ViRA
UXUI DESIGN
OVERVIEW
ViRA is a VR app that would fulfill users’ desire to travel the world and make it fun, easy, and interactive ways through Virtual Reality by using user center design process, which is a process that involves users throughout the design and development process and it's iterative.
ROLE
UXUI Design & Research
DURATION
6 weeks
CONTEXT
Group project for a human-centered design approach class
METHODS & TOOLS
Interview, Usability test, competitive analysis, Empathy Map, Storyboard, Information Architecture, User Journey, Sketch, Figma, InVision, Illustrator, After Effect
PROJECT GOALS
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Design VR experience to fulfill users’ desire to escape from stressful reality and explore the world.
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Help users to have a real travel experience through content created by other end-users.
CHALLENGES
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People don’t have time to go travel as many as they want.
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People don’t have money to spend on vacation.
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Planning a trip takes too much time.
MY DESIGN PROCESS
RESEARCH
To kick-start the design process, our team conducted secondary research to deepen our understanding of the problem space. We researched the annual average PTO in the US and how many days people actually used it.
America's Vacation Trend
The findings were interesting. People get more vacation hours than before but take fewer days off to travel. And the reasons are the cost, difficulty in getting away from work, and air travel hassles.
What is Preventing Americans to Traveling More?
And we wanted to know if there is any difference among generations. Regardless of the generations, "COST" money was the number 1 barrier. BUT there was a slight difference for the top 2nd and 3rd barriers. This finding was very useful to narrow down our target users' problems. So we defined Millennials as our target group because they are the most tech-savvy and willing to try new technologies, and also they wanted to travel more.
Top Barriers for Every Generation?
DETERMINED PROBLEM
Based on secondary research, people love to travel and explore new places to build new memories. However, it’s not easy to do it because not everyone has the resources to travel any time they want, and also planning a trip is time-consuming and stressful.
MARKET RESEARCH
Now that we know the target group, we wanted to know their behavior towards available travel-related content across different media. We found that two out three people watch travel content when they think about going travel and use destination names to search videos, which means people already know what they want to watch and where they want to go.
Travel Content Growth
Travel-related content increased tremendously as people worldwide shared their travel experiences and looked for inspiration for their future adventures. According to Google and Ipsos MediaCT(media, Content & technology), two out of three US consumers watch online travel videos when planning to take a trip.
YouTube Travel Searches
Travel Consumer Survey
Also, according to Trustpilot, consumers spend more of their income on experiences like travel and entertainment. However, unlike purchasing physical goods, experiences can’t be returned or transacted. Thus, people tend to read more reviews and rely heavily on them.
USER RESEARCH
USER INTERVIEW
After conducting secondary research, I interviewed 6 people in our target age group in order to
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Understand people's needs and pain points when they plan a trip
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Know their level of interest in trying VR apps.
"I'm a photographer and like to go to new places to get inspiration and take photos... I travel about zero to once a year due to the unstable income, and I would like to go twice a year for now. Maybe more later."
"I would love to travel once a month, so that's a total of twelve trips a year? only, only if I have enough vacation allowances from work."
"I want to go travel all the time but am too busy and planning a trip with my kids just .....I have to consider so many things "
INTERVIEW KEY FINDINGS
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Interviewees want to travel double the times they did before.
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Most interviewees watch videos and photos of destinations to plan a trip.
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Interviewees don't have either/both enough time and money to travel.
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72% of interviewees want to try VR, 21% maybe, 7% want surprises.
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More than 90% read reviews by others.
EMPATHY MAP
After the user interview and findings, I collaborated with my team to create the empathy map, a visual representation of how a user feels and behaves, to help us understand our users and prioritize their needs. This exercise helped our team empathize with users to understand their' pain points, frustrations, and their needs in-depth, and it was like a checking point to make sure we were all on the same page.
PERSONAS
Next, our team synthesized everything we learned from the research phase and came up with two user personas, a fictional but realistic portrayal of a target user for our product.
Each persona represents our target group clarifies exactly who we are designing for. To be honest, our group had some ups and downs and got lost throughout the project, and these user personas acted as a point of reference for us whenever we were off track; it helped us bring us back to having users in mind.
