Project overview
The project brief was to come up with a solution to make Gen z backpackers’ travel experience be more seamless and also to attract more Gen Z target audiences to use Lonely Planet products.We were divided into teams of 4 students and assigned the task to go through the entire UX process from discovery to ideation to solution.This is how we designed an app to help backpackers find street food more easily and communicate with vendors without a hassle.
Discovery
Definition
Ideation
Solution
Wireframing
Vendr
UX Design
Lonely Planet - Concept
Jan 2022 - Feb 2022
Challenges
To improve the travel experience of Gen Z backpackers and attract them to use Lonely Planet products more.
Discovery
Over one week in the end of January, we interviewed 21 Gen Z backpackers in Khao San road in Bangkok. The most popular area among backpackers. These kids spoke to me on a 1:1 basis where we asked them questions from a pre-written script and we took down notes of their answers.
Pain points
Problem sticking to budget without an easy way to find cheap food, restaurants are very expensive.
Covid-19 created a lot of confusion for most of them while planning their trip and also during the trip.
Hard to earn money or save money on the trip since all tourist places are very expensive.
Mostly find out about nice places to visit from other backpackers by word-of-mouth.
Problem statement
We have observed that existing apps don’t have too many details on street food places in Bangkok, which is causing backpackers to have to spend more time and money on their limited budget to find decent street food around the areas where they are staying. How might we help them save money and find food that meets their dietary requirements?
Definition
We created four personas based on our research by thinking about what were the main pain points that we discovered in the interviews we conducted and seeing how they were solving those pain points now and if we can offer them a easier solution.
Ideation
We did a card sorting exercise to figure out the most effective solution. We reach wrote down as many ideas we could think of and organized them in different themes and each of us voted on what we thought the best ideas were. We decided to go with the idea to create a street food app in the end.
Solution
We decided to create an app that shows travellers where the nearest and best street food is available with a tap of a button and also to allow them to communicate more esily with vendors who mostly don’t speak any English. We then proceeded to sketch some screens including the userflow.
Wireframes
Once we had a clear idea of how the screens are going to look, we proceeded to create refined wireframes.
Summary
As a last step, the students were asked to give a final presentation for the class about our solution.
Limitations
The street food stalls keep moving, it’ll take a lot of effort to keep updating the street food stalls locations.
We need a huge investment to start the project in order to collect data from all the neighbourhoods in Bangkok.
Value
This is a much needed solution in the backpacker space, it makes sense to have an app that can help people find street food easily.
From our experience in making this project, we learned that, not only foreigners, sometimes even Thai people have the same difficulties when finding street food.
Next steps
Although the 6-week intensive course is over, I have plans to create high fidelity designs and conduct usability tests.