Safe Travels
“Oh the places you’ll go”
— Dr. Seuss
In the wake of COVID 19, traveling which once was easy to plan has gotten complicated. With new covid laws arising in different countries around the world. Some needing quarantine and/or PCR tests upon arrival quarantine as well as requiring vaccines. In 2021 it was decided enough is enough. A new app is coming to the market that will enable anyone who wants to travel to access all the forms they need and understand the laws of each country with lots of information about anything COVID related.
The origin story
The Problem
It's hard to plan a trip when the world is going through a pandemic, with every country, and its covid restrictions. The number of cases around the world is constantly changing and every country has chosen a different strategy how to deal with it. The main problem is that all this information is scattered around the web and for a traveler, that information is crucial to get into the country safely and legally.
The Hypothesis
With ‘Safe travels'‘ you can travel at ease, with all the information needed regarding, flights, stay, covid only one tap away.
If the journey doesn’t peak your interest then go ahead click away to see
Market Trends
The research here shows that travelers today rather book everything on an app rather than on their laptops. Moreover, All these trends I found during my research, are great and really can take my app to the next level, but what’s missing is how all of these ideas can apply when needing to travel during COVID, so from here ill move on to create Provisional personas, A Competitive Analysis, and some User Interviews. Hopefully, I'll get a more COVID-related direction for what the app should look like and function.
Provisional Personas
I found that each persona doesn’t have time or necessarily wants to take the time out and start planning a trip, they need to travel and to do so all the information needs to be just a few clicks away.
Competitive Analysis
From this competitor analysis, I’ve learned that there is a huge need for a travel app that focuses on COVID regulation around the world. Most travel apps were really great when it came to travel in general but in times like these, they haven’t yet adapted to these new travel regulations. Let us move on to some user interviews to see what further incites there were in this study.
Interviews
After conducting my user interviews I learned what users felt was important to them in a travel app, As well I found out where they currently find information regarding COVID in hopes to include all these areas of information in the app. The more important information I gathered was what features I should focus on more when creating this app. From all of this new information, I was able to move on and create a feature roadmap.
Feature Roadmap
After all my research, I made a feature roadmap to try and figure out what feature will best fit Safe Travels and what can happen later on once the app is developed.
Persona
My persona represents the current frustration travelers face during this time, they are unable to find PCR testing, they are confused by the guidelines, and are missing important information on the country they want to travel to. She also represents their needs motivations and Goals. From this persona, I was able to understand who my user is and how to create an app with clear navigation with a one-stop shop.
sitemap
The Sitemap at first was hard to figure out, I couldn't figure out how to split these categories up so that way they would make sense to the user, as well as how to have every feature appear in the correct subcategory. I needed the user to be able to navigate with ease. The sitemap went through a few renditions and finally after a few mistakes I came up with a concept that made sense and was easy to navigate. The User Flow was a bit confusing but in the end, they balanced each other out and I could come up with these.
User flow
The User Flow as well as a bit confusing but in the end, they balanced each other out and I was able to come up with these.
Design
Wireframes - UI kit - Logos
wireframes
These Wireframes helped me get my ideas onto the page without the distractions of the color palate. First, I saw this idea that when Tapping on a CTA a bubble appears around it as if getting cut away from the page, so I started playing around with it in the wireframes. I then went on to create each page and figure out the best layout for it. There were a few tough decisions regarding how I wanted specific pages to look. For example, The booking and forms page changed a few times before I was able to come up with a concept that worked in a form of a calendar. Overall I think the changes I made through the wireframes helped the app come together.
uI Kit
While working on this I wanted the color palette to bring life to the App but also not be too overwhelming and so I felt having houseful pops of color but then giving the app a nice amount of white space was a good even balance that would give the viewer a sense of ease and guide them to those pops of color with the information needed.
Logo
When creating the logo for the app, I had this idea to includes the safety logo aside from an airplane logo, on the other hand, I had an idea of including the mask which was a huge staple to Covid 19, after a few versions I decided to go with the most minimalist design that was easy for a user to understand.
Test
I began my user testing by recording audios of 4 different users, ages ranging from 18-50. They all were asked to complete several tasks on the app to see how they were able to navigate through the app, what felt confusing, and what were there likes and dislikes app about the app.
I then summed up all the information I gathered onto an Affinity Map.The affinity map pointed to the small problem like,
the confusing return date CTA on the where-to page.
Design issues like mismatched gridlines,
and finally larger issues like the icons were found very confusing.
I then came up with solutions to all stated issues.
Affinity Map
Prototype
This prototype guides you through what covid regulations you would need to uphold within the country you planning your visit to. As well This prototype enables you to upload from your inbox your stays, covid testing, vaccines, transportation, and of course flights to an organized trip planner.
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Next steps.
Creating this App I learned so much about how much IA goes into a new app. I am most proud of the navigation I created and the sleek yet playful look. Next time I think I will try and look for more research that exclusively has to do with the specific site. My next steps for this project would be, to have everything including bookings be on the App. Making this app a one-stop shop can improve the user’s usability of the app and make their lives so much easier.