Week 1
Creative Brief:
When it comes to quickly accessing data and entertaining ourselves, mobile apps are the perfect choice. They are user-friendly, and if not free, their cost is affordable. Apart from allowing users to interact with the world, apps can also be very profitable.In this project we will gain knowledge and experience the process that leads to success. We will act as a functioning start-up to ideate and propose concepts for a new app.
3 Concept Cards:
After a lot of ideation and research on what is missing, what has been done, and what needs improvement in the market we settled on 3 different ideas for our app:
After going over our final three options and putting them each through a decision matrix, we decided on our final concept for our amazing app.
Final Choice – Option 3: ATLiens
Secondary Research:
Primary Research:
Once we conducted our secondary and primary research, we had a good idea of what we want to bring forth through our app and design as solutions. The following bullet points summarize what we feel we will be able to bring to our users.
- Customers would no longer have to search through multiple sites to find cool places to go in Atlanta
- From people traveling alone to in pairs or large groups, ATLiens is flexible and customizable for any user type
- Customers can do everything they would need to in order to plan their trip within the app (save locations they want to visit, view reviews, find links to make reservations, see where their friends are going, etc.)
Competitors:
We are creating an app that has not been made before. Due to the fact that there are no exact competitors for our app, we are analyzing what websites are being used to recommend places to visit in Atlanta as well as other cities. We will also be looking at two sites who are apart of the "anti tourist" movement that is happening in places such as Portugal and Italy. Finally, we are seeing what platforms are being used to send in reviews, to book hotels, and to make reservations for restaurants and how they operate and create a user experience.
"Anti-Tourism"
The Worst Tours
According to The Gaurdian “they show people around the city’s disused factories, old railway lines, empty lots and down-at-heel backstreets. The highlight? A downtown shopping mall that went bust in the mid-1990s, now offering cheap rent to cafe bars and practice studios for local bands”. The Worst Tours, in Porto, Portugal came about as a response to how tourism was changing their city. They also do not charge any money for their tours. However, tips are very encouraged.
Space and Place
According to The Gaurdian “locals, too, are looking for novel ways to engage with their home cities. Eugene Quinn leads“urban adventures” around his adopted city of Vienna, including the Ugly Vienna Tour, the Corruption Tour, the Midnight Tour, and even a Smells Like Vienna Spirit Tour, which explores the olfactory delights of the Austrian capital. He says they attract as many as 80% locals”.
The above websites offer interesting takes on tourism. Their strengths are that they are very innovative, tours like these are starting to pop up all around the world, and they are budget friendly. However, some weaknesses could be that they do not reach a very large audience because are not very well known about, and while the overall idea is interesting, the way it is being marketed may not be attractive for all audiences.
Recommendation Sites
Trip Advisor
Trip Advisor is a website and app that allows you to find “things to do” in whatever city you search. It offers a lot of categories such as; tramways, attraction tickets, monuments and statues, cultural and theme tours, etc. They have a rating system as well based off of reviews. Their top two attractions in Atlanta is currently the Atlanta Botanical Garden and the Georgia Aquarium – very well known places to visit.
City Pass
City Pass is a website very similar to Trip Advisor. They allow you to look up attractions and things to do in large cities. They also have an app, and they have incentives as well. For example, right now you can save 43% on admission to the top five attractions in Atlanta when you book with City Pass. There is also an icon under each attraction that tells you how long you will probably spend at each one, whether it is a tour or a famous park. There is an option to learn more, however each attraction links to the attraction’s website.
Explore Georgia
Explore Gerogia is a website made specifically for those who want to explore Georgia. This specific page has 20 things to do for free in the city of Atlanta. They take into account that some people may be on a budget but still want to travel. They also have COVID-19 travel information and announcements. Alot of the attractions on this site are nature based such as; The Carter Center, the Atlanta Beltline, etc. They also offer a lot of other free things to do in places like Savannah, the Northeast Georgia Mountains, and which museums are free!
The Crazy Tourist
The Crazy Tourist is a website that is meant to be for travelers to find “unique” places to visit wherever you search. However, from looking at this list of “55 Best Things To Do in Atlanta” the recommendations are still pretty basic. For example, the first 3 places to visit are listed as; MLK Jr. National Historic Park, the Birth Home of MLK Jr., and World of Coca-Cola. You have to scroll all the way down the list to get to the more “unique” places to visit or dine at in Atlanta.
