most domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/pfes69mv/imanbarabadi.com/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114A place to book your personal tour leader.
The brief was how to boost travelling industry post COVID and create an easier way for people to plan for their travel. My idea was to help travellers to find local tip/advise from real people. The result was 'The Leader' app which connects travellers with local tour leaders in their destination.
This case study explores the user experience considerations and design principles employed to create a seamless and engaging platform for both travellers and tour leaders.
UX & UI Designer
User Research, Market Analysis, User Flow, Lo-fi & Hi-fi Fidelity Prototypes, Testing & Iterations
Miro, Figma, Google Drive, InVision, Photoshop
It’s post-COVID. People are suffering from mental anxiety and travelling is the best mental remedy. On the other hand, the travelling industry is suffering due to lockdowns and border restrictions. The Leader has the potential to incentivise the travellers to plan for their journey.
Travellers often face challenges in finding reliable and knowledgeable tour guides when visiting unfamiliar destinations. On the other hand, local tour leaders struggle to reach out to potential clients effectively. The Leader App aims to bridge this gap by providing a platform that connects travellers with verified and experienced local tour leaders.
How might we connect travellers to certified/verified local tour leaders for true trusted locative knowledge?
The first step was to understand the user. I have developed a proto-persona as a reference for people whom I wanted to interview.
Then, I conducted my research through 5 interviews and a survey to understand the pain points, needs, and preferences of travellers. I have figured out the majority of the travel planning is done by women in each household!
Their main pain point is having local knowledge from the area that they are travelling to from an experienced person that they can trust. For instance, Ann, one of the interviewees mentioned that not knowing her destination, cost her extra time and effort to enjoy one of her trips.
Ann —
Love the planning! I think planning is part of the journey and you extend your trip while researching for it.
Michelle —
That’s exciting to book a trip, but I hate spending too much time on research.
The research resulted in an affinity diagram. Gradually, I was able to visualize a behaviour pattern across all of the research.
Affinity mapping clearly resulted in a pattern. Now I can categorise the interview data into four different groups:
Tools, Activities, Characters and Pain Points.
This data was the foundation of the user persona. With the help of an empathy map, I can imagine what my user thinks, says, feels and does, considering their gains and pains during their travel booking.
Based on user research, I could develop a perfect user persona for the app. I was able to maintain this user throughout the next steps of the user experience design.
Meet Sarah, a primary school teacher from Melbourne. I leveraged both quantitative and qualitative data obtained from interviews and survey results to gain a deeper understanding of her needs, allowing me to empathize with her and inform the subsequent stages of the project.
Sarah needs to trust someone/platform to gain local travel information because she believes her travel planning based on real experience and knowledge will be more memorable and time efficient and help her to reduce her stresses.
During the interviews, I found that most of my interviewees have challenges during their travel planning without having a trusted source of local knowledge and they mostly rely on actual experience of other people such as friends with previous experience, social media influencers or occasionally, travel agents.
How might we connect travellers to certified/verified local tour leaders for true locative knowledge?
For this phase, I used a structured brainstorming approach with ‘I like’, ‘I wish’ and ‘What if’ statements to generate innovative solutions, guiding the ideation process toward thoughtful and purposeful problem-solving. Considering the interview outcome, I thoughtfully selected and integrated key features into the app environment using the red-dot method. The L stands for the Leader meaning the tour leader.
Then, I employed a feature prioritization matrix to assess selected features, ensuring a balance between user effectiveness and developer feasibility.
My organization The Leader is developing a tour leader online database to help travellers to solve lack of trusted local travel information.
We’re better because our leaders are local people of each country.
We’re believable because every single leader is registered and has done an identification check.
My organization The Leader is developing a tour leader online database to help travellers to solve lack of trusted local travel information. We’re better because our leaders are local people of each country. We’re believable because every single leader is registered and has done an identification check.
With Sarah, our persona in mind and based on our interview results, I drafted a scenario for her. To support this scenario, I also considered her goals, risks or emotions and different phases for engagement with the app; all drafted together in a journey map.
Through this storyboard, I tried to visualise the scenario and journey mapping.
In the final Define stage, I looked at our platform’s indirect and direct competitions. As the idea of the app was quite niche, I would not expect a large number of direct competition. Although, I was able to identify three direct competitions to the Leader app:
As an indirect competition, I looked at the
I mapped the user flow based on the user prioritization matrix. It starts with an intro about the platform and then, onboarding through sign-in. I considered every possible action that the user could take. This map was my reference and first step toward prototyping and user interface design of the Leader.
