​Wander

​A mobile app that allows travelers to navigate through the airport with ease while presenting them various options to spend their time during the layover.
​Overview
The story of Wander started when I missed my connecting flight at Atlanta while traveling from Shreveport to Dayton. Wander is a travel assistant app that helps people during their air travel. It focuses on making the boring part of the journey i.e. waiting at the airport, more convenient and lively. The challenge was to incorporate location awareness into the interface.

I adopted the user-centered approach for this design to give it a direction and processed a full in-house implementation to reduce risk and uncertainty.
​
I worked as the designer of this app to research, ideate, design, and prototype the initial product
​My Role
UX Designer

Research Synthesis (Primary Research, Heuristic
Analysis, Persona, Journey, Use Cases, 
Competitive Analysis);

Ideating (User Stories, Sketching, Mood Board);
Rapid Prototyping (User Flow, Wireframes, Hi-fi
Prototypes);
​
Testing (Guerrilla Testing, Usability Testing);
Where are we?
We have plenty of options for travel location, travel itinerary, and flight schedules. The problem of what to do when you are already at the airport is still unsolved. It would be a convenient solution for the users to have a solution that solves this problem in addition to the regular utility services.​
What's causing this problem?
A study from 2013, declared that 68 out of 94 delayed flights result in missing the next connecting flight. Implying, passengers have to spend additional time at the airport. The passenger could step out of the airport only if he/ she has several hours to spare. If not, they have to spend the time in misery. 

Some intermittent travelers are unfamiliar with the layout of the airport, leading them to be confused in the layout and wasting their time and energy.
​Frustrations:
  • ​Scheduling
  • Navigation
  • Connection
  • Information
  • Organizing
Competitors: FLIO, TripIT
Competitive Analysis

Very few options available for ‘stuck at the airport’ situation. 
FLIO and TripIT are the two apps that stood out.  

FLIO focuses on navigation through the airport which is the theme for the home page. It shows the list of the nearest airport and gives direct access to the details such as whether, timetable, restaurants, lounges, and maps, etc. of the airport. Even in the menu has links for the dashboard, flight 
details, parking spots, history, etc.

TripIT is the most highly rated app in this category. The focus of this app is organizing the itineraries. This app doesn’t have the hamburger menu as mostly used in other apps. Unlike the distracting feature FLIO provides us about exploring any airport, TripIT restricts the explore feature only to the airports mentioned in the flight bookings.
User Research Insights
  • Food is the most frequent service used at the airport. Although there might be an option available nearby, it still might not be the most desired one. 
  • Getting some rest is the biggest goal for most of the passengers either, lounges, rest areas, or hotels. 
  • Most people are concerned about missing out on the gate changes.
  • ​The tourists aim to notify their loved ones and seek some entertainment on their phones but struggle with connectivity.
  • The product should be able to deliver the information when the user needs it as well as when they want it. 
Affinity Maps
Affinity Maps
Error State Offline
Challenges Faced
  • ​Just the information can't be enough. Knowing what to do is one thing but how to do it is a bigger problem.
  • The real problem was 'How to present the information to users in a way that is easily accessible and assessable?' 
  • Another problem stood up which was 'How to introduce the features to users that they haven’t had seen before?' 
  • The bottom-line, 'How to make users familiar with the system which they don’t know what to expect from it?'
My Solution
  • Knowledge is Power. The idea was to facilitate travelers with information. 
  • The information is available for public access but it's not easily accessible on the same platform. So, the solution was to integrate all the information like the flight details, arrival-departure schedule, airport layout, amenities, etc in one product. 
  • The plan also included having a step by step walkover of the process to assist any intermittent traveler.
​Presenting the best options to the user so that he/ she could get the best out of his/ her time at the airport time is the aim of this project. I applied the user-centered design approach and developed the product based on user requirements.
Explore Offline Mode
Minimum Viable Product

As a traveler, I want to know what can I do at the airport so that I do not get bored when I go through long layovers. ​
User Flow

It is the visual representation of a specific route that the user would have to take, to achieve the goal. User flows helped me to keep the project on track when the design was being prototyped. 
The Red routes i.e. the critical user flows are displayed in the images below.
User Flow: Add trip
User Flow: Destination walk-through 
Guerrilla usability testing

Five participants were randomly selected to perform the guerrilla testing, and the Marvel app helped me in turning the sketches into an interactive wireflow. 
  
The absence of any color or texture to the sketch made it difficult for the participants to identify the hyperlinks. They were able to understand the purpose of the app, and some of them were excited to see the final product.

I discovered some features that weren't overt to the users, and also a few flaws in the design which I worked to amend in the next step.
Marvel app guerrilla testing 
Wireframes

The wireframe is a visual representation of a user interface that helped me to determine how elements would be 
placed on the page without being distracted by the use of colors, graphics, or typography.
Low-fidelity prototype 
                                                   Style Guide
Style Guide
Initial mock-up prototype 
Usability Testing

The goal of this test was to find out if the user could perform the designated tasks such as look up the seat details, add trips, find a way to the connecting flight, find amenities, share ticket details, etc. with ease. 

Most users were unable to track their way to the next boarding gate. Some users had difficulty in sharing the trip details. 

The results and the problems found out from the usability tests were analyzed for designing a newer version of the prototype. ​
Issues and changes according usability testing
Redesigning 

​User Experience designing is an iterative process, and that's what came across while performing this project. I realized that, due to the incorporation of unaccustomed features, users were unable to perform some of the tasks. 

By reworking the insights, I created a new interface that has favorable​remarks. 
Wander app Information Architecture
​The design was well received after the final usability test and had just some minor issues which were solved later. The users were able to perform all the tasks presented to them.
Learnings:

Research Techniques: For this project, I was trying to solve a problem I suffered. Still, to get started I had to collect information and perform thorough research like market research, competitive analysis, user research, and heuristic analysis.

Design Thinking: This was the first major project I worked on using the design thinking process. Along with design thinking, I learned a lot of UX Designing concepts, Visual Design, Typography, and Material Design.

After designing the app for Android, I then went on to designing it for iOS and strengthen my understanding.

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