PACKED: A LightWeight Travel Solution

PROJECT OVERVIEW

During the Spring 2022 quarter of my MS in Information Management program, I collaborated with four other graduate students to research, ideate, design, evaluate, and iterate a rental service that saves you the hassle of packing for your trip by shipping the clothes, toiletries, electronics, and activity gear that you want for your destination in just a few steps.

ROLE: UX Researcher & Designer

DURATION: 5 Weeks

TOOLS: Figma, Miro, & Google Suite

MY CONTRIBUTION: conceptual research, card sort, semi-structured interviews, personas, storytelling, concept testing, user & customer journey mapping, think-aloud walkthrough, lean canvas, experience prototyping

Problem space

The process of preparing to go on a trip can be stressful and time consuming, diminishing levels of excitement for the journey ahead. How can we make the process of packing more enjoyable and efficient to create a more memorable travel experience?

value proposition

semi-structured interviews

We used snowball sampling to recruit 7 participants for semi-structured interviews to collect qualitative data about their thoughts, actions, and emotions while planning and packing for travel.

semi-structured interview Insights + draft solution

The semi-structured interviews revealed 4 design insights, listed below, that informed our design direction and validated our hypothesis that an improved packing experience would lead to an overall better travel experience.

Insights from secondary research on travel & packing

Semi-structured interview notes

This lead us to a draft solution of a “no-pack” rental service that provides customers with everything they need for their trip based on provided itinerary details.

Concept testing

After developing our draft solution, we conducted concept tests with 7 participants to validate whether our service would be welcomed by potential customers and also gain more information about what would provide value in an ideal travel package.

Concept testing questions

We discovered that our participants were intrigued by our proposed service and interested in renting items that fell into the categories below:

Things that aren’t easy to carry (i.e. Bluetooth speaker)
Items that aren’t used daily (i.e. Microspike)
Unique clothing

Design solution

After conducting in depth generative research and analysis, our design solution evolved into a rental service that saves you the hassle of packing for your trip by shipping the clothes, toiletries, electronics, and activity gear that you want to your destination in just a few steps.

Digital prototype

The digital prototype is an online platform that builds anticipation & excitement throughout the process of preparing items for users before trip departure. Check out the prototype here.

EXPERIENCE prototype

As a means to collect more feedback on how people feel about Packed in context, we built an experience prototype to emulate realistic aspects of using the service . In doing so we employed the following methods:

Role-playing: One team member played the role of front desk staff giving information on the arrival of the “Packed” service

Use of props: When participants entered the “hotel room”, they saw a suitcase with all the stuff they rented, along with a greeting note and instructions .

Evaluation test plan

We conducted 3 in-person, moderated tests to collect real-time feedback in the contexts of pre-travel & hotel/AirBnB arrival.

Test Plan

Evaluation Results

After completing our user tests and analyzing our data we identified what users liked about our product and service, as well as areas that could be improved.

FINal user flow

Based on the results of the user evaluations, we iterated on our original prototypes, resulting in the following:

Final digital prototype flow

Packed final experience prototype

REFLECTION: what i learned

Experience and usability go hand-in-hand.
It is valuable to prototype “real-life” scenarios when conducting user tests.
It is important to think out of the box while brainstorming for ideas without limitation.
Being open to participant feedback is critical to building increasingly useful iterations.

FUTURE WORK

In order to identify other areas of improvement with the final user flow design, I would like to conduct additional usability tests of this service and digital solution. Furthermore, as concerns regarding environmental impact and sustainability emerged throughout the prototype evaluation period, I would build out a systems map to better understand the broader effects of Packed and delve into secondary research about the development of eco-friendly supply chains.