Wanderlust

 

Design components within Roadtripper using Arity’s travel data to create an easy planning process, enjoyable travel experience and intuitive review system.

 
 
 

Background

Arity, founded by Allstate in 2016, is a data and analytic company focused on telematics and mobility. Arity collects users location data and partners with other apps to utilize the data to provide users smarter and safer ways to get around. Arity reached out to Northwestern EDI wanting to expand their experiences and partnerships within the travel industry.

Problem: How might we create new travel experiences that make getting around smarter, safer and more useful when sharing location and activity data.

 
 
 

Process

 
 
 
 
 

Defining the scope

We begin the project by conducting preliminary research to understand Arity’s current collaborations and expectation for this project, user needs as well as features of existing travel & planning applications.

 
 
 
 
 

Insights

Our team conducted 10 user interviews in order to understand their trip planning journey and traveling experiences. Here are the four major insights we generated.

Users are willing to share their data as long as there is an immediate end benefit within the app experience.

There are variations in baseline understanding of and comfort with data sharing, yet all interviewees are willing to comply when there is a clear end benefit through the experience or service.

 

Users feel overwhelmed managing travel using several platforms.

Users have different journeys for travel planning. Interestingly, most users generally start searching for destinations with peer or general internet searches with a specific climate or activity in mind, and have to juggle continued research through many different apps. A lot use google maps most frequently.

 

Users still enjoy planning trips around their friend's and peer's suggestions (word of mouth) or reviews, but usually are not compelled to leave reviews themselves.

A critical factor in travel decision making is based off of feedback, advice, and interest of their larger peer network (from friends and family to community reviews) but users are not readily willing to continue that cycle.

 

Users travel differently. (1) Focused on time efficiency, (2) Actively search for route improvement, or (3) Experience seekers.

There are clear distinctions in user personalities and/or travel objectives. We have used three identities based on previous work done by IDEO for Ford. This will inform different(flexible) needs for Arity objectives to satisfy.

 

Partnership

 
 

Based on our research, our team saw design potentials within Roadtrippers.

Roadtrippers is a web based software application, mobile app, and content provider that helps travelers plan road trips. The software lets users discover independently owned points of interest in the United States and Canada.

 
 
 

Persona

 
 

Common Traveler Leslie, 24

  • Enjoys going on road trips with his friends and dog

  • Dreads the time consuming and stressful journey to plan and take his next trip

  • Likes to explore on a budget and is careful to find a balance between work and play

 
 
 

Extreme User Ana, 20

  • College student still figuring life out

  • Does not plan ahead before traveling

  • Likes to grab her car keys and goes on spontaneous road trips with her friends

 
 
 

Journey map

We identified five key stages of a typical traveling journey.

Here are the Roadtripper’s original user flow and the proposed user flow with new features.

 
 
 
 
 

low FIDELITY Prototype

 
 
 
 
 

User Testing

After sketching the low fidelity prototype, we conducted a round of user testing to iterate our concepts.

 
 
 

Feature

 
 

01. Planning

Leslie thinks the planning process is time consuming and overwhelming.

“Planning out trips is like playing a puzzle...I use close to 20-30 apps” - ZZ

 
 

Wander Mode

Recommend best roadtrip route with users’ personal priorities in mind.

Arity’s data enables a streamlined planning process by providing users with key insights allowing them to make quicker, smarter booking decisions inspired by their interests.

 
 
 

02. Traveling

Ana enjoys unplanned adventures and encounters.

“We didn't plan to do this but we ended up driving back roads with music, no destination in mind, all day.” - DC

Live Notification

Seamlessly update users’ journey while they’re in route.

Arity’s data enables discovery of nearby, time senstive events eg. concerts, popular restaurant incentives.

 
 
 
 
 

03. Arriving

Leslie values reviews a lot when planning but doesn’t feel motivated to leave one.

“I try to find the highest rating... [but] I usually leave reviews once or twice a year.” - JB

Smart Review

Encourage user reviews by creating a simple system with immediate reward.

Arity’s data enables automatic location check in, unlocking rewards, and a curated itinerary rewind.

 
 
 
 
 

04. Reflecting

After each trip, Leslie wants to share his memories with his friends and families.

“I posted on Instagram stories daily when I traveled… I always did a huge photo dump on Facebook after each trip.” - AL

Itinerary Rewind

Attract new users and retain the current app users through shareable trip rewind.

Using the auto accumulation of photos and reviews, Arity’s data innately curates an Itinerary Rewind for the users to look back at where they’ve been and can even share this mapped cumulative experience with others via messages or social media. Our feature can periodically remind users in time increments after his trip is completed to get planning again.

 
 
 

Interaction

 
 
 

Stakeholder benefit

 
 
 

Stakeholder Feedback

“Love the collaborative aspect of it, following routes with ratings that others have already used. Great way to make use of our data while merging it with other sources. Notifications as you presented them made a ton of sense, would have been cool to see some more detail here, maybe discounts tied to those.”

Allan Lowson, Arity Head of Experience Design

“The post-trip ideas were provoking for me, and I particularly liked the idea of using post-trip experiences to encourage repeat usage. I guess this is something our CEO is very interested in as well. I suggested the Roadtrippers team try some generative research in this space to see if it's worth getting on their Roadmap.”

Shane Sweeney, Roadtriper Senior Product Designer

 
 
 

Takeaway

I’ve gained a deeper understanding of the big data and learned ways to design within limitations. Through this project, I’ve become more proficient with Figma to prototype. Working in an amazing team, I was able to learn design skills and thinking ways from my teammates.

 

MEET THE TEAM

My Role:

UX Designer

Responsibilities:

Preliminary Research

User Interview

Insight Ideation

Persona and Journey Map

Wireframe & Lo-Fi Prototype

User Testing

Final Interactions

Skills:

Figma

Photoshop

Illustrator

Mural

Remy Tabano, Liying Peng, Yiwen Sun (Me)