Lonely Planet
Guides By Lonely Planet is an app that allows you to get more out of your Lonely Planet guide books. However if you donʼt have their guide books you can still utilize this app, as they offer 5 free previews a month. This app offers audio phrasebooks, offline maps, AR currency converter and an immersive experience. With Guides By Lonely Planet you can get to the heart of your dream travel destination. Their website offers a lot of different articles about traveling all over the world. They also offer memberships and booking options through their site.
The above websites provide a lot of information to anyone who would visit their pages. Their strengths are that they have a lot of different options for things that could be done in Atlanta and they have been categorized as well. Their weaknesses include being very repetitive of each other, focusing on big attractions such as chain restaurants or large companies, and not offering too much information on other places to go if someone is visiting for perhaps a fifth or sixth time, need new recommendations for business partners coming in town, or are locals and want to dive deeper into their city.
How will we diversify ourselves from our competitors?
- We are NOT going in alignment with the “anti tourist” movement, our recommendations will promote tourism in places that are not as well known as places like the aquarium or museums such as small businesses
- Everything users need simplified into one platform, instead of bouncing back and forth between many
- Social aspects included such as; links to reviews and reservations such as open table and yelp as well as the ability to create a profile and connect with your friends
- Personalization features to plan your trip all within the app and incentives to send in information about your own city in order to create the largest community and database of unique places to visit
Week 2
3 User Personas:
Design Criteria:
Scope:
Current State User Journey Maps:
Brand Essence & Style Tiles
Low Fi User Testing:
After we conducted user testings on our low-fi wireframes, we did discover a few things we needed to change going into our mid fi's. We realized we needed to have a bottom navigation with active and non actives states to show where in the app the user is and for the users to be able to navigate throughout the app easier, this way they won't need to keep pressing the back buttons to go back to the home screen. We also saw that we needed to have more of a distinction from the map and list views after choosing your dates.
Mid Fi Wireframes:
Mid Fi User Testing:
After we conducted user testings on our mid-fi wireframes and from our critique from professor Baker, we found a few things that needed to be adjusted for the final screens. First off, we will change our brand colors from green (#70bf59) and yellow (#e0e54d) to green (#82BB66) and pink (#bb5d77). Our drop down menu options will be changed to fit better length wise and also work to make the screens feel less cluttered. On our initial what to do page, we will be adding graphics that indicate a user can scroll horizontally to see all options as well as add an option to turn off dark mode and switch to light mode in the settings screen.
Poster Thumbnails:
List of possible Micro Interactions:
- Account created overlay
- Location services overlay
- Onboarding screens transition animations (3 seconds)
- Map zoom in or out
- Menu drop downs
- Active and non active states on bottom nav
- Button animation, active and not active states
- Drag price button/filter left and right
- Horizontal scrolling on what to do initial screen
- Vertical page scrolling
- Swipe up for more details on full view of location pages
- Small animation on splash screen
- Swipe up to log out, confirmation, log out
Week 4
Hi Fi Surfaces:
Hi Fi User Testing:
After we conducted user testings on our hi-fi surfaces, we found a few things that needed to be adjusted. We realized that the automatic transition from the first onboarding screen to the second needed to be a little slower to make sure any user has time to read the text on the scree, and instead of the first button saying continue, we decided to change it so say skip because our user thought it made more sense. Our user also felt that the smaller buttons, for example the map view and list view buttons, needed to be a little bigger so we fixed that for better readability. However, overall there was a good response.
Walk Through Video:
Optimal State User Journey Maps:
Poster Thumbnails Round 2:
Final Choice: Option #1
Poster Rough in Color:
Week 5
Presentation
Final Presentation
Final Marketing Poster
Design Narrative:
Designing ATLiens was a fun process. We wanted to create an app to help people who travel to Atlanta find more off the grid locations to stay, eat, or visit. We learned from our survey that not everyone enjoys being a typical tourist or visiting crowded tourist attractions. We wanted to create an experience that could really help people feel at home in Atlanta while having unique experiences. We also wanted to devise a way we could attract business to small, local businesses, so our motive behind the app was two-fold.
There were quite a few things we needed to consider while designing the app. We wanted the app to be a one-stop shop for all travel needs, so there was quite a lot of features the app needed to have. We had to be careful to ensure the process would be streamlined if the user wanted to book multiple experiences. We made sure to make navigation simple by including a nav bar on the bottom of every screen. We also made the app as minimal as possible by hiding away extraneous features.