Designed a local food-based native app for Lonely Planet. Allowed travellers to have a shared authentic experience with local hosts by only covering the grocery cost.
The project was part of a 9-week long course on User Experience Design and Content Strategy under the guidance of Irene Prereyra (Co-Founder of Anton & Irene), who was the main stakeholder in the project.
Our team proposed Local Cook, a local food sharing experience app. We began with user research: analysed the Lonely Planet ecosystem and its competitors. It led us to create the information architecture, features & functionality matrix and finally the wireframes. To simulate real world projects, we went through intense review iterations and presentations to refine our product. Ultimately our product not only had the best user experience but it also seamlessly integrate into the lonely planet ecosystem.
First, we looked at travel habits of Gen-Z-ers and Millennials. We conducted interviews with 25 travellers at youth hostels and popular hangout spots. The questions were open-ended, inquiring information such as ¨How did you get inspired where to go and what to do?¨, ¨How did you make a plan?¨and ¨How did you keep and share your memories?¨
The results showed the prevalence of “food”, a theme that more than 80% interviewees mentioned. Interviews synthesis and analysis led us to 4 main pain points regarding finding food during travel: 1) Food is the second highest priority on a trip in terms of spending, 2) There are too many restaurant options, leading to a decision fatigue, 3) It is hard to find the authentic food options that only locals know about, 4) Language barrier poses a problem when ordering food.
We mapped out Lonely Planet’s ecosystem of products and services into 3 phases: Pre-Travel, During Travel, and, Post-Travel. In Pre-Travel phase, people get inspired and plan their trip. We further broke the category down to activities-based subcategories including: choice of destination, trip related research and some booking activities. In During Travel phase, people use the products to book, find activities, food and accommodations, and connect with other travellers as well as locals. The Post Travel phase is related to social media usage to share experiences and leave reviews.
Discovering food goes into the During Travel phase. Our research suggested that there are already many products on recipes and guides book, of which we did not want to produce another redundant product. Fortunately, there is a gap to fill since the previous products were all providing static content, written by editors who didn’t relate to the ever changing needs and wants of Gen-Z backpackers. Our research indicated that Gen-Z travellers were looking for more authentic traveller to traveller connections. We found our business opportunity within this gap. With this strategy, travellers would be able to use the app their during travel, but also post travel for sharing and pre-travel to get inspired.
We looked at various competitors of Lonely Planet and Local Cook. We created a summary of strengths and a summary of weakness for all the competitors on few parameters like Onboarding experience, Navigation Patterns, User Engegement, Offline Access, Depth and different types of user profiles.
We condensed all the competitors to 2 mains categories - Experiences & Cooking Classes. With all the analysis we came up with fours main points to stand out -
1. Secure Platform
2. Authentic Experiences
3. Budget Friendly Alternative
4. User Friendly Design
From all the user interviews and research we created 3 mains personas for our concept. They are -
The Social Traveller - Saves money before any trip and plans beforehand because the budget depends on how much he can spend. Most important is food places & asks people at hostel about local food places and tries some of them, but doesn't have enough budget to taste as much as he wants to. Tries to save money on food and has his own methods. Has good breakfast and then cook food for lunch or dinner at the hostel.
The aspirational cook - Long-term traveller. She generally works in the places she travels because wants to give back to that community. Prefers locals' recommendations for food. Tries to learn the cuisine of the place she is staying, but cooking lessons are generally too expensive for her to afford.
The budget foodie - Saves money before any trip and plans beforehand because the budget depends on how much he can spend. Most important is food places & asks people at hostel about local food places and tries some of them, but doesn't have enough budget to taste as much as he wants to. Tries to save money on food and has his own methods. Has good breakfast and then cook food for lunch or dinner at the hostel.