Trippin'

Team Members:

Miguel Flores

Noel O. Morales

Ruby Tamberino

TA: 

Problem Statement:

Platforms such as Yelp that allow the public to review businesses such as hotels and restaurants provide the modern traveler with more information in planning their itineraries than ever before. The open-forum nature of these sites, however, leaves the user to distinguish for themselves reviews that are reliable and informative from those that are not. A variant of this service that follows more naturally from the way we take recommendations by word of mouth would limit the reviews presented to the user to those written by friends, colleagues, and other “trusted” voices. Sites like TripAdvisor now support logging in through Facebook in order to indicate which travel spots have been reviewed by friends, but such results are often scarce and there is no way to filter based on which places friends have visited. As such there is really no method for users to efficiently glean from a search engine’s entire database a subset of hotels, restaurants, and other establishments visited and recommended by friends. This especially applies when the user is simply looking for things to do in a new city, and doesn’t have specific search parameters in mind.

GR1 Analysis:

User Analysis:

General User Characteristics: 

• Age: 15+ (will be looking at booking a hotel and doing traveling)
• Any gender, culture or language (though application will be in English)
• Any education, physical limitations, or computer experience though the user should reasonably be able to navigate a website.
• Should have a reasonable online friends-network (Facebook)

We interviewed 3 people on-campus that would fall under any of the 3 user classes defined below.  In specific we sought the problems and issues they faced for the current system to determine what to do while travelling.

Business Travelers

Characteristics:

• May visit some places multiple times.
• Makes many trips to a wide variety of areas and places that they may not know.
• Stays there for more than a few days at a time.
• May have housing accommodations set already by company.
• May not know people there.

Problems Faced:

• Must decide what to do and where to visit.  Must discern between reviews.
• "All of the sites have the same things.  It is sometimes hard to find something new to do."

Vacation Travelers

Characteristics:

• Has to decide lodging.
• My have to make plans for family.

Problems Faced:

• Must discern between reviews which are oftentimes conflicting and what is most appropriate for their family.
• May not know people who have previously gone to the same area.

Students (Interviews and College Visits)

Characteristics:

• Makes many visits to various places for short periods of time.  May have the time to visit local areas.
• Generally has accommodations set on campus or in hotel.
• May have many friends who have already visited the same colleges or areas.

Problems Faced:

• May not know what to visit and what is worth visiting during their visit.
• May not know how to prioritize what to put on their "to-do" list.
• "Every is not listed by price.  I want to find the cheapest options."
• "The information must be easily available and get-able. Like looking at it from my phone"

Task Analysis:

Planning ahead

The first task involves a user planning his or her trip (flight, hotel, restaurants, activities, etc.) ahead of time, that is before he or she is actually traveling. A traveler does this in order to establish an itinerary of what to do and where to go on the trip, and so that reservations can be made if need be. Before performing this task the user needs to know when and to where he/she will be traveling, and probably also has a general idea of how much free time there will be during the trip and the kinds of things he/she will want to do. This task was once performed in an office with the assistance of a travel agent or over the phone in communication with various hotels, restaurants, and other establishments, but now almost always takes place via the internet at the user’s convenience. In order to accomplish this task it is likely that the user will make use of several types of websites, including general search engines such as Google, travel search engines like TripAdvisor, user review sites such as Yelp, and vendor websites (AirTran.com, Marriott.com, etc.) as a primary source for booking. The context for performing this task can vary based on how in-advance the traveler is planning. For example if the user is already in the airport but is still planning the details of what to do after his or her flight lands at the travel destination, a mobile device such as a cell phone or tablet may be used in place of a desktop computer. The frequency with which this task is performed varies from user to user based on how often traveling to a new destination is either required for business or made possible for pleasure. Furthermore frequent travelers may be more used to and “expert” at planning trips via the internet than users who travel less frequently. The task of using sites like Travelocity and TripAdvisor is almost inevitably learned through the user hearing of such sites from advertisements or word of mouth, navigating to the site when planning a trip, and exploring the site’s features independently in order to gauge what can be accomplished or gained from the site’s services. Using primary source websites such as Marriott.com to book travel usually arises from the user being directed to the site from a search engine or navigating there directly, at which point (again) the learning process is extremely independent and relies on either the intuitive nature of the site or the user’s familiarity with the task. In performing this task, the most likely failure would entail the user not being able to find the sort of accommodations or activities he/she is looking for, either because he/she isn’t confident in the quality of a given vendor or because a reservation at the desired establishment is not available. There is also the possibility, however, of the user making technical errors such as booking for the wrong dates. This is more specific to the booking process, however, and not our task of deciding where to stay/eat/visit when traveling. Other parties that may be involved in this task include customer service representatives at various travel spots and friends of the user who may be making recommendations.

On the go

The second task involves a traveler who has arrived at their destination (is already on their trip) and has probably already arranged lodging, but is still looking for things to do and activities to pass the time and turns to web content and fellow travelers’ reviews in order to do so. It is likely that this user will not be seated at their computer, but instead will be “on the go” and seeking out points of interest that are convenient to their current location. As such the most important information the user needs includes where he/she will be that day, the kinds of things he/she might be interested in doing, how many travelers will be involved, how much money they have to spend, and how much free time they have. Performance of this task varies based on how specific a user’s criteria is for what they are looking for in the area. For example, one traveler may simply have an afternoon free and want to see or do something interesting, while another may know that he only has two hours free between business meetings and at some point in that slot needs to eat lunch and stop by an ATM. Some users may perform this task iteratively every time he/she wants to find something new to do, while others may do so only a few times (say, when they wake up each morning on their trip) and plan several activities in one sitting. The first class of user will probably need a much simpler and more efficient interface, as he/she may be walking through the city or traveling by rental car while making their plan. This task is learned either “on the fly” after discovering technologies available to help with the planning process or by observing fellow travelers on the trip planning in this way. Errors that could arise in the process include poor planning (such as choosing a restaurant that is too far away or that isn’t open when needed) and selection of an uninteresting/poor-quality activity that isn’t what the user had in mind, based on sub-par information coming from the planning aide. Other individuals involved will almost inevitably include fellow travelers who are accompanying the user on their trip. 

Reviewing

The third task comes after the user has returned from the trip, and wishes to share their travel experience with friends and colleagues in a way that will provide useful recommendations for those who may travel to the destination in the near future. This task will likely be performed at the user’s leisure and without much of a time or resource constraint, if any. It is unlikely that a user would set out to perform this task if he/she did not have ample time and energy to do so. A traveler will be more inclined to review their experience if it was either markedly positive or negative, as they would have little to say if the experience was neutral and/or had little effect on their trip. A user may be more eager to write a review for a given destination if he/she knows that a friend or colleague has plans to visit this city in the near future, because there is a sense that in this context his/her input is in higher demand; this will affect the frequency with which a user chooses to perform this task after returning from a trip. The subtask of writing useful and informative review content will likely be learned by reading and mimicking friends’ reviews, especially those that the user found helpful in planning his/her trips in the past. Use of the review-posting technology itself, however, is accomplished through “learning by doing”. The risk of error for this task is low; what is most likely to go “wrong” is that the user is unable to determine which outlet (Yelp? Facebook? An email thread?) is optimal for reaching the friends and colleagues who are the “target audience” for the review. Other parties who may be involved in carrying out this task include travelers who accompanied the user on the trip being reviewed, and/or individuals who have a preferred method for reviewing travel sites and recommend this method to the user.