Revolutionising Travel: Shaping User Behaviour for Sustainable Tourism
A one of a kind travel app to help travellers discover destinations with Unique Selling Proposition(USP) of providing eco-friendly 🌱 travel options to reduce carbon foot print
App name / Client
EcoTrip (Concept Product)
My Role
Senior UI/UX Designer
Industry
Travel & Tourism
Platform
Web app (used Figma tool)
Problem
Be a solo-trip, family vacation or a business one, the travel industry is seeing a surge in the number of travellers and the frequency of travelling too. While this is a good factor for economic growth, the emissions from travel, stay, food that’s served on the plate, production of waste, etc., add to the rise in carbon emissions or the so called greenhouse gases.
To put, “How Might I 🤔 shape user behaviour to adopt and practice sustainable travel options?"
Why? The Purpose
A 2018 study revealed that tourism contributes 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. As travellers often switch between multiple apps for booking travel, accommodation, and activities, the need to guide user behaviour toward ➡️ sustainable choices is more crucial than ever. Despite the growing focus on eco-friendly practices, most platforms fail to offer integrated, sustainable options that promote responsible tourism.
Business Goals
| Category | How to achieve |
|---|---|
| Leader in the market | Offer a compelling and practical tool that stands out in the competitive travel app market with unique concept that provides sustainable travel solution to travellers along with carbon offsetting services to reduce carbon footprint. |
| User engagement and retention | Create an engaging platform by providing sustainable travel options along with carbon offsetting services. This increases user satisfaction and encourages repeated use. |
| Partnership opportunities | Collaborate with local businesses that practice sustainability to offer exclusive deals and discounts to users. This enhances product offering and mutual benefits. |
| New revenue streams | New businesses opportunities unveil by collaborating with organisations that work towards carbon offsetting projects that directly contributes to carbon reduction. |
| Market expansion | With growing eco-tourism, the product’s focus on sustainable travelling might easily cater to users who prefer to travel in sustainable way to international destinations also. This expands its market reach and increase its user base (this is considered for future versions of the product and not for MVP). |
Solution Impact
- Social good: Supporting local communities and promoting cultural exchange through the discovery of hidden and lesser-known destinations.
- Local economy boost: Tie-ups with the local businesses and communities encourages the locality to adopt sustainable practises and boosts their economy.
Research
Competitor Analysis
| Product name | What | How it works? | Provides sustainable options | Itinerary planner | Measures(1), tracks(2) and offsets(3) carbon emission |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Responsible Travel | Website | Service providers of tourist operators. | To some extent | Pre-defined day-to-day itinerary | Only (1), (2) |
| Green Traveller | Website | Eco holiday informational blog. | Yes | Only recommendations provided | None |
| Klook | Application | Travel activities and services booking platform. | No | Pre-defined day-to-day itinerary | None |
Insights
Based on the competitor analysis, I have pulled down the key focus areas I want to address to solve the problem:
User Needs Meet Business Goals
User Personas
With the problem that I want to solve, the business goals that I want to meet and the key areas that I consolidated to focus from the competitor analysis, I have considered the below user persona for the MVP version of the app to proceed with ideation phase:
Structuring the Information
I came up with the below information structure for my app with the key focus areas in-line with business needs. I also had list down the details of how I want to approach the net carbon information for every trip the user books in the app.
Wireframes
Sketching Possible Ideas
With a clear high-level concept, I created quick sketches to outline the essential information users need as they navigate between pages to complete their trip bookings. These sketches served as a foundation, guiding the design process as I refined them into high-fidelity mockups, with careful attention to the overall look and feel of the UI.
Key Decisions
- Designed the application for desktop screen sizes to get better at designing desktop interfaces.
- Converted the side navigation drawer to top navigation bar to make use of the screen space for interactive map view considering that the app is not going to scale for more than 3- 4 navigation pages in the future.
- Integrated AI with the itinerary planner feature to suggest the most efficient routes that prioritise a lower carbon footprint.
Designs
I designed high-fidelity mockups for 14 screens covering the 3 key features 🌟 as part of the MVP version for the user persona that I have chosen. I started with pen and paper sketches, iterated through low-fidelity before designing high-fidelity mockups.
I have also conducted heuristic evaluation test for one of the feature with a small group of people to understand about how they have interpreted the carbon emission information put in terms of "Kilograms of CO2 burnt" and the insights were surprising.
Insights from heuristic evaluation study
- The criteria "Match between system & real world" failed. The key reasons:
- Not everyone were able to interpret the amount of emissions their trip contributed when presented in terms of "Kilograms of CO2 burnt" as it did not convey what is impacted because of it.
- A few users were curious to know what it means to burn "X Kg of CO2" & used Google to understand what the equivalent impact is.
- Not everyone were able to interpret the amount of emissions their trip contributed when presented in terms of "Kilograms of CO2 burnt" as it did not convey what is impacted because of it.
After quite some exploration
Based on the findings from the evaluation study & some exploration I have framed the information to represent the carbon emission impact in terms of the number of trees saved/lost for the sustainability scoring feature.
And the results were quite amazing, as users understood what is being impacted, how much of trees they were able to save/lose in their eco-friendly trip compared to a conventional ones.
Visual Design Components
1. Exploring the Destinations
2. AI's Magical Itinerary
3. Sustainability Focus
4. Measure, Track and Offset Carbon Emission
Psychology Behind Design
Curious to know what psychological facts I used behind my designs that impacts the UX? Click here