As part of an interview process, I was assigned a design challenge to create a time travel app that allows users to travel to anytime in the past or future.
Given a week for this challenge, I took full ownership of the design process from research to ideation to wireframing and to testing.
Role
User research, interaction, prototyping, usability testing
Duration
1 Week (20 Hours)
Project Overview
Problem
Travelers need an efficient, personalized, and transparent way to book their time traveling experience in order to utilize their budget efficiently and reduce time spent booking a trip.
Travelers need to be reassured about the safety of time traveling in order to feel comfortable with their experience.
Solution
A time traveling experience that helps travelers explore a destination to time travel to and allowing them to create a custom trip or choose from our selection of destination packages. By warning users about arriving to a dangerous destination, we reduce the likelihood of users getting harmed during their trips.
Research
Business requirements
To kickoff this design challenge, I spoke with my stakeholder in order to uncover the following business needs:
Be able to travel to any year, hour, minute, and place
Don’t know much about history and help users explore a fun time in the future/past
Warn users about arriving in a dangerous condition
Tell users how to dress for arrival time and place
Promote featured events with tours
Survey
Due to the limited time constraints I was given, I decided to conduct a survey to gather insights about my users. Since time traveling is a concept, I discovered that there was some crossover between how users are currently booking a trip and time travel, which I believed was the best way to determine frictions throughout this experience.
Responses
16 travelers
87.5% female, 12.5% male
6.3% 18-24 yo, 81.3% 25-44 yo, 12.5% 45-64 yo
Most important factors
Price (69%)
Time (38%)
Location (38%)
Attractions (38%)
Activities
Trying different foods (81%)
Exploring new areas (63%)
Tourist spots (38%)
Museums (38%)
Time traveling
Wanted to gain new perspectives (31%)
Weren’t sure where to time travel (19%)
Worried about facing racism and sexism with time traveling to the past (19%)
Wanted to relive their memories and fix mistakes in the past (19%)
A quote from a survey participant:
“I wouldn’t want to make changes that could be damaging. I would also be concerned about my safety and if I’ll come back.”
Aside from user research, I also looked into market trends and found:
70% of all customers do their research on a smartphone
60% rise of mobile travel bookings is expected by 2021
Define
Personas
Using those insights and the business requirements mentioned, I synthesized my findings and created a persona.
Due to the interest of time, I decided to focus on one use case for this challenge.
Assumptions
To keep this project within reasonable scope, I came up with some assumptions in order to give me a design direction and help me move forward. These were based off of my research.
Plans and books through iOS app
Want to time travel whether it’s to the past or future
Have the budget to time travel
Time traveling is safe
Time traveling will not cause the butterfly effect
Time traveling is inclusive regardless of their sex or race
Mobile device itself transports the traveler through time and space
They already booked accommodations and now need to book attractions
Mobile device and internet connection works in all time periods
Mapping out the user’s experience
Using my persona, I mapped out the steps in the time traveling experience in order to look at this process holistically and find areas to pin point and prioritize on. Since the booking process had the most frictions and frustrations, I decided to focus on this specific part of the process.
What existing platforms are doing
With the booking experience in mind, I looked at other apps with a similar user journey and catered to a similar user base which allowed me to define some opportunity areas to incorporate into my solution.
How we will measure success
In order to see the impact and determine how I can meet my goals, I came up with the following metrics to measure:
Funnel click optimization for custom
Number of clicks and time spent making selection of predesign
Increase conversion rates of choosing specific predesign and add ons
Emotional reaction of fear
How a user navigates through the app
At this point, I wanted to figure out how a user will be using the app and determine which screens I needed to design. I also wanted to make sure to account for the success metrics in order to optimize these flows.
The two main user flows I decided to focus on are choosing a custom destination and exploring a predesigned destination.
Ideate
Finding the right layout
I wanted to find the best way to present information to my users while working through my screens.
Test & Iterate
Usability Testing
I ran an unmoderated usability testing through Maze with the mid fidelity wireframes in order to observe how users would interact with my design.
Outcomes
12 clicks for custom destination
3 out of 7 clicked around before finding custom
3 clicks to identify a specified predesigned
Average 15 seconds for specific predesigned
All successfully selected specific predesigned
Provoked feelings of joy, trust, anticipation
2 mentioned they wouldn’t be able to tell until experiencing it
If I had more time, I would design an onboarding experience to guide users through creating a custom trip. I would also suggest a diary study after the product is launched to understand how people perceive their experiences after they actually time traveled.
Prototype
Final Design
Using my test findings, I further iterated based on the feedback received to land on these final designs.
Design system
As I was building out the wireframes, I added components in order to create an adaptive scalable solution.
I also made sure to leverage existing components in mobile and referenced popular design systems so it’s easier to adopt these features since users are already familiar with them.
Reflection
Challenges & What I Learned
Consistency
It is critical to ease usability and help speed up the engineer’s workflow by leveraging design patterns and referencing human interface guidelines.
Prioritization
Since I was limited in time, it was important to understand the bigger picture and finding ways to simplify and prioritize one aspect of the solution. An example is recognizing that the add ons in the destination details screen I’ve included can be cut out as they may not need to be prioritized for the MVP.
Using data to inform decisions
As I was conducting research, I made sure to use those insights in order to create the design principles and user stories that put my users at the forefront.
What I would do Differently
Managing project scope
At the beginning of this project, I tried to gather as much research as I could to inform my design decisions, but I realized that I needed to know when to move forward with the necessary information I had. Assumptions were really helpful in helping me move along in this process.
Next Steps
It’s important to think about the product in its current state, and a few months down the line, and the far future.
Next 6 months
Ability to save destinations/tours and go back to it
Exploring different payment systems for purchasing souvenirs in different time periods
Future
Use 360 exploration of destinations to learn more before traveling there
Reverse experience if someone from the past wanted to come to the present
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