Weary Traveler
Flight Tracking & Airport Navigation App
October 27, 2016
PROBLEM
When flights are delayed or canceled travelers do not have a convenient, centralized resource to navigate the airport or book last minute flights, hotels, or rental cars.
SOLUTION
The Weary Travel App puts your travel needs all in one place. Other travel apps just let users book and track their flights. This app also allows users to do this, but it also focuses on the specific needs of the traveler who ends up stuck in the airport due to delayed or cancelled flights. There is a navigation feature that gives users a step-by-step guide to travel as efficiently as possible from gate to gate, and the amenities feature offers detailed information on restaurants, shops, and airport lounges. In addition, if the traveler’s flight gets cancelled he can reserve a last minute hotel or rental car. Due to the time constraints of this 2 week sprint only the top three desired features have been incorporated at this time: flight notification, point-to-point navigation & a restaurant guide.
RESEARCH
Surveys
At the start of the project surveys were sent via email and social media. The surveys aimed to identify how travelers cope when they have long layovers or if their flights are delayed or cancelled. The charts below detail travelers frustrations and the unexpected consequences of being stuck in the airport.
Competitive & Comparative Analysis
Persona
Based on the research three personas were created: (1) the single vacationer; (2) the business traveler; and (3) the vacationing family. In one trip the single vacationer could need many of the apps features so that persona is the focus for this case study.
IDEATION
Card sort
A number of card sorts were done at the beginning of the project to help determine how to categorize the apps different functions. Some thought the categories should be: getting to the airport; at the airport; and when "stuff" goes wrong, but the majority grouped the functions by: flight; airport; and hotels & car rentals. Those are the categorize that were used here. The hotel, car rental & flight booking category has been tough to name. It is currently called Extended Stay, but more user testing needs to be done to determine if the user understands what that means.
Sketching
Sketching was done prior to wireframes to help determine the flow that would be used for the site map and user flow.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Site Map
User Flow
As noted above for this 2 week sprint the focus was on flight alerts, navigation & locating restaurants. The below user flow highlights how the user would navigate the site using these functions. It mainly covers the airport functionality of the app. The flight, other than the delayed flight notifications, and hotel and car rental sections are not included.
Wireframes
USER TESTING
User testing was done using lo-fi wireframes. By testing I learned that users were confused by the landing page. Originally the landing page highlighted how users can access tools related to their flight, but it did not highlight their actual flight information. I used this feedback to reconfigure the landing page to focus on the users flight information and moved the tools lower on the screen.
PROTOTYPE