HOW MIGHT WE STATEMENT
We came up with the how might we statement with all the user research findings. Which is
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Before our team ideate any solutions, we looked into the competitors, their strengths, and weaknesses to come up with the value proposition.
Google earth was by far the best to explore different places among the three competitors we compared with. But everything was based on still images. There is no live excitement users can experience. It almost felt like google map street view in VR, and they don't have a communication feature, so there are no reviews by users, which is critical for people to plan a trip based on the earlier research we have done.
BRAINSTORMING
Moving on to the 3rd design step, Each members of the team began to ideate individually and then we came together as a group to go over all the ideas. We narrowed down ideas by creating prioritization matrix to help us prioritize what we should focus on, criteria for the matrix were impact and time to solve users’s problem and fulfill their needs by utilizing VR.
SOLUTIONS
1. Create a free VR travel app.
We wanted ViRA to be accessible to anyone. The app is free of charge and can be used as an individual's social media exclusively containing 3D photos and videos. Virtual reality travel with both user-generated and professional content, those in the travel industry and content creators such as discovery channels, Airbnb, Expedia, and multiple airlines.
2. Tag search and bookmark.
To reduce the amount of time spent searching for videos for a specific location/event, users can leverage the search tag function. Also by using the bookmark and save functions, users can quickly review and watch any of those videos again.
IDEA SKETCHES
Moving to the 4th step of the design process, our team started drawing ideas on the whiteboard to visualize them into the design, getting feedback and input, and making changes.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
With the initial sketches, I came up with the information architecture to map out how the ViRA system should organize and structure.
STORYBOARDS
With the initial sketches, I came up with the information architecture to map out how the ViRA system should organize and structure.
USER TASKS & USER FLOWS
USABILITY TESTING & RESULTS
BEFORE & AFTER
1. Combined multiple modules into one to reduce confusion for users.
MAIN DASHBOARD
MAIN DASHBOARD AS A EXPLORE SHORTCUT
The home page dashboard displays recommended videos for the user based on the user's search/view history. It also displays the most liked and recent videos for users to explore
MOOD BOARD
COLOR PALETTE
LOGO
TYPOGRAPHY
FINAL DESIGNS
FUNCTIONS BREAKDOWN
SIGN UP PROCESS
The initial profile setup and information for users to better understand the app.
Give more controls to users. Users can choose their own avatar to use in HUB and select the preferred travel style for ViRA to recommend relevant videos for users.
SEARCH TAGS
ADD SEARCH TAGS FOR QUICK RESULT
Users can add as many search tags as they need to narrow down the search result. If users want to delete added search tags, they can delete each by clicking the little tag module under the search module. This will help users quickly find the videos they are looking for.
INFO, PRICE, AND Q&A MODULES
INFORMATION, PRICE, AND Q&A MODULES FOR FUTURE TRIP PLANNING
Users can obtain detailed information about the video under information, price, and Q&A modules. Also, if users don’t find the information they are looking for, they can add a new question on Q&A. The content creator and other ViRA users can post the answer.
BOOKMARKS
UTILIZE BOOKMARK TO PLAN A TRIP
Users can insert bookmarks along with a brief note for future reference. This will save users time to plan a real trip in the future. Users can look through the bookmarks rather than watch the entire video again to remember what they have liked.
CONCEPT VIDEO
CHALLENGES & WHAT I HAVE LEARNED
I have learned a few things that help me grow and think more like a UXUI designer through this project. I like to interact with people and have always wanted to do group projects to experience design collaboration work. We had ups and downs as we worked through the project, but I am so proud that our team made it to the end with great teamwork and supports. I also learned and got inspired by my team members and am so thankful for them and wish they experienced the same thing as me.
The process of executing user testing and applying the results to our design was a bit challenging, but it improved our overall project. If I have time, I would like to continue to work on the project on my own and do another round of user testing to get more helpful feedback.
MAKE AN IMPACT
I tried to deliver impact by emphasizing users' frustrations, pain points, and needs to develop the best possible solution. I also wanted to mobilize Other People's Work (OPW) by adding professional channels to the travel-related companies that can leverage the platform to reach out to new users by creating high-quality VR travel advertising video content. The professional channels will increase overall VR video quality and bring significant revenue, while users can enjoy high-quality VR videos generated by professionals.
