Tripped Up: Tripadvisor usability & redesign

The Challenge: Evaluate and redesign a popular travel app for a specific user-type’s travel needs.

Destination: One of the “Seven wonders of the new millennium”. For my chosen user, I have selected a trip to Rome to see the Coliseum.

The User: A Young couple (20’s-30’s) decide to visit Rome to see the Coliseum for their anniversary. They want to spend 2 weeks in Rome, but want to be efficient and have everything organized to enjoy at 100% while there. They both work, but will save up for 6 months to make sure they have enough for the trip.

Research & specifics:

• Dates: 2 weeks in October, 2020
• Budget: $5,000 USD for flights, 2 weeks lodgings, attraction/museum tickets, & transport. Food and souvenirs are not included in the budget.
• A private airbnb type apartment preferred for privacy & amenities (laundry, kitchen) but hotel room is an option.
• Moving around: by foot & local transit. taxi/uber occasionally if needed. Couple enjoy bikes, so bike or scooter/vespa rental is an option.
• Time restrictions: n/a, couple wants a mostly relaxing vacation and have plenty of time to see the Colosseum and explore Rome.
• Special services: interested in a day trip to Pompeii and/or if time/budget allows

Now that we have established who exactly our user is and their unique needs, we can get to the fun part! First up Benchmarking.

Benchmarking for this challenge involved Usability Heuristics and deciding which app best fit the needs of the specified user. What better way to compare than with a pros and cons list! I chose to compare four popular travel apps: Skyscanner, Hopper, Kayak and Tripadvisor.

Skyscanner:

Pros:

• Usually finds cheapest tickets
• Allows you to set price alerts alerts
• Looks at prices from various sources, including directly with airline and several OTA’s

Cons:

• everything must be booked separately, no option to book a “package” of hotel & flight together
• Calendar & chart functions works very rarely, if at all, and is pretty confusing

Hopper:

Pros:

• Allows you to see the cheapest dates to fly and build your trip around those
• Allows you to set price alerts and track price changes.
• Gives a color-coded calendar to visualize prices and trends
• App allows you to book flight, cars, and hotels in one app

Cons:

• Doesn’t have the option to book a package together at once
• Very basic, doesn’t provide much information
• No filters, as far as airlines, alternate airports, or flight duration

Kayak:

Pros:

• Option to include nearby airports for lower prices
• Allows you to filter ticket class
• Allows you to filter by baggage allowance
• In-app flight tracker
• In-app AR baggage sizer
• Option to choose a time “next weekend” or “October” and be given options for cheaper destinations
• Results page includes a banner that allows you to see the “cheapest” dates to visit you chosen destination

Cons:

• Doesn’t include the option to book a package (hotel, car, and flight together)

Tripadvisor:

Pros:

• Tripadvisor is pretty much a one stop shop for travel, has flights, hotels, things to do, and food reviews all in one app
• Allows you to create “trips” that allow you to add destinations, restaurants and organize your trip day by day. these can be shared with other travelers on the same trip.
• Trips includes a map option that allows you to visually see where restaurants and destinations are
• Includes pre-written “travel-guides” for your chosen destination that appeal to a wide variety of users and needs
• Option to search and book tours and excursions in-app

Cons:

• Other apps found cheaper ticket prices for the same dates
• Does not have a “cheapest” dates or nearby airports function
• App does not give the option to book packages together, everything has to booked separately
• No option for rental car: rome is very walkable and has an extensive public transit system, so no car may not be a problem if staying near the center.

Although these are not all the pros and cons of these apps, they gave me a good starting point and helped me decide which app best suited my user.

For my user I chose the app….. drumroll please……. Tripadvisor!

After choosing Tripadvisor, I needed to test the app with Users who fit my chosen persona, to find pain points and areas for improvement. I interviewed four couples within the age range, including a couple that travel together very often and was familiar with Tripadvisor, and one that has never traveled internationally and had never heard of Tripadvisor.

After my interviews, some common pain points emerged. Although there was a lot to like on Tripadvisor, there is are also several areas that could definitely use improvement.

Insight:

Pros:

• Easy to access all areas of the app from the homepage.
• Booking is not “more” difficult than other metasearches
• Allows you to search apartments/vacation rentals in addition to hotels
• Automatically sorts flights by lowest price
• Many filter options for flights, possibly too many

Cons:

• Most users had never booked anything with tripadvisor
• “Trips” and “booking” are in separate tabs, app does not integrate booked accommodations/flights into “trips”
• Hotels and vacation rentals cannot be searched together but have to be searched separately
• No option for car rentals

From my research, I chose to pursue three pain points. From these pain points, I developed my goals.

Takeaway/pain points:

• My “trips” and “bookings” are separate and I cannot see my bookings from trips, so I have to go back and forth between the two, making it harder for me to use and plan my trip.
• Goal: Integrating booked flights and accommodation into “my trips” so that flight & hotel and things to do/tours & restaurants can all be accessed in one place, while allowing non-related bookings to still be visible under “bookings”
• Hotels and apartments require separate searches
• Goal: Integrating hotels & vacation rentals/apartments into one search with the option to filter byt accommodation type
• No car rental
• Include a car rental search option

Rather than recreating each apps page as a mid-fi wireframe, I used screenshots of the app to help me create my wireframes and prototype. I decided to tweak existing features and pages on the app to achieve my user goals, rather than create from scratch, to make it easier on myself and to not change too much for existing users of the app who are familiar with its current features. I didn’t want to re-invent the wheel, but rather grease it.

I started with the easiest pain point to fix, adding a car rental search option. While not so easy to actually add to the app, it’s easy to make a wire frame, just add an option to the home screen! voila, car rentals are now an option.

By adding the car rental option to the homepage, I was able to solve another one of my pain points, the separation of hotels and vacation rentals. I wanted to combine the accommodation into one search, with the option to filter vacation rentals. This process was also pretty easy to wireframe. This would solve the pain point by allowing the user to search all possible accommodations, but to also filter and exclude what they wish.

My last, most difficult, and most-important pain point was the “my trips” feature of Tripadvisor. This is in essence a great feature that allows you to plan your entire trip day by day, to include restaurants, things to do, and helpful articles. Where the feature lacks is that it does not integrate hotels or flights booked on Tripadvisor or other sites into a trip. My goal was to give the user the option to add existing or new reservations to “my trips” so that they can organize all aspects of their trip into one place.

I’ve embedded the interactive prototype I created in Figma for this challenge, give it a try and let me know what you think!

This “challenge” was definitely a challenge, but I enjoyed it a lot! As someone who travels often and uses sites like Tripadvisor at least weekly, it was an especially interesting process for me to take something I use often and redesign it for a different user type. This challenge allowed me to think and analyze from the viewpoint of another user and to empathize with their needs!