Uncovering the goals and needs of solo women travelers
Project Outline
OVERVIEW
Traveladies is a two-month research project aimed at identifying the needs and preferences of solo women travelers for an upcoming travel app.
The project focused on gathering insights into the challenges and requirements that solo female travelers face when planning and embarking on trips. The research findings would inform the development of a travel app that caters to their specific needs.
ROLE
UX Researcher User interviews, problem definition, ideation and user testing August 2022 - October 2022
Empathizing With The Travellers
To kickstart the project, I spoke with the app owner to understand what they were looking for when building the solution for women solo travellers. The aroused question was the following: "What are the challengers that solo female travellers face on their trips?". Due to time constraints and budget limitation, I used my social media network to recruit interviewees. To get to know more about the experiences, preferences and needs of the travellers, I decided to run in-depth interviews with solo female travellers, 30 minutes each interview. This decision was based on the intricacy of responses I could receive and the potential for gaining a more profound comprehension of their experiences by attentively listening to their own words. Below, you can see screenshots of some interviews, all conducted via Google Meets:
I developed an open-ended questionnaire with 10 questions. The first three had demographic focus related to occupation, hobbies, and travel frequency; and the other seven focused on trip organisation, preferences when traveling alone, pain points, and connection with other people. Check the interview questions below:
INTERVIEW FIRST INSIGHTS
The women I interviewed showed up as very independent travelers, more focused on their own experience than necessarily meeting new people. Safety is also key for them, as you can see in the quotes below:
Turning Interview Insights Into Discoveries
To make sense of all interview data, I wrote down notes and created an affinity diagram seeking for pattern groups that would help me unveiling the user goals, behaviors and pain points. A first run was done with real sticker notes that have been transferred to a Figma Jam Board. Below, you can see a screenshot of part of the Affinity Diagram and its groups:
The female solo traveler from my research is a mature young lady seeking self awareness and self love, staying in hostels, enjoying local activities and wandering around the city without many rules or someone to explain herself. Likes only connecting with other people when the plans converge, checks places before traveling but doesn’t get too attached to plans. Feels unsafe and suffers harassment when alone.
Defining User Proto-Persona
Using the insights I got from the affinity diagram information, I needed a way to translate the insights into a form that would explain who is the target audience, so I came to a fictional but realistic representation of a proto-persona called Lena. This is called a proto-persona because to build a persona there would need more consistent data to support the model. However, the proto-persona in this case helped to build a concrete problem-statement. Lena is a 33-year-old marketing specialist who recently decided to take a solo trip to find herself. Check the User Persona below:
Her main goal is to enjoy herself while discovering new places and coming across new people. However, Lena also struggles with anxiety and worries about safety, especially when traveling to unfamiliar places.
Problem Statement
Lena likes the freedom and autonomy she has when traveling alone, wandering around the city without too much planning, going to local places, meeting people only when it means they are not changing her plans, and feeling safe when visiting places. As a woman solo traveler, Lena wants to feel informed, autonomous and connect with others without much responsibility so that she can enjoy the trip.
How might we provide a way for the ladies to maximize their autonomy and socialization when traveling alone?
User Requirement List
To help the design team identify and prioritize the features and functionalities that are most important to the user persona, I created an user requirement list using MoSCow method:
By using the MoSCoW method, the design team can prioritize the safety and easiness to find experiences, include ways to socialize, probably add reviews and ability to save places and make sure to not create an app that would function like a planner, guide or social media. The requirements will then base the importance and feasibility, and help the team allocate resources accordingly.
This can also ensure that the final product or service meets the user persona's needs and delivers the most value to them.
User Testing
After working closely with the UX designer to development a prototype based on research insights, I run usability tests to validate the design decisions and to identify potential usability struggles.
The two participants were asked to perform the following tasks:
1. Follow the onboarding process 2. Find the restaurant called ‘Restaurant Locals’ 3. Express interest in having a buddy to hang out with 4. Add availability for ‘today’ at ‘12:00pm’ and add a comment to unlock chats
Below, you can see some of the screens (homepage, searching for the restaurant, and expressing interest in having a buddy):
The participants were asked to speak aloud about their first impression of the screen, what kind of action they would take based on what they see, and tell what they would expect to see next.
OVERALL RESULTS 1. Onboarding
Both participants found the process intuitive, but one of them did not understand she should swipe left the four different steps on the first page that explain what the app is about (non mandatory step in the final product).
Comment and suggestion: consider improving affordance (animate or write down ‘swipe left’) in the first four step screens.
2. Find the restaurant called ‘Restaurant Locals’
Both participants used the search bar to find the ‘Restaurant Locals’, not the pins on the map. Both participants found this process straightforward.
Comments: finding the restaurant through the pin on the map required another user flow testing.
3. Express interest in having a buddy to hang out with
Both participants needed additional explanation on what having a buddy to hang out really meant after landing the restaurant page. The concept was not very clear.
One of the participants found the page too cluttered and got distracted by the newest comments.
One of the participants struggled to identify the hand waving as a clickable button and only understood the assignment when prompted to read the text above and below the icon.
Comments and suggestions: The buddy icon could look more like a button and be positioned at the bottom, the comments session could be placed above so it follows a more logical process. The three buddies for today could be a call to action phrase on top and should be rephrased properly.
4. Add availability for ‘today’ at ‘12:00pm’ and add a comment to unlock chats
One of the participants did not understand the ‘Add your Availability’ was clickable and tried to click on the grayed out chats instead.
One of the participants found it nice she could chat with other people.
Both participants did not encounter any issues adding date and preferred time
One of the participants thought she was actually reserving a table at the restaurant for herself, not only expressing interest to meet up with another lady.
For both participants it was not really clear what the write a comment box was really about.
Comments: the ‘add your availability’ looks like a banner, not a button. The chat options are interesting to spark interest but it might be generating confusion. Consider making clearer the user is not booking a spot on the restaurant.
The user testing results were then ready to be handed to the designers to improve the prototype.
Project Takeaways
The lessons learned from TraveLadies Project are:
1. The importance of foundational and generative research
The project focused on identifying the needs and preferences of solo female travelers to develop a travel app that caters to their specific needs. By understanding the user's perspective, the development team can deliver an app that is user-friendly, relevant, and valuable, ultimately leading to increased user adoption, retention, and loyalty.
2. The significance of creating a user proto-persona
A fictional but realistic representation of a user proto-persona called Lena was created using the insights gathered from the affinity diagram. Lena's persona helped the design team identify and prioritize the features and functionalities that are most important to the user persona. This ensured that the final product or service meets the user persona's needs and delivers the most value to them.
3. The benefits of usability testing
Usability testing was conducted after the development of a prototype to validate the design decisions and identify potential usability struggles. The testing helped the team to identify areas where the design could be improved to make it more intuitive and user-friendly. In the future TraveLadies plans to run further usability testing when they have more resources. The few tests I made gave us a great start in understanding the problems in the tasks completion.
