Design Researcher
Traveloka
"I was one of the key researcher for this project, executing an extensive research process from planning research to ideating. Our insights contributed to a 20% increase in user acquisition.."
Project Background
As travelers' needs change, they have started to look beyond traditional travel methods. These varying needs define an individual's approach to travel, influencing decisions made throughout the journey, from planning the trip to choosing accommodation, and setting expectations for their stay. Seeing this opportunity, it is imperative for Traveloka to tap into non-hotel areas, requiring us to delve into the interlink between the needs of suppliers and end-users.
Design Approach
Knowing that our knowledge in this field is still lacking, it is vital to uncover uncertainties, identify potential problems, and seek opportunities. Since no preliminary research had been conducted before, the team decided to execute exhaustive on-field research in addition to desk research. This will help us observe and build a solid understanding of non-hotel accommodations.
My Contribution
As a design researcher, I assist the team in conducting fundamental research. I'm heavily involved in each research steps such as : strategizing research scope, executing respondent screening, crafting research tools (sacrificial concepts, card sorting, wireframes), running on-field studies, conducting interviews, concept testing, synthesizing and building report.
Issues
Travelers have their own set of expectations when staying at accommodations, yet these expectations differ amongst types of non-hotel accommodations. Most of the time, standards are flexible based on the kind of place they’re staying. This flexibility, however, makes travelers prone to disappointment when staying at a place that doesn’t meet their expected standards.
Insights and Opportunities
Travel is incredibly complex, but travel modes help us to comprehend. Identifying these modes beforehand help us to find patterns from our findings and prioritize our efforts.
Results
At the end of our research, we developed design principles to guide our brainstorming of concept solutions. I helped communicate these principles and proposal concepts to the Traveloka Accommodation team and co-created concept solutions with them. Our reports became an essential foundation for developing their future product features.
Impact
Challenges
Due to cultural and economic reasons, local homestay owners in rural areas tend to position themselves below their guests. This makes them reluctant to mingle with travelers and obstructs the shadowing process. I tried to solve this by clarifying our intention to learn and be more involved in their daily activities, encouraging them to open up.
They tried to avoid negative statements that could make their place look bad because they knew I came from the partner-side (OTA). Given these circumstances, I had to double-check their answers during the interview by asking clarifying questions.
Since I had to move from one place to another, it was challenging to keep all of the research artifacts together. To avoid this, I conducted a mini synthesis after each interview by quickly jotting down every interesting finding on post-its. This was beneficial as it prevented us from losing critical pieces of information and we didn’t have to review each of the artifacts again during our final synthesis.
Learnings
I was somewhat new to the travel industry when I embarked on this project. It was discouraging because I couldn't envision the process we should undergo. However, I soon realized that it's okay not to know everything at first, as long as everyone is aligned with the same goal. If we have clear goals, the appropriate process will follow.
Always keep them informed about the process to avoid misalignment and facilitate decision-making. When possible, involve them in a design activity and let them talk to the end users. This will give them a greater sense of ownership and empathy, which will help us secure buy-in more quickly.
✦ Design Process
We conducted a dedicated learning session with related stakeholders to determine how the adaptation of various efforts in developing alternative accommodations had been made and their current concerns. In the end, we came up with some follow-up questions that we need to answer through research. These research questions will determine what kind of investigation or methodology we need to conduct to answer them.
To gain a better understanding of the current stay experience, we decided to undertake an immersion trip as it provides insights that the team can't obtain from desk research alone. We split the team into three different cities and spent several nights staying at local homestays. At this phase, I traveled to Vietnam to research the spectrum of best-case accommodation. I pretended to be a customer and visited several homestays to observe their service. I also joined a one-day Airbnb experience to immerse myself in what makes a great travel experience.
Immersion Tools
We created simple tools to help us collect data daily. At the end of each day, we would do quick daily recap based on the data that we’ve gathered.
We switched gears to examine the wants and needs of travelers. We aimed to understand their entire journey, focusing on their stay experience, including their accommodation needs and overall experience. Through this, we sought to uncover critical touch points, or moments of truth, that occur throughout their stay.
After understanding the travelers’ actual needs during their stay, we talked to some property owners to close the gap and identify opportunities for service providers.
After collecting all the necessary data from the research, we spent several days organizing our documentation and jotting everything down on post-its. Here, we attempted to make sense of our findings, delve deeper, and identify patterns among the data to develop meaningful insights. We used 2 main frameworks to organize the scattered information: affinity mapping and user journey mapping to help us identify potential areas of pain points. Our goal was to uncover new opportunities to explore.
Together with our stakeholders, we conducted brainstorming sessions to generate ideas from opportunity areas. We encouraged our stakeholders to actively participate in each round to align with their business vision. From these sessions, we developed some concept ideas that we would present to our users for feedback and improvements.
After synthesizing feedback from both workshops and concept testing, we took time to iterate and finalize the concepts based on the insights gathered. Then, we sat down with our stakeholders to strategize and prioritize solutions aligned with their business goals, using frameworks to facilitate the discussion. Once our stakeholders reached an agreement on the solution, we detailed the final concepts in a research report and handed it over to them.
✦ Team Credits
Special shoutout to our design leads, Edmund Goh and Stephanie Lukito, for their guidance and amazing leadership that made this project a great success. To our project lead, Dahlia Kuwatly, for setting a great example on how to conduct proper research. Also, to my fellow researchers, Rajiv Ibrahim, Christian Aryanda, and Cornelius Vito, for their brilliant minds and great teamwork that made things much easier!