Numi
Speculative User Research, UX Design
Winner of 2021 HCDE Capstone Design Award
Team: Sara Behbakht, Sara Gustafson, Kathy Nguyen & Yossi Avnon, UX Research Lead @ Expedia
Duration: 6 months (Jan 2021 - June 2021)
Role: UX Researcher & UX Designer
Tools: UserResearch.com, Figma
Numi by Expedia is a design system to reduce the pain points often associated with international travel experiences.
It includes a mobile application, physical lounge space, and IoT technologies.
Set 5 years in the future, Numi accounts for what travel may look like once the world has recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic.
DESIGN QUESTION
How might we re-imagine the international travel experience for young travelers w/ consideration to post-pandemic conditions?
Research
To understand our users of travelers ages 20-30 years old, we carried out 13 user interviews, market research, and surveys. With this data, we spent long qualitative coding and thematic analysis sessions, then affinity mapping. These methods allowed us to gather insights on our users to guide us to a data-backed design solution.
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From market analysis and insight from our Expedia sponsor, Yossi, on current travel trends, we developed a set of exploratory questions to structure our user interviews and surveys around.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
What information will post-pandemic travelers need to know to travel comfortably?
What do people need to feel safe traveling?
What are users’ attitudes about current and future travel?
What do people value in a travel experience?
What are users’ motivations for current and future travel?
Surveys
Our survey asked fifteen questions, from multiple-choice to ranking to short answer. We leveraged our personal networks, LinkedIn, Facebook, Slack, Listservs, and Reddit, to recruit participants. We reached 171 people, with 119 completed, viable surveys. Using our survey data, we affinity mapped to understand the larger themes.
User Interviews
We independently scheduled and conducted 13 participant interviews via Zoom. After qualitatively coding all 13 interviews, we affinity diagrammed to uncover insights. Using these insights, we began to mold our research themes.
During our user interviews, we asked each participant to sketch their personal hopes for the future of travel.
VOILÁ —
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Travelers ages 20-30…
Desire autonomy over their travel plans.
Cross-reference formal & informal information resources when traveling.
Feel uncomfortable with close proximity to others.
Have hope for future travel innovations inspired by their experiences.
Our analysis led us to a set of four valuable findings to take us into the design phase.
Persona: the never-been-abroad traveler
From our research, we found that a significant number of our user had domestic travel experience, but were waiting for the pandemic to end for their first international trips. We represented these users with Dillon, our novice traveler persona.
Persona: the seasoned traveler
We also created Riley to represent our users who are travel-savvy and confident when it comes to booking and taking off on trips. However, we ultimately decided to leave Riley behind before moving onto journey mapping, because we found she did not need much further support.
Design Requirements
From here, we finally collected enough information to create design requirements for our future product. With these design requirements, we crafted guiding principles for our design moving forward.
Update travelers in real-time about scheduling issues, like delays and cancellations.
Empower travelers to navigate high-traffic spaces with confidence about cleanliness.
Allow travelers to customize COVID-19 updates & receive on-the-go health suggestions.
Support travelers’ flexibility when booking and adjusting accommodations while remaining in-budget.
Help travelers make informed, culturally appropriate decisions when planning activities.
Provide sustainable, long-term support for travelers of all experience levels.
Design
To understand our users of travelers ages 20-30 years old, we carried out 13 user interviews, market research, and surveys. With this data, we spent long qualitative coding and thematic analysis sessions, then affinity mapping. These methods allowed us to gather insights on our users to guide us to a data-backed design solution.
