Case study : Tourism App for Umluj City

About :

Nowadays Saudi Arabia’s recent decision to fling open its doors to foreign tourists has sent a mild ripple of excitement running through the travel industry, for the fourth week in UX bootcamp in Misk academy we get a great topic to design for.

About to create a platform for umluj city.

About umluj city :

Umluj is one of the governorates in Tabuk Region, Saudi Arabia.

Located 150 km north of Yanbu, Umluj is the dream destination for nature lovers worldwide. With clear waters, white sand, and lack of crowds, it’s no surprise that it earned the title of the “Maldives” of Saudi Arabia.

User Research

We start our user research by conducted 70 surveys and 8 interviews.

Insight

After conducting these methodology we did affinity mapping that lead us to insights:

• Based on user’s answers there is limitations of Saudi website and app that can help them in booking and planning their trip.
• Traveling with groups they got problems finding different activities in one day.
• People interested in storytelling and know the meaning about place.
• People need real pictures, people experience and rating.
• Many people want to visit umluj but they don’t have enough information about the place.

Quote directly from user:

I want to visit Umluj but I do small research I did not find any place to stay. Facing big problem Lack of information on internet.

Based on user research we formed the following:

Persona

We go more. Into her user journey to see where we can find opportunities to improve her experience and make it more enhancing and satisfying.

In this journey,

• Assist her with more information about umluj. Such as videos and telling stories and reviews by other travelers.
• Help her to book and plan trip easily.
• Meet her with local and take her on tours and activities.

Competitive Analysis

In an effort to learn from the strengths and weaknesses of competitors, we analyze many direct and indirect apps. The reason behind why we considered these apps is because they are more frequent apps users use before/during the travel experience or they are famous best practices in the scope of our problems.

Weakness

• Only plan and wishlist : the ability to create their own package and pay one click is not there yet.
• Local disadvantage : which limit the travelers experience engaging with local in different aspects.
• No stories: competitors don’t give more stories behind the place ,so user go to Google and search painfully to find the information.
• Arabic language: Not all websites and apps offer the Arabic language.

Strengthens

• Visible and minimal: main focus on pictures and video tools to conveys a travel vibe to traveler.

Problem statement

“Nowadays, tourism in Saudi Arabia is gaining *huge* attention and different cities are on the move to attract tourists. However, our user is facing a struggle when planning to travel to Umluj, as the place lacks any accommodation or information about it online, Also losing their time in unmeaningful trips make them histated and afraid for entering new places like Umluj.

Solutions

We got a lot of solutions then we did feature prioritization to bring umluj key features.

• Plan your trip: user needs to plan their trip , umluj app will assist them to create a plan and add activities/ restaurant/ transportation.
• Share the trip: to make all family agree on the trip’s plan , they can invite them to share plane so the could review it.
• Meet locals: Since Umluj has a lack of accommodation, we make a stage for locals to host their accommodations. Also, they will provide multiple services like a guided tour and meet in person.
• Video storytelling: user need live experience so, we can assist them by providing real stories like Snapchat and Instagram.

Storyboard

Develop

Information architecture

Task flows

• Choose accommodation

• Create the trip plan

Usability testing

After designing the wireframe we test it on 8 users ,so the user response changes a lot of things. That we did and they give us full understanding of how user using the umluj app.

1) Add new activity button was confusing.

2) Navbar icons were confusing to the user

3) Highlighting price on activity page.

4) Adding the choose accommodation option as a next step after setting dates for trip.

Screen Design:

Prototype

Future plans

• Enhance the interface : We believe the interface can be enhanced by implementing more best practices from well-known brands.
• Add transportation booking feature: provide a specific feature for booking transportation.
• Service title here: a peep some distant orb has power to raise and purify our thoughts like a strain of sacred music.

Finally

In this project I learned a lot and I worked with a great team Asma , Noor and Mohammed.

Thanks a lot for reading this.