Revive
A web and mobile app for busy professionals to discover memorable experiences during business trips
Project Type: Website + App
Role: Product Strategy & Design
Challenge
US millennials traveling for business face challenges of:
Lack of time: Difficulty in planning leisure activities before the trip.
Stress during work: Hard to find ways to alleviate stress.
Personal growth: Difficulty achieving personal growth outside work.
Key Question:
How might we help business users traveling for business maximize their travel time and resources to create memorable experiences despite their busy schedules?
Create a mobile app that enables US millennials traveling for business to maximize their travel time and resources, creating memorable experiences.
Develop an intuitive, on-the-go digital experience that seamlessly integrates with their busy schedules.
Objective
Researching the problem space
Understanding Bleisure Travel Trends
What I learned:
Business Travel Prevalence and Patterns:
Business travel is common worldwide, with a significant portion of trips dedicated to work purposes across various regions.
Demographic and Regional Trends:
Millennials are the most engaged in bleisure travel, indicating a preference for combining work and leisure among younger professionals. Managers are nearly twice as likely as non-managers to blend leisure with business during trips.
Understanding Travelers' Preferences and Motivations
What I learned:
Motivations and Preferences for Bleisure Travel:
Business travelers highly value improving work-life balance, adding leisure time to business trips, and believe these opportunities benefit their work performance and well-being.
Key Attributes of a Great Bleisure Destination:
Top bleisure destinations offer good food, beaches, natural sights, and favorable weather. Global business travel is set to recover to pre-pandemic levels and continue growing significantly.
Key findings from market research:
Business travelers need better ways to balance work and leisure. Younger professionals and managers, in particular, seek destinations that offer enriching experiences. There is a strong market opportunity for an app that helps plan and optimize bleisure trips.
Building user empathy
User Interviews
User Persona
Empathy Map
What I Learned:
Integrate Leisure with Work:
Users like Jessica enjoy squeezing in exploration and fun activities between work commitments. The app should facilitate this balance by providing recommendations for leisure activities that can be easily accessed during breaks.
Value-Adding Features:
Adding value to work assignments through leisure helps boost creativity and productivity. Features that blend work tasks with relaxing activities can enhance the overall user experience.
Promote Work-Life Balance:
Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is crucial. The app should promote activities and resources that help users achieve this balance, such as stress-relief exercises, mindfulness tips, and leisure suggestions.
Time Management and Flexibility:
Effective time management and the ability to stay flexible are key challenges. The app should provide scheduling tools, reminders, and adaptable plans to help users manage their time and adjust to changes smoothly.
Key findings from user research:
People engage in bleisure travel to maintain work-life balance, explore new destinations, and enhance their overall travel experience.
Common challenges during the leisure portion of bleisure trips include time management, flexibility issues, and expense management.
Defining Product Strategy & JTBD
Identify Painpoints
Lack of Time for Planning Leisure Activities:
Business travelers often don't have enough time to plan leisure activities before their trips, leading to a less fulfilling travel experience.
Difficulty Alleviating Stress:
It can be challenging to find ways to reduce stress during work-related travel.
Struggle for Personal Growth:
Achieving personal growth outside of work is hard due to the demands of business travel.
Product Vision:
The Revive app is designed for millennials who travel for business and seek a balanced, stress-free travel experience that fosters personal growth. It aims to be a comprehensive travel companion by providing personalized itineraries, prioritizing physical and mental health, and offering unique local experiences.
Key Features
Personalized Itineraries
Revive offers customized itineraries that make effective use of fragmented time, allowing users to maximize their leisure activities despite a busy schedule.
Health and Wellness Focus
The app prioritizes users' physical and mental health by providing access to stress-relief activities, fitness options, and wellness resources, ensuring travelers feel refreshed and rejuvenated.
Local Experience Exploration
Revive provides recommendations for unique local experiences, helping users immerse themselves in the culture and attractions of their travel destinations, making their trips more memorable.
Low-fidelity prototype & Iteration
Home Page V1
Home Page V2
Search V1
Search V2
Usability Testing and Iteration Report: Main and Search Pages
Main Page: Wireframe designs for the main page underwent iterative usability testing with five participants. Each iteration aimed to refine design elements and enhance visual hierarchy.
Findings and Adjustments from V1 to V2:
User Drop-off: It was noted that users tended to lose interest in sections with excessive information. To combat this, information density was reduced.
Call-to-Action (CTA) Clarity: Initially, the CTA was not prominent enough, leading to lower engagement. In V2, the CTA button was emphasized to enhance visibility and click-through rates.
Information on Cards: Feedback indicated that the card information was too sparse. To address this, "X day trip" was added to each card to provide a quick overview of the time commitment, reducing the need for further clicks.
Search Page: Usability testing from V1 to V2 on the search page highlighted key user behaviors and preferences regarding search functionality.
Findings and Adjustments from V1 to V2:
Location Information: Users frequently accessed the card to seek location details and then quickly exited, highlighting the importance of location in decision-making. A map was integrated in V2 to show all search results' locations, providing immediate geographical context.
Filter Usage: Users actively used filters to tailor search results. Recognizing this, filters were made more accessible by placing them prominently at the top of the page, allowing for easier adjustments without leaving the main results area.
High-fidelity Design
Project Reflection
What's Next? After completing the initial round of testing for the Revive app, our focus will shift toward expanding and refining our features beyond the basic minimum viable product (MVP).
Expand Features in V2 & 3: Develop additional modules such as local culture insights and professional networking opportunities.
Conduct Field User Testing: Implement a second round of testing in actual business and leisure environments to pinpoint practical usability issues.
Development Handoff Preparation: Finalize all design elements and functionalities for a smooth transition to the development phase.
What I Could Have Done Better? Reflecting on the development of the Revive app, there are several areas where improvements could have been made to enhance the process and outcome:
Earlier User Involvement: Engaging potential users at an earlier stage could have provided valuable insights that might have influenced the design direction more significantly. Regular feedback loops with a diverse group of travelers could have highlighted specific needs and preferences sooner.
More Rigorous Testing Scenarios: While initial tests were informative, implementing more rigorous and varied testing scenarios could have uncovered additional usability challenges. Simulating a wider range of travel conditions and user behaviors might have given us a broader understanding of the app's performance in real-world situations.
Project Takeaways Tackling the Revive project, I anticipated challenges such as prioritizing essential features and integrating them within the constraints of mobile technology. Also, addressing the unique needs of the bleisure traveler posed additional complexity. Throughout this process, I've gained valuable insights and enjoyed the creative aspect of designing user-centric solutions.
Organize a Clear Project Plan: Managing multiple features and considerations requires a structured approach. Prioritizing immediate needs for the MVP while maintaining a clear backlog is crucial.
Understand Decision-Making Tradeoffs: Recognizing when to employ specific tools or strategies is essential for effective problem-solving and project progression.
Leverage Familiar User Patterns: Reducing the learning curve by using established user interface patterns ensures a smoother user experience, allowing travelers to focus more on their experience rather than navigating the app.
Although the Revive app alone can't fulfill every need of the bleisure traveler, it aims to enhance their travel experience by simplifying access to both business and leisure resources, encouraging richer engagement and providing a platform for global professionals to connect and share. This project reaffirms the role thoughtful design plays in fostering community interaction and supporting sustainable travel habits in today's interconnected world.