In the early 2022, people in the USA will not require wearing masks in the public and private systems, which results in the demand for travel surging. Due to the high cost of the trips, 65% of the Gen Zers want to find a travel buddy to reduce the expense.
However, it is difficult to find a suitable travel companion because there is lack of a efficent, trustworthy and attractive platform for generation Z travlers.
Building a new tripmate finding platform is an opportunity to reduce the cost of traveling and improve the traveling experience, which will encourage more travel plans and boost tourism industry.
在2022年春季，美国不再要求在公共场合佩戴口罩，导致一部分的消费者对于旅行的需求开始恢复。由于出行费用昂贵，65%的Z时代用户想要找一个旅伴共同分担旅行开支。
然而，寻找一个合适的旅伴很困难因为市场上缺少一个为Z时代用户设计的高效的、值得信任的、有趣的旅伴搜寻平台。
旅伴搜寻平台Tripmate为用户提供的核心价值是：减少旅行支出、找到省心的旅伴，促进更多新的旅行计划。
Our target aduience are adultGen Z(Adult Generation Z were born in 1995-2005, around 18-25 years), because:
-Gen Z is the main consumer of the travel industry. 2/3 of Generation Z travelers are planing revenge trips to make up for the lost tirps during the COVID-19 crisis.
-Gen Zers have no income and receive money from their parents so they pursue a new travel way of "Spend less, Experience more".
-Gen Z shows different perferencens of digital platform so it would be an opportunity to build a new platform.
我们选择了成年的Z时代作为目标用户，因为以下原因：
- Z时代是旅游业的主要消费者，三分之二的Z时代用户计划在疫情后进行报复性旅行的计划
- Z时代目前没有收入，而是从他们的父母那里接受经济支持。因此，他们追求一种 ”花更少的钱，享受更多的体验“ 的旅行价值观。
- Z时代在数字平台的上有不同于其它时代用户的选择偏好，因此这将会成为一个建立新平台的机会。
Let's start with the story of Maria!
Maria finished her classes, and she wanted to go to Disneyland.
But solo travel was too expensive! She needed to find a travel buddy!
She called her friend Emma to invite her travel together..
But Emma refused her because she had been there before.
Maria had to write a post on Facebook group and got some replies very quickly
However, Maria decided to give up this trip because she distrusted the strangers.
Find a travel buddy to go to Disneyland with her
-.She wants someone to share expenses
-She worries about the safety of solo trip
-Maria friend can't go with her
-Maria doesn't trust the strangers from socil media
Tool: Google Form
Size: 56 samples
Questions: 19
Goal: Understand Users
1. Most users are between 18-25 (75%), willing to travel with others(91%), Female(73.6%), students( 90.6%)> have tirps per week( 50.9%)
2. 54.7% of users find their travel buddies less than one week.
3. 56.6% prefer select treavel buddies from their friends' recommendations.
4. 71.4% of users find travel buddies through online platform like travel app and travel website.
5. The factors matter a lot when looking for a travel buddy:
consumption attitudes(33) > travel preferences(30) > Hobbies or skills > destinations(23) > trip planning(17)> departure(15)
Platform: Google Forms
Channels: Wechat Group, Zoom
Goal: Data Collection
Interviewees: 13
Questions: 32
Raw Datapoints: 605
1. The final goal for users is to travel with others together to share bills and ensure help each other.
2. The less important goal for users is to arrange travel plan and schedule well before trip.
3. The travel buddies themselves are are the key of service quality and experience. Thus, we need to attract golden user with high reliability.
4. Precise recommendatiion of travel buddies menas it takes many steps to evaluate users themselves, which will lead to the waste of time.
From the picture, we can see that 1. Most of them are just indirect competitors, which means that they don't offer service to find travel buddies and they can't meet the expectations of customers. 2. Most direct competitors are based on stranger socializing but few noticed the acquainttances socializing.
Find candidates amony friends or people who shared the similar values and interests
(84 Ddata Points)
Help users to arrange group travel plan and schedule well with travel buddies.
(84 Ddata Points)
Build trust through rating system to evaulate the users' service quaility as a travel buddy.
(78 Ddata Points)
What made it hard to evaluate the needs (Task 1)?
We made this map to show what factors matters when searching for their tavel buddies, which will show in the further design.
On the secondary research, we did competitive analysis to find a gap in the market and decide to focus on the process of finding a suitable travel buddy.
To validate weather the solution works, we conducted two-round user testng online.
-Define 3 tasks related to the core value( help users find suitable travel buddies)
-Calculate the Task Success Rate
-Count and analysis the users' feedback
-Use SUS (System Usability Scale) to quantify the results in general
1. Change "social game" into "match now"
2. Delete Avatar on matching page
3. Prioritize the button of "Manage team"
4. Add the function of inviting a group of friends
5. Move "Collects" Under "Trips"
6.Chnage "Reject" into "Igonre"
7.Change "Availability/Duration" into "Time"
8.Distinguish " leader" and " members"
9.Questionaire-5stars
10.Change "make up" into "preparation"
i made this video to show the interaction!