UX CASE STUDY AND WEBSITE DESIGN
An untapped opportunity
(LAUNCHING SOON)
BACKGROUND AND CHALLENGE
Unlock a world of opportunities
As the COVID-19 pandemic was forcing consumers to stay indoors, businesses are slowly moving their goods and services to web only and adopting remote work strategies. Digitalization is changing the way people live, work and travel, this has opened up new opportunities for businesses to compete in the global tourism market.
Highly visited countries in Africa have small businesses that don’t have an online presence nor the knowledge on how to gain exposure for locals and tourists, thus causing stress to the business owners and entrepreneurs.
PRODUCT OVERVIEW
Chalé is a responsive business directory and travel booking platform. This will connect travelers to local businesses, events and attractions and enable users to book and plan their trip to explore in the countries of Africa.
STYLE GUIDE
ROLE
User Experience Designer
Web designer
MY RESPONSIBILITY
Redesign current website concept for website relaunch
Iterate user journey and flows
Low & high fidelity prototyping
Conduct user research, user testing and studies
Implementing a design system to ensure consistency and efficiency.
TOOLS ⚒️
Figma
Miro
Photoshop
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
What makes this website unique from the other travel sites?
Well.. Have you seen any travel booking websites that acts like yelp and especially focuses on showcasing small businesses in Africa?
Yea, me either..
African businesses are not as visible on google due to search engine optimization. Some of the most crucial elements of SEO marketing are the use of keywords, the type of content, and search engine marketing. Unfortunately because of this, the businesses that may have a website do not have the opportunity to be more visible that may help attain more traffic into their shops.
After comparing a few companies representing both direct and indirect competition, Chalé has the opportunity to fill a few of gaps in the travel market. Since Yelp is not available in Africa, it will act as a directory for businesses but also be a travel booking site similar to Kayak and Tripadvisor.
The focus was to review design styles and service offerings between the three platforms.
RESEARCH ANALYSIS
The main concern for Chalé is to assist with the exposure of small businesses in high traffic countries in Africa.
While also realizing how big of a market Africa is, I’ve chosen to focus on the country of Ghana.
Ghana registered around 623.5 thousand international tourist arrivals in the country.
EARLY INSIGHTS & DISCOVERY:
Entrepreneurs from small businesses cannot afford services from big companies such as Tripadvisor or pay for services to maintain websites.
Yelp does not operate in Africa, therefore cannot be used by business owners.
Businesses in Ghana are not as visible on google due to search engine optimization.
Other travel directory websites are straight to the point and don’t require too many steps.
USER RESEARCH
Questions asked - to travelers/tourist
Have you ever traveled? What was your experience like?
Where do you usually look when you want to book a vacation outside of the US?
What type of experience do you look for when looking to travel internationally?
How did you find things to do on previous trips?
Questions asked - to business owners
Are you a business owner? What business do you own? Tell me about it
What is the most important thing for you when it comes to your business?
How do you advertise your business?
Do you have experience marketing your business internationally to people?
USER JOURNEY MAP
LOW FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
The low-fi wireframe below is currently being used for user testing prior to finalizing high fidelity mockups.
Five participants were asked to complete core tasks within the prototype in order to obtain enough feedback to use for the next step of design iterations.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Currently
User testing low fidelity mockups
Iterate designs & prototypes
Pass off designs to developer to begin building the site.
Thank you for reading!
Stay tuned!
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