels
• Enjoy local cultural activities over popular tourist activities
• Supports ecotourism
Current trip planing landscape
How a well organised traveller plans a trip currently:
A trip to Australia
A trip to New York city
Communications & Collaborations
Gap analysis, current travel landscape
Challenges facing the travel industry:
Globalisation - is leading the creation of uniform standards and protocols. However, the unique selling point (USP) of travel companies or destination marketing organizations (DMOs) lies in providing a rare and unique experience.
Taxation - Governments must also come to the realization that tourists already contribute to the local economy via purchases, travel retail, and other tourism expenditures.
Travel Marketing - can sometimes be deemed by travelers or tourists as being inadequate, false, or exaggerated.
Infrastructure - Tourism infrastructure in many locations is outdated and underdeveloped.
Security - Industry players must work towards establishing better security infrastructure for tourists and travelers.
How might we …
Facilitate reliable content for travellers in a time and cost efficient way?
Design
After research, I decided to create an itinerary tool to answer the needs from travellers.
High level information architecture
Prototype / screens
User interviews
To validate my assumptions, I engaged with some subject matter experts:
Winnie - Flight attendant, travel for work
“Someone from our airline has an app that allow us to swap our schedules, some crew member share places to eat on the app, they are great, but usually it’s just a link or with 1 photo for the recommended spot, I would want a lot more information from people who had been to the place.”
Danilo & Sharon, Wedding Photographers, travel for work
“We always arrive the destination prior to our job to explore the places and test the lightings, since images we find online are usually very different to seeing it with our eyes, we also speak with our friends who had taken photos from that city to share their tips. ”
Eric, Street Photographer and world traveller
“I just take photos wherever I go with my iPhone, it works well for street photographers, my wife and I travel a lot, we plan our trips on the phones, share our findings with each other while planing the trip, the process is very messy and clunky.”
Melody, Designer and solo traveller
“I travel whenever I can, if I found a cool place that I haven’t been and the flight ticket is cheap, I would just go. I like wandering around and explore when I get there, I love eating local food because that is the most direct way to understand the culture of a place. Reason why I travel by myself is that it gives me lots of time and freedom for activities that I want to see, also travelling with friends requires you to need take time off work at the same time and it is usually difficult.”
End goal:
Effective use of time throughout the journey, find alternative activities and experience, and get insights from people who know the destination well in a cost effective way.
Value
Create a community of passionate travellers, having more knowledge, experience interesting places.
Maximum saving of time spent on scheduling
Create a bond between team members when they can plan the trip together, experience together, keep beautiful memories together during the journey
Solution
From the problems that users encountered, the app offers the following solutions:
1. Build an ecosystem that allows information exchange within the network, providing a channel for users to ask for help from the mobile app during travel, and documenting the experience after the trip,
2. Propose suggested itineraries based on the information, interests that users have provided, or based on the highlights of the same city.
With Voli XD
Testing
Tested with:
University students/fresh graduates, had participate or planned a trip in the past
Professionals who travel for work frequently
Working adults who travels at least twice a year
MVP
Insights that informs next steps
Millennials tend to start searching within 5 seconds from opening the app
Content and usability are the most critical reasons that motivate users to use the app
Need to improve search capabilities, service natual language and more advanced filter options, for example combining city and activity, “itineraries about Street Arts near me now”, and ability to filter information based on travel dates, “itineraries for surfing in Australia from 21 Nov - 11 Dec”
Most likely will not follow the activities step by step, because they want to have their own unique experience
Many users mentioned that they want to combine and select activities from several itineraries or from different users, to form a new itinerary.
“what happens if I follow an itinerary and created my version following that path? Will there a way to connect them?”