My Role
I consulted as a UX researcher and designer, participating in all aspects of strategy, research, synthesis, ideation, design, and validation.
Strategy
Understand the market landscape, business goals, user needs/pain points, and technology constraints to adopt a new business model that would drive use from a more sophisticated traveler.
Research
Discovery through stakeholder and user interviews, competitive and comparative analysis, journey mapping, personas, IA review, card sorting, a content audit, a heuristic evaluation, and quantitative data analysis.
Insights
Because the market analysis showed a saturated market in the home stay/rental space, our goal was to figure out a key differentiator that would be attractive to a savvy, yet adventurous traveler. After several user interviews we discovered that user wanted to not just rent a room, but to have an immersive, local experience and hosts wanted a way to generate additional income outside of renting a room.
Problem Solving
To give the users that experience we recommended a few key differentiating features. They need to be able to book a home stay that is curated by a local host (with an add on feature where the host would cook meals and be their adventure partner), be able to self-discover local experiences through a collection of recommendations on restaurants, shops, and other hidden gems curated by a local expert, as well as being able to track and share their trip through the adventure capture feature. These features would also provide additional income to the home stay host and local adventure expert.
Execution, Validation, and Handoff
After synthesising the data we validated our finding through an additional round of user interviews. Incites were turned into wireframes that were validated through usability testing. Final deliverables included a user research report with research findings, a journey map, an empathy map, user personas, wireframes, usability testing results, and a detailed design spec.
