Many young people LOVE travelling. At the same time their schedule is packed because of working and/or studying, personal life, socialising, sport activities and many others. While there are many different services and websites that can help organise your trip, it is still a very time consuming activity.

There is the need of an integrated service with which the user can easily book flight tickets, transportation, place to stay, plan what to see and do and all things travel related.

Online survey was sent to the general public and the results were filtered to analyse responses from the target group of users who are 18-34 years old, travel 5 to 10 or more times per year and have taken 7 to 10 or more flights in the last 5 years. We will call these frequent travellers. 76% of that target group use online services and apps like Booking.com, Airbnb and Trip Advisor, to book tickets and accommodation and learn useful information.

The future of bots and AI assistants

After announcing Messenger and Skype bot platforms, we can see a rise of the number of chat bots that offer different services, e.g. shopping, travel offers, weather alerts, etc. While conversational interface feels very natural in some situation, it’s not always the best or quickest way for the user to interact with a certain service, and chat bots using such platforms are limited by the way they can present information and provide interactions.

While chat bots are not yet so widely accepted by the common user, voice assistants like Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, Google Now, are more familiar to the general public, however the majority of people haven’t tried them. Only 12%  of the survey participants are active users and 24% have at least shown some interest in using voice assistants.

These results on it’s own didn’t explain why not so many people use voice assistants and chat bots. That is why interviews were better at explaining exactly what is the reason and digging in deep into the topic. The reasons varied from privacy issues and frustration to not seeing the benefit or simply not being aware how to use them. At the same time when asked what apps the interviewees use most often, the answer always included messaging and social media apps at first place, which means they were definitely using chat functionality a lot. They just haven’t used a service that makes use of the benefits of conversational interface.

The initial concept for the app suggested two ways of storing user items. The first one was for organising your trip schedule and keeping all itineraries and details related to it, and the second one for storing just random things you’ve come across – flights you want to keep an eye on, places, guides, articles. When writing the user stories it became very clear that the problem with those two things was the naming convention. The trip organising part was rather easy – simply call it “Trips” or “My Trips”. But there was some hesitation about the other section, whether it should be called “Notebook”, “Wishlist” or “Favourites”.

After adding several cards containing the word “notebook” and conducting card sorting sessions, it became very clear that this created some confusion for the participants. While most of them grouped items into sections named “search”, “trip”, “useful” or “itinerary”, there were mixed results with the items containing the word “notebook”. So it was obvious that there needs to be clear differentiation between those two.

When thinking about travelling, we associate that action with doing it on Earth, travelling around the globe. We are not an interplanetary species yet. That is why for the colour palette of Tripio I chose blue and green. Colours that are very much associated with our planet and nature and at the same time colours that give calmness and confidence. Because the approach for this app and the concept of a bot helping you out is something rather new, lime colour was chosen to freshen up the visuals.

A key part of the experience with the app is using a conversational interface and interacting with the chat bot. That is why app logo and chat bot avatar match! Marine Fresh gradient was specially made for Tripio. The shape is a mixture of smiley emoticon and chat bubble, hinting for the chat functionality and giving Tripio a friendly more human like look.

Other part of the look includes simple and modern iconography. Icons are outlined, but not as thin as the ones we usually see in iOS. The thicker lines help improve visibility and make the illustrated objects more recognisable.

After showing the initial prototype and conducting usability testing sessions with target users, feedback was very positive. Users had to achieve 5 tasks and they were completed mostly with ease. Also when asked what they think of the chat bot and the whole process, they all stated it is a novice approach that they like and will definitely give it a try when the final product is ready.

In more details, usability testing sessions are a great tool because you can see how users would interact with your product, where they struggle, what they like and what not. This gives you a great insight of what you’ve done great and what can be improved over the next iteration.

The project idea is to help you easily organise and keep track of your travel plans. There is also a lot more work to enable Tripio giving you the best offers and helping you with just on time notifications and useful information. And of course to create simple micro interactions and animations to make the whole user experience just feel much better.

That is why the project is still in development phase and I encourage you to sign up with your email so you know when the product is launching.

Thank you for your time and interest!