Usability Evaluation and Site Redesign
Developing the best for the User with TripAdvisor
Challenge:
- Selecting a user group and research the destination
- Compare travel apps with Nielsen’s Principles
- Conduct user testing to gain insights and pain points
- Redesign Wireframes
The User Type
Worldtrotter, Backpacker, 18–38 y/o (1)
You’ve decided to finally go visit that wonder that has been sitting in your dreams for a long time now. Yo don’t have a long time to plan but also you don’t need it. You’ll be traveling in 6 months and are open to almost any possibility but have a budget constraint. You are price-cautious and prefer experiences where you have a chance to meet people and make acquaintances to enjoy the wonder together. You are not picky and you can accommodate the most affordable, adventurous, genuine experience.
The Destination
Peru, Cuzco, Machu Picchu
also spelled Machupijchu, site of ancient Inca ruins located 50 miles northwest of Cuzco, Peru, in the Andes Mountains. Machu Picchu (“Old Peak”) and Huayna Picchu (“New Peak”) ,at an elevation of 7,710 feet. One of the few major pre-Columbian ruins found nearly intact, Machu Picchu was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Airport: BCN to CUZ (Barcelona to Cuzco)
Currency Exchange: 1€=3,81PEN (peruvian sol)
Tourist Visa: No need for european citizens staying less than 90 days
Vaccinations: not mandatory, yellow fever vaccination recommended
Warderobe: mediocre temperatures, wearing layers
Days needed to visit: appx. 2 weeks
Benchmarking conducting Nielsen’s Principles
For the comparison with the Nielsen’s Priciples I chose Kayak, Hopper, Skyscanner and Tripadvisor to conduct the Usability Heuristic Evaluation.
TripAdvisor is clearly the allrounder here. Not only is it intuitive to use and book the flights and hotels in advance efficiently, but it even offers additional features for my user type ‘the worldtrotter’ to easily explore things once the travel has started. The feature “things to do” allows the user to look through activities, book tours and look at other attractions that they might want to see, including experiences like dining, tours, and shopping. There is even a forum for travellers to exchange infos, which is a plus for the worldtrotter too.
The Testing
I chose 5 friends to do user tests on the Trip Advisor app with. I performed the interviews and observed their interactions with the app. They were given tasks one at a time, for which I tried to figure out the pain points.
5 Second Test
To start, I gave the users 5 seconds to take a look at the home screen of the TripAdvisor app. After 5 seconds, I covered the screen and ask them: “What did you see? What can this tool do for you?”. All were aware of this app offering travels including flights and hotels. Most people remembered the Covid-19 notice as it is very dominant and currently important for travelling. Then they remembered the ‘where to’ -button in the middle and that there were 6 additional buttons underneath it (some remembered all 6, some just a few)
The Tasks
1.Book a flight to Cuzco, Peru
- In 6 month from now
- lasting 2 weeks
- pay under 600€ roundtrip
2. Book a Hotel
- Must be close to Machu Picchu
- Should cost less than 50€/Night
3. Book a Tour
- Salkantay Tour for 4–5 Days
- must be under 500€
4. Look for Nightlife
- Use the travel forum
- Figure out if there are party places in Cuzco
Pain points at TripAdvisor
1.Book a flight to Cuzco, Peru
it’s not possible to compare prices/days
it’s not possible to do flexible day search
3. Book a Tour
had to type in all date details again
hard to use in the search area because the proposed travels which appeared at the main page don’t appear in search
4. Look for Nightlife
if you don’t know exactly what you are looking for it’s hard to get information efficiently
it’s all dependent on the content people created (easy to fool, not proven)
Site Redesign of Trip Advisor
Flight booking with flexible dates & price offers
We already know this set-up from Ryanair or Eurowings. You can search for flights in a flexible way and compare the diffrent price categories and then combine the departure flight with the return flight. Easy and efficient.
Book a tour adjusted to your requirements
Rather than going to the filter settings and adjust the product group, duration and price I would optimize the search by those quick search buttons to easily receive the outcome adjusted to your needs and let the app take the travel dates automatically from earlier settings.
Same as for the trip search, I would do a quick button setting in the forum. This forum is a great development for travelers to get insight knowledge of a place and receive real experiences you can follow. It’s just confusing that if you search for something, you get any outcome with those words from your search. I would recommend to let people writing a post in the forum do some hashtags summing up their article, so travelers could filter the information with catchwords.
Things that I have learned
Processing from the user research to filtering important information for my site redesign really revealed all the important aspects and steps of a good UX improvement here. Conduction the interviews made me realize that finding real pain point is really obvious, once you ask the right questions. With this outcome it was motivating me to improve features of the TripAdvisor app to help the user having a better flow for planning and booking his whole trip.
I hope you enjoyed reading. Feel free to give me feedback, I would love to get hints for improvement, as I am at the start of my UX Career. Thank you!
