TRIPADVISOR CASE STUDY: USABILITY EVALUATION AND SITE REDESIGN

Evaluate an existing product and redesign it to answer the user’s pain points.

Objectives

After choosing a User Type (Backpacker, Young Couple, Family w/ children…) and a destination from the 7 wonders (Pyramids in Egypt, Cristo Redentor in Rio de Janeiro, Machu Pichu in Peru…) my goals for this case study were to:

1. Compare different apps and choose one that answers best my User Type’s needs.
2. Perform Heuristics Usability Test to understand how the app could get even better and highlights frictions for the user.
3. Design a prototype to fix major user’s pain points.

User Type & Destination

Young couple — 20–40 y/o

“You and your partner decide to go to a special place next summer. You realize you have both saved enough for the tickets and are planning to save as much as possible for the next 6 months to do this trip. You want to be efficient and have everything you need organized to enjoy at 100% while there. Even if you’re young, you want to have special moments to celebrate being together.”

Cristo Redentor, Rio de Janeiro

Dominating the city of Rio de Janeiro from Mount Corcovado, the statue of Christ the Redeemer is a true emblem of Brazil. With its 38 meters high and its weight of 1145 tons, one can only feel very small next to this colossal religious sculpture.

Specificities of the destination

• Airport: between the three airports from the city (International airport, Jacarepagua, or Santos Dumont), the International airport seems to be the most convenient if traveling from another country.
• Currency and exchange: the Brazilian currency is the Real. It is very easy to exchange it for dollars or euros in the departure or arrival airport.
• Medical needs: entry in Brazil requires several vaccines including yellow fever, hepatitis A, B, and C, and depending on the destination in the country rabies and typhoid may be necessary.
• Visa: a tourist visa is necessary to enter the country.
• Wardrobe recommendations: for Rio de Janeiro, it is necessary to have light clothes, sneakers but also an umbrella or a cap depending on the rainy season. Also, because some places in the city can be dangerous, it is recommended to pay attention to valuables (jewelry, camera, phone …).
• Days needed to visit attraction: One day is necessary to visit the Cristo Redentor, but in order to enjoy the destination of Rio and the other attractions of the city, it is advisable to stay at least 5–6 days.

Benchmarking & Heuristics Usability Test

Compare: Kayak, TripAdvisor, Skyscanner

In order to choose an application that meets the needs of the type of User Type chosen above (young couple), I compared three websites: Kayak, Skyscanner Engineering, and TripAdvisor.

My research made me notice that those sites do not have the same functionalities. Skyscanner, for example, only allows you to compare flight prices, while Kayak and TripAdvisor allow you to compare flight prices and also discover the attractions of the city.

Since the User Type chose wants to plan this trip efficiently and “have everything needed organized to enjoy at 100% while there”, especially since the couple wishes to be able to “have special moments to celebrate being together”, the app that best meets these needs is TripAdvisor.
It has many features to discover attractions to do and allows to save favorites directly on the site in order to be able to organize the trip.

Now that we’ve chosen TripAdvisor as the app that best meets the needs of the young couple, we’re going to do a Heuristics Usability Test to see how the site could be made even better to organize their trip.

Heuristics Usability Test

Usability and Utility are both important quality attributes that integrate a product experience.

• Utility refers to the design’s functionality. Utility answers the question: Does it do what users need?
• Usability goes deeper into how easy is to use this product. Usability answers the question: does it work how users expect?

In User Interface design, heuristics (as a set of guidelines) help us go through our designs to make sure we are not missing any important functionality. We can use them as a “checklist” to make sure we are creating a great experience for our users.

After the test sessions, those were the findings:

1. Searching for a flight was complicated as they needed to click on several buttons before finding the flight search button
2. .Brand identity is not very recognizable, but all the testers already knew the app so they noticed it was TripAdvisor.
3. Make a list of favorite activities to do at the destination was very intuitive.

Wireframing

Actual home page

I have two recommendations here:

1. Add a “flights” search button (on this page you have to click on “trips” to go on another page and search for a flight) along with others: hotels, vacation rentals, things to do…
2. Strengthen visual identity by fixing the header while scrolling on the pages, so the logo is always at the user’s sight.

Recommended home page

As you can see, I added on the top left the “flights” search button, and while the user scrolls down the page, the header with the TripAdvisor logo is fixed.

This project allowed me to understand the importance of usability testing. It is important for a UX designer to know how to slip into the shoes of his types of users (and be careful not to confuse his own experience with that of the testers).
Also, the best way to show the faults of a site or an app is usually highlighted by the instinctive activities of the tester. As you can see in my example, sometimes it is not necessary to redesign completely the site but by adding one feature or two you can erase the user’s pain points.

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