Explore Bud

Overview

Explore Bud is a hypothetical upcoming startup aiming to revolutionise the way we travel and explore the world.

Using the powers of augmented reality, there’s a digital buddy that becomes your go-to as you navigate the streets of an unknown city, search for landmarks to visit, look for tips about things to do and what to eat, amongst various other features.

User Research Process

Objectives

Research Goals 

• Better understand user behaviour around the activity of discovering activities to do in a new city.

• Better understand the areas / topics users are mostly needing support / advice when discovering a new city.

• Better understand the likes and dislikes with the existing tools used to discover activities in a new city.

Hypotheses

• Users spend too much time on researching activities to do when exploring a new city.

• Users miss attraction points because they don’t have the necessary info real time.

• Users would be willing to book tour guides more to have a better experience of discovery if there were more options available at their own availability and budget.

Methods

We will initially be conducting Generative Research to get a clearer understanding of the problem space. We will do User interviews to get qualitative data and online surveys for quantitative data.

Sample Online Survey Questions:

• How much time do you spend to research things to do in a city?

• How often do you need guidance when you are travelling alone? 

• Which of these is your biggest pain point when discovering a new city? (Finding good food, finding local places etc..)

Key Learnings

~29% of users spend around ‘2 hours’ and another ~29% spend ‘more than 2 hours ’ on researching things to do in a new city. They find it challenging with their busy lifestyles and would strongly prefer not to.

• 85% of users have mentioned that they feel like they are not utilising their trips enough and would like to use a guide if possible but the challenge of finding one and arranging their schedule to the tour guide is a big one.

• 80% of users have mentioned that rating and reviews are the most important criteria to decide to go to a place for food and drinks.

• 60% of users mentioned they need more support to be in control of their environment as they are experiencing neck fatigue because of the time spent on their mobile phones during travel. 45% have mentioned they are not able to seize the moment and live a delightful experience when looking at their phone to find the info they need.

See the prototype 👉

Usability Test

Test Objectives

• Determine if participants understand what the app is about quickly and easily (i.e. an application for finding things to do in a city) and the value it provides. 

• Determine how users feel about interacting with the A.I. buddy. Do they trust it? Do they prefer written or verbal communication?

• Observe how users navigate and find information about things to do in a city. Can they find what they are looking for?

Methodology

Contextual research; e.g. the study will be held at the location (for ex in Berlin) and will be conducted as moderated, in-person tests.

User Scenarios

• You are in a new city and looking for a good place to eat. Start the app and find a restaurant.

• You are discovering the city and would like to see the top attraction points. Find one with the app.

• You want to learn about the history of the attraction point. Find it out.

Next Steps

The usability tests will reveal the usability issues. The issues will be prioritised, and iterations will be done. Once the iterations are done, there will be upcoming usability tests and A/B Tests to evaluate the new designs, to learn and iterate accordingly.