Urban Exploration | User Research

OBJECTIVES

  • Understand the motivations, struggles, and strategies of young adults traveling around cities

  • Identify the current role digital platforms play in travel experiences, as well as opportunities to enhance future travel experiences

  • Draw insights to guide development of a mobile app promoting discovery of local attractions

TIMELINE

February 2024 - April 2024 (9 weeks)

METHODS

UX Research, Qualitative Interviews, Thematic Analysis & Coding, Affinity Diagramming, User Journeys, Personas

CONTEXT

Research for SI 422: Usability Needs and Evaluation

ROLE

Lead UX Researcher + Designer

RESEARCH PROCESS

I began by conducting 30 minute interviews to gauge general approaches to urban exploration. For my recruitment process, I outlined inclusion and exclusion criteria to select college students ages 18-22 from varying backgrounds who have visited two or more cities in the past year for leisure.

2 male, 3 female, n = 5

These potential participants were screened further to ensure they approached travel with a sense of self direction.

This assumption was made based on indications of a preference for navigating on foot and foregoing preplanned vacation packages. Consistent access to the Internet and frequent mobile device use was confirmed as well.

I asked participants about their travel background, general travel preferences, and travel app usage, and guided them through a generative mapping activity of an approach to a previous trip experience.

AFFINITY DIAGRAMMING

I established 4 codes to sort my data by. This made it much easier to pinpoint common patterns among my data. When I began to notice recurring themes, I determined data saturation had been reached — codes are bolded and numbered below.

I then created an affinity diagram as I began to sort each subset of coded data further. Each color in the diagram denotes the ideas of a different participant (purple = P1, pink = P2, blue = P3, teal = P4, yellow = P5)

  1. ACTIONS - neutral experiences or actions taken

    Ex: I chose Restaurant X to eat at because it was heavily advertised at the airport

  2. BEHAVIORS - neutral behaviors described

    Ex: When deciding on a travel destination, affordability is the most important factor I consider

  3. PAIN POINTS - negative behaviors or experiences

    Ex: I experienced drinks of poor quality on my second night out at Club X

  4. SUCCESSES - positive behaviors or experiences

    Ex: Having a friend who spoke Language X helped us out when attempting to navigate the public bus system

PERSONA IDEATION

JOURNEY MAPPING

INSIGHTS

Together, the persona and the journey map provide a full picture of the knowledge I have gained about my target audience. I aggregated the data produced from my affinity diagram to create a persona that accurately reflected common traits among my interviewees, summarizing what they had in common.

This persona indicates that the average young traveler makes travel plans around their current finances, enjoys the new adventures and companionship that traveling offers, wants to know where the locals go, and also wants more information on places they visit before they visit.

The journey map walks the hypothetical persona through the explicit steps an average young traveler would take on a trip to a major city. At each stage, both emotional level and cognitions are documented.

Pain points can be identified at the “research” and “experience” stages, where it is common for student travelers to struggle as they sort through online reviews and recommendations or face consequences of arriving at a destination without all necessary information.

As I enter early product development, I will focus on these pain points when making design decisions and look towards indicated successes as I brainstorm solutions.

REFLECTION

Limitations may be found in the perspectives represented in my interviews. Higher income brackets are represented by those who were interviewed, as various participants were international and out-of-state students at Michigan. This may mean that travel frequency, financial concerns, and the types of places visited differ from those students who come from low or medium income backgrounds. To correct this bias, a continuation of my research would involve interviews with those from a more diverse set of backgrounds.