Zeit
A new website for a time travel tourism company
The future is now
Zeit has been approved to send travelers to specific historical points to experience past events. There are 20 approved destinations where travelers are allowed to explore in set parameters.
Zeit would like to know what features and services the travelers are looking for on a time travel booking website so that we can make booking experience easy and efficient.
The Goal
Determine what information the travelers need to book a time travel package and find out what support travelers want before and during time travel. Then design the website focusing on what the travelers need.
Pain points
No proper filters and categories for search results
Constraints
Limited database for advanced concept research
Client
Zeit (conceptual)
My Role
UX researcher,
UX/UI designer
Is this real?
Sadly, it’s not.
This was a project I completed for DesignLab’s UX Academy. The client was not real, but the research and design were based on real users’ interviews and research findings. It’s interesting to see how the users react to a completely new thing they have never seen before.
To anyone disappointed, I hope Doc is working on a new DeLorean now.
Empathize
Conduct Interviews
No matter taking a time machine or an airplane, the users still expect to have a smooth booking experience on the website. The first challenge was to find out what information travelers want to see on the website when they book the travel package.
At this phase, I did not reveal this research was for a time travel company, so the users could give me honest feedback about their past experience of booking the travel package.
“The website should have the filter to show what hotels or destinations are family friendly, or the marketing target is for couples, or just groups of friends.”
“I wish there is an option to see what’s the best places to go in different seasons. I like to travel in fall and I think it will be nice to have a section telling me what places I can go.”
“The categories for search results are sometimes really confusing. It seems there are many options, but most of them I really don’t think are important to me, like the hotel names or meal plans.”
“It’s extremely important to know the location of the hotel and neighborhood before booking.”
The interview covered the users’ booking and travel experience in general. Some questions might not be directly related to our goal, but it helped to get insight into what potential we could have for Zeit’s website.
Pains
Booking
Filters and categories are not sufficient for search results
Do not know the neighborhood before booking
Traveling
Transport from airport to hotel after arrival
Does not understand language
No freedom to explore the destination by themselves.
Needs
Booking
Efficient filters and well organized categories for search results
To know the hotel location and neighborhood
Easy cancellation policy
Traveling
Easy to transport from place to place.
Experience the local culture: interacting with residents, having local food, shopping, etc.
Competitor research
Since time travel doesn't yet exist, there are really no direct competitors.
Even though I had the constraints for database research, there were still some companies providing luxury travel experiences, inclusive travel packages, and unique stays. Those companies were good examples for me to see what we could provide to customers.
Findings
The travelers would like to have proper filters and clear categories for search results, so they can easily find the package they want.
Knowing the neighborhood around the hotel is important for travelers.
Define
At this stage, I had an idea what features should be prioritized on Zeit’s website, but to have a clear direction, I needed a job story.
Derrick, my persona for this project, is a busy restaurant owner who loves to travel like everyone else. But he also likes to explore new adventures and discover something he has never seen before.
“I want to discover something new and exciting.”
“I would like to travel in different seasons to discover seasonal fruits and vegs.”
“I hope there are tons of schedules for the travel packages so I can be flexible with my time.”
“When I search a travel package online
I want to easily find somewhere fun and exciting
So I can spend more time arranging my schedule and preparing for the adventure.”
Ideate
So, how might we help Derrick to search the travel package quickly and easily?
After knowing I should prioritize the search filters and categories, I started laying out the feature roadmap which helped me to get a big picture of this website and paint the website layout in my head so I already had some ideas for sketching after.
Sitemap
To understand what categories people prefer to see, I used the card sorting to discover the pattern.
At this phase, the time travel concept was revealed and I created 20 different historical events broadly covering different interests for the participants to sort the travel package categories. It’s fascinating to see how the categories turned out.
Notable Eras
Three Kingdoms Period
Sengoku Period
Jurassic Period
Wild West
Golden Age of Piracy
Entertainment
Mozart's first performance
Beatles’ last public performance
Elvis' last performance
Michael Jordan’s last basketball game
Disco nights at Studio 54
Colosseum fight
Historic Events
Stonewall Riots
Fall of Berlin Wall
Division of Korea
Great Molasses Flood
Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a dream” speech
Battle of Normandy
Mysteries
Flight 19 incident in Bermuda
The lost city of Atlantis
Construction of First Egyptian Pyramid
Task Flows & User Flows
This task flow is different from the normal checkout in other e-commerce websites.
Since the traveler is going to different time eras, Zeit needs to make sure the traveler will not go back to a time or place they have already visited to prevent possible tampering with the future.
To prevent this situation, the traveler will have to create an account and log in before selecting the available date so Zeit can filter out any date the traveler has previously visited.
This unique situation was also reflected in the user flows as well. This was the fun part of this project which is having the situations and challenges we don't have at present time.
Task: Search and book the travel package
You want to search and book a travel package back to the Wild West era and add the extra dining experience and transportation service to your package.
Wireframes
The challenge of the sketches and wireframes was designing the card of the travel package. At the beginning, I wanted to put a lot of information on each card since people would have many questions for this new tour. Like what year are we going? What clothes should I bring? But I found it was too ambitious to have all the info in one small card.
In the end, I decided not to worry about putting that much information at the wireframes stage but keep developing this idea and see what I can do later. Eventually, I used the tag system for the category of cards.
Design
The moment I read about the Zeit project, I knew I wanted the brand to have that cyberpunk feel with an elegant touch.
I sketched different options of the logo from different perspectives. The final logo design is inspired by astrology. Not really related to time travel, but adds an air of mystery.
The overall style is inspired by cyberpunk. The brand image will be full of bright neon colors with a dark background. The overall design concept is also completely reflected in the high-fidelity mock-up.
High-Fidelity Mock-up
Test
See Zeit in action
There were 5 participants who joined the usability testing. Here is the task:
You want to search and book a travel package back to the Wild West era and add the extra dining experience in your package.
Test Findings
Task completion rate
100%
Task error-free rate
100%
The search feature got really good feedback. All participants found the package easily and thought the categories were clear.
But there was one critical suggestion regarding adding the package to the cart. One participant pointed out that the customer should be able to add multiple packages to the cart and review them later. Jumping to review the cart page right after adding the package was not ideal.
Next Steps
For my next step, I should utilize the user’s suggestion by finding a way to add multiple packages to the cart for review.
This project was finished in a really short amount of time so there were a few more pages at the end of checkout still in wireframes when I was doing the usability test. I would like to work on those pages to high-fidelity mock-ups and have a responsive design for all pages in the next steps as well.
Takeaway
This was my first project from start to finish. There are many details still not perfected and there’s much space for improvement.
One thing I learned from this project is there is always a way to listen to users' needs. For now time travel is theoretical but I can still use card sorting to understand what’s user’s preference is. I found it really fascinating and I’m excited to learn more methods in the future.