czoeedelman
AmiGo
The Project
Many travelers want to immerse themselves in the location they are visiting, but travel apps often promote the same popular locations, almost always directed towards tourists. Through our human-computer interaction class, my group and I took the course of a semester to develop an app that allows travelers to discover more niche and "hidden gem" activities to do in their location that are local and expert-recommended.
My Role
UI
Research Application
Graphics
Tools
Figma
Sketchbook
Team
Me - Design Lead
Madeline Parker - Project Manager
Lynni Do - Research Lead
Katie Vuong - Prototyping Lead
Lane Peus - Evaluation Lead
Research
As simple travelers ourselves, the group felt that we needed to outsource opinions from those more involved in traveling and figure out how they go about their day-to-day in a new area. With this in mind, we reached out to those we knew who traveled often. We developed a list of questions to inquire more into what kind of preparation they do, the apps they use, and how they choose what kinds of activities they partake in. With this, we developed these key takeaways:
-
Most travelers like to have at least some sort of itinerary
-
Many find that looking for historical landmarks or other niche activities can be time-consuming and ruin a surprise
-
These travelers had a common goal of learning as much about a location as they can
-
Most individuals weren't too keen on learning the ropes of a whole new app
From these main ideas, we wanted to ensure that our app had a good itinerary option for users to add what they already have planned and what they find, easier access to more niche locations of a wide variety, brief info on each location, and an app design similar to that of popular travel apps. Our full research and analysis included various activities like developing a WAAD and multiple flow models.
The Solution - How it Works
-
Look at activities that pop up in your location
-
View a quick average rating and blurb about the popup
-
Quickly get directions to a popup, or add to your itinerary
Explore the Map Around You
-
Add activities already planned ahead of time or on the go
-
Start your itinerary for directions that go all the way from start to finish
-
Rearrange as needed to fit any schedule
Edit Your Itinerary
Read Through Expert and Local Reviews
-
Look through reviews of all the locations in your area
-
Click on any activity to read through specific recommendations
-
View descriptions, addresses, and hours of operation
Alter Your Preferences to Match Your Trip
-
Edit preferences for activities depending on the direction of your trip
-
Choose what you view on your main map
Prototype
By the end of the semester, our group decided to develop a "T" prototype to get the basics of our app down with some features developed more in-depth. Feel free to play around, and you can always reset by hitting "R".
Evaluation
We gave our prototype to a variety of people to test and got much feedback to work with. It was determined that our app was fairly easy to use and was successful in its features and purpose. Some suggestions we received for further development are as follows:
-
More in-depth preferences
-
Easier trip navigation
-
More informative location descriptions
These are features that we have brainstormed ideas for further implementation, but unfortunately are no longer able to implement as a group due to the end of our course.
What I Learned
I found that this course had lots to offer and I benefitted a lot from experiencing an app development process with a team. I could list many things that I took away from this course, but I have my top three:
-
Paying more attention to detail
-
My team and I often overlooked the smaller aspects of our app that mattered just as much to the overall production as the bigger parts such as icons, transition screens, and app consistency. In the future, I plan to focus more on those features.
-
-
Communicating more with a client or someone more involved with the app's progress
-
My group did technically have a client for this process, but we did not communicate with them much. They were okay with us taking our own spin on the app, but I think we all could have grown some more if we had worked more alongside someone else's vision.
-
-
Retaining consistent features
-
It is an important part of UX to keep various aspects of apps similar as to not have users need to learn too many new aspects, but this strayed away from me often when designing the prototype. I'm certainly more aware of keeping features similar and am adding that to the checklist of aspects to make sure are included in a final product.
-
Further Breakdown
For more information and an in-depth look into the process of development, my team created a website outlining each phase of development. This website includes our WAAD, flow models, work artifacts, and plenty of other information on our thought process! This can be accessed below.
Thank you for reading!
