Local Connect
Easing the Trip planning process for Travelers
8 minutes read • 3 minutes if you scan
Jabalpur, India
Team
Rahul R Nadkarni 👋
Vedant Jagtap
Uday Tiwari
Swastik Bhowmik
My Role
Journey Map, Questionnaire, Interview, User flow, Customer Effort Score (CES), Information Architecture, Exponential Graph
Timeline
Aug 2024 - Oct 2024
Tools Used
The Why are we making this?
At a glance
Our platform serves as a bridge for travelers and native inhabitants of their destination, facilitating seamless interactions. This allows tourists to efficiently schedule their travels with assistance from the locals. This not only simplifies trip organization for them but also provides an opportunity for the locals to earn supplemental income.
Impact of the solution
Reduced complexity of the trip planning process.
3x Faster Planning
faster trip planning speeds compared to without guides.
DISCOVER
Planning a trip to a friend’s hometown is relatively easier.
With a pair of case studies, one features a person journeying to an unfamiliar location, the other involves an individual visiting a friend's home city.
It became apparent that the journey management tends to be more fluid and swift when they plan a trip to their friend's location.
A considerable issue was a reliable source of data. Travellers were required to sift through multiple networks to discover accurate information about the places they visit, the communities they stay in, the food they consume, and to sketch out their journey itinerary.
Hence, coming back to the usual question,
“Is there someone who already tried to solve this issue?”
BACKGROUND
Yes... There’s Tripadvisor.
So, Tripadvisor aims at “Empowering travelers by providing them with the most comprehensive and reliable information to make informed decisions about their trips.”
In simple words, it is a travel website/app that allows users to review and rate hotels, restaurants, and attractions.
But, there was a loophole...
“Is it still completely reliable?”
Not exactly... And here’s why
I discovered an instance where a Thai hotel initiated a lawsuit against a US client due to a negative critique. Remarkably, Tripadvisor cautioned the hotel by describing it as an “Unusual measure”.
We also unearthed many such individuals who were disappointed by Tripadvisor.
Here’s 3 key takeaways from this incident...
USER INSIGHT
Now let's talk to actual people
I found the general estimate of the travel pattern in India. An estimate of 2 Billion trips were made by the Indian population, both domestic and international included in the year 2023.
GENERAL INDIAN TRAVELER
1 Week
Average trip duration
2-3 Trips
Average per year
I found 30 users who fits this description of a General Indian traveler, and assessed their surveys.
I dug a little deeper, talked to a few people and gained a better understanding of the complexities faced by travelers while planning a trip.
97%
Users rely on Google Maps for most of the planning.
10%
Users rely on Tripadvisor, who tries to solve this issue.
50%
Users still find it difficult to make decisions with the information.
67%
Users rely on users’ reviews and ratings to make decisions.
I also figured out that the interviewees believed that food, lodging and safety are the major aspects that they look for while traveling and found it challenging to find the most relevant information about it.
So based on the results, we concluded that...
This made us ask...
Why would the travelers share their experience?
I again talked to a few people to understand why would they share their experience. Trying to answer this question made us realize that we were headed in the wrong direction.
I figured out that these people although could share insights and help other travelers to the places they visited, they could guide them the best in the place that they originate from.
After interviewing 6 people I found out that,
83%
67%
50%
HYPOTHESIS
How might we…
provide travelers with accurate information about a location ensuring they receive personalized insights that address their specific queries?
EXPLORATION
Information Architecture - Travelers
Information Architecture - Guides
A fit for all
1. Directing travelers to the guides
When I thought of a platform for interaction, the first thing that came to my mind was a “chat interface”. But, we discovered that it might not be the primary action a traveler focuses on.
Based on which the following was ideated.
Personalize
2. Customizing the feed according to their preference
Time filter: The travelers could pick the exact dates with a buffer in the duration or pick based on seasons, since there are common travel patterns seen in India for different seasons.
Location Filters: The users can either search the locations manually or check out the states based filter. Additionally, specifically for the road travelers, we made a radius based filters, which will helps users plan trip around their location.
Legitimacy
3. Making travelers rely on the information
During our research, and interviews, I figured that a majority of the travelers rely on people’s reviews and experiences to make informed decisions in their planning process. So, we made sure that the guides are verified by a proper way of testing before making them a guide, and they will be the only ones who can review places.
I made sure that the guides go through an AI quiz model, which will consist of 40 questions, out of which 10 will be asked to the guides. The purpose of this quiz is to assess the way the guide will interact with the users, rather than their knowledge about the place. The there is a page which requires them to upload their documents to verify the location.
These guides are marked verified for the users to trust them. They are the only ones who can review places in their residing area.
For the guides
4. Directing travelers to the guides
One of the most important and challenging part was to ensure that there are guides to help out the travelers. This was ensured by a ranking model. The more the guides rank up, the more they make.
But, I figured it would be hard to calculate and increment their ranks/levels. So, I created a single currency called XP or Experience Point, just like in the games. The guides try to collect as many XPs to increase their levels which in turn helps them earn more.
All Other Screens
These were the other screens that I made that i missed out…
THE RESULT
1. The final figures
Since the product still isn’t published for use, there was no scope of public testing yet. However, we conducted usability testing on the same 30 travelers and the 6 guides.
Here’s a summary of our usability testing.
The complexity in the planning process reduced significantly by 2 times, from deciding the location, to planning the itinerary, to finding safe and affordable localities for stay, or even finding authentic food and experiences.
Although the insights given were Qualitative, the data was quantified by assigning scores. Hence there could be some room for error, but not to a significant extent.
2. Further steps
We are now to figure out the monetary aspect of the solution. Like,
1
We need to figure out the exact amount that the guides get as a compensation for guiding the travelers.
2
The users may have a subscription plan through which they can access major features.
3
And, finally implementation. The jury identified our solution to have an international application. Hence it can initially start out in our residential location and then slowly expanding it nationally, and finally internationally.
3. What I learned
I am extremely grateful for the team I had for making this design process a wonderful learning experience. Here’s a few things I learned along the process.
1
“Sometimes the solutions may seem too obvious, but might not always be the best way to solve it.”
Initially, we thought of finding travelers who have visited a given location and make them help other travelers planning their trips. But, the more we dug deeper we realized that local guides are more suitable.
2
“Empathizing with the users are always the best way of understanding the problem.”
We talked to a lot of people, we had questionnaires and interviews. I must admit that the amount of data we collected from the these were much more significant and valuable than the data that we ever got from the research.