Overview

Kuoni is a travel agency you can click here to view their website. It offers the “tailor made” travel experience on hand with a Travel Expert’s assistance. During the briefing, Kuoni requested some features such as: managing and accepting a quote, managing and editing a booked trip, and a chatbox, to ease communication between travel agents and customers.

Client: KUONI

Timeline: + 100 hours

Challenge

The challenges I faced during this project were understanding how to simplify the whole booking a trip experience. There are several things that people need when booking a trip, such as flights, hotels, transportation, and activities. And the feature I designed covers all those aspects.

Role: UX|UI Designer and Researcher

Tools: AI (Artificial Intelligence), Sketch, Anima, Craft, Invision, Paper & Pencil, Font Ninja. *I’m working on transferring my prototype to Figma since Invision will no longer work starting 2025.

EMPATHIZE

Goal

Learn what sort of communication Kuoni’s customers expect (if any) when booking a trip online with a travel agent’s personal assistance.

Research Questions

• Do users expect live chat?

• In what context are people booking trips? When, where and how?

Methodology

• Market Research: Learn what other travel agencies are doing regarding online communications with their customers. Also learn what they aren’t doing but customers expect to get.

• 1:1 Interviews: Get the inside scoop of what potential customers expect communication-wise with a travel agent.

• Usability testing: To confirm if lo-fi prototype is effective.

Learning from the Experts

After doing some primary research by interviewing a travel agent, and secondary research, there’s an assumption I made and was able to prove incorrect:

Travel agencies are obsolete and nobody uses them.

It turns out that travel agencies aren’t obsolete, they have decreased over the years, and they have adapted. Their main niche is honeymooners, corporate travel, cruises.

According to Deborah (travel agent), her main customers are people from ages 18 and up. She works mostly with trips to Europe, and the reason customers come to her is because she’s very accommodating, she’ll give them the option to meet wherever they want and even meet them at their house.

Learning from User’s Perspectives

I also did some 1:1 Interviews with people from 30 to 60 years, and this is where one important assumption was uncovered:

Customers need a chatbox to communicate with travel agents.

According to all my interviewees, whenever they need online assistance, they don’t use a chatbox, they prefer communicating via phone calls or emails. They think it’s more convenient, the advantage of a phone call is that you can solve issues in a fast way plus it adds a personal touch, and emails let them move on with their day.

The main goal of interviewing people was to learn how did they usually book their trips, in what context they took the time to review trip details and finally where did they usually take the time to book a trip, and what device they use for which type of activities.

Empathy Map

Before I jumped into sketching, I took a little step back and decided to organize important findings from the 1:1 Interviews and Market research. I sorted them out by what people are Thinking, Feeling, Doing, Saying, Wanting, Needs and Frustrations. This Brainstorming Session really helped clear my mind and left me ready to begin sketching, knowing what needs to prioritize.

Users need a way to communicate with travel agents, but according to them, a Chatbox isn’t a desirable feature, the majority of my interviewees mentioned their primary instinct when contacting a travel agent is a more personal approach, such as a phone call or sending an email, to be able to move on with their day.

Who are Kuoni’s Users?

I discovered there were two types of Personas:

• People who are in their late 40’s and older, who already trust their travel agent, they’ve built a relationship over the years, and just want to focus on enjoying their trip without having to plan it. Plus they know they might get a better deal using a travel agent’s services.

• The second Persona is younger, who wants the Travel Agent’s knowledge and experience, to get the “local experience” they’re not interested in going to the most popular places, they just want to feel like they actually live in the place they’re visiting.

Meet Paul and Ashley!

Paul relates more with the first persona I described while Ashley is the second persona.

Paul appreciates a good 1:1 session, he prefers direct contact, and communicating via phone, he’s sort of “old school” and likes things done quick. In the other hand, Ashley wants to travel to a different country, but she doesn’t know the language, that’s why she decided to get a travel agent’s help.

Storyboard

I did a storyboard using my User persona Paul Stevens as a reference. He was feeling down while working, stumbled into a friend’s Instagram picture and experienced a little bit of travel envy, and he decided to go on vacation to a place he’s never been before. But he know he’d like to have a Travel Expert’s assistance, he logs into Kuoni’s website, fills out an Enquiry form with his trip expectations/wishlist; afterwards he receives a call from

Sandra, his travel agent, they have a talk about the trip, he then receives a quote where he can make his selections either using his computer of smartphone, then approves it. Finally, he makes it! He’s arrived to New Zealand, and takes an awesome selfie to post on Instagram to spread some more of that travel envy.

DEFINE

Sitemap

The sitemap was a pretty straight forward process, since this was an already existing website, I included the feature I was designing, which can be found in MYKUONI section..

IDEATE

Sketching

Out of all the projects I’ve done, this is the one that took me the most time for sketching, instead of taking a couple of days, it took me a week. But, I had very precise, detailed sketches, that helped speed up the wireframing process. The feature I added is located under MYKUONI, after a customer

has created an account, they can request a quote by filling out important information about their trip, and afterwards, they’d receive a call from a travel agent, wanting to know more and finally receiving a quote for them to approve.

Web Sketches

Mobile Sketches

When thinking about how to manage the Enquiry form for mobile, I first made a very long form on one screen, which seemed non user friendly, I then redesigned it, in 3 steps/screens. Which focused on Personal Information, Trip Information, and Trip details. I also used a progress bar to let them know in what step they were, and how many more they had to go.

For the booking and quoting process everything stayed pretty much the same, that way users won’t have to struggle learning how to use the mobile version of the website.

DESIGN

Responsive Hi-Fi

I experimented using Sketch plugins to help out with the responsive design layouts, there was a learning curve, but I finally got a hang of it. I used Anima, the advantage of this is that it would be a real time saver when switching viewports.

Applying Design Guidelines

Creating a UI Kit for this project was easier because they already have an established brand and logo, I just followed their style and took it into consideration when designing new components such as progress bars and icons.

USABILITY TESTING

I conducted a usability test with a High Fidelity prototype, with 5 participants ages ranging 25-46 years.

BOTTOM LINE

It was a successful test, 5/5 participants completed the assigned tasks.

HI-FI PROTOTYPE USABILITY TESTING TASKS

1. Being able to contact Kuoni to get a quote about a trip you’d like to plan. 

2. Being able to manage and approve a quote. 

3. Being able to review and manage a booked trip.

Some of the challenges participants encountered:

• Unable to click CTA “Email Agent” button that wasn’t active.

• Trying to click the progress bar to switch categories.

• A glitch with a CTA to send an email.

REFLECTION

In conclusion, sometimes what the customer is asking for not necessarily aligns with what research shows is needed, in this case it was the Chatbox, Kuoni thought that a chatbox would help their customers communicate better with their travel agents, but according to what research showed when conducting 1:1 Interviews, non of the participants had used or found useful a chatbox, there are other ways to reach out which they thought are better.

Such as email and phone call. I had also made some assumptions such as thinking that Travel Agencies are obsolete, but after doing research, I learned that yes they are fewer than they used to, but the ones that adapted, did it by meeting their customer’s needs. Offering accommodations such as meeting customers in their home, sending travel itineraries online, and offer that expert insight that customers seek for.