Raffles Hotel - How Might We encourage guests and visitors to plan and book guided tours
About the project
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The hotel have conducted their own research and it has shown that that users would appreciate guided tours and more information to let visitors learn more about the hotel and neighbourhood.
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The Problem
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Currently no features to allow users to book guided tours
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More information needs to be readily available to know more about partner attraction
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Duration
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1 week to ideate and prototype
My Role
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This was a 2-person team project where a project brief was provided to us to simulate a real life project with stakeholders involved. In this project, we learned and applied the concept of prioritizing features and goals, managing stakeholder expectations and building an MVP
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The Solution
To incorporate a "Local Area" tab to allow users and outside visitors to plan their day by using an interactive map to filter places they would like to visit by distance, type of activity and providing some description of the place to visit. There is also a feature to allow users to book guided tours with the hotel staff.
Feature Prioritization
Reconciling business goals with user needs
The MoSCoW method​ - Focusing on the most immediate needs
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This method involves determining what functions a product should have. The following was ours.
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Must Do include:
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Expand local attractions
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Providing clear and concise information
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Allow users to book activities/rooms seamlessly
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Should Do includes:
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Have a more interactive website
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Have multiple languages for website viewing
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Interactive map to see what's nearby
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Could Do includes:
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Live Chat function with service staff
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Won't Do includes:
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Website cluttering with information and too many promotions
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Many graphics and transitions
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Ideation - Fast & Quick
Fast Ideation
Using Design studio to accelerate design iteration​
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This was an interesting part of the process​ where we utilized a design studio session to iterate in minutes for rough ideas. Although the concept was new to us, it was a fun as we had to try our best to provide constructive criticism instead of giving positive feedback.
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As Ideation is a divergent process, hence carrying out a design studio session helped to "force" us to constrict ourselves to a specific amount of time and avoid spending too much time on ideation. Timeboxing ourselves was a relatively new concept to me as well, so it was an interesting way to manage time and maximize productivity.
Prototyping
Here is the link to the prototype
Mid-fi prototype based on the chosen solution
Interactive map was much more difficult to build than expected
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From the homepage, we renamed some of the pages and included in a new page under "Local Area". This was suppose to be the jumping off point from where the solution begins. This was a part of our efforts in fixing the information architecture to ensure users have a better idea of navigating around which pages to access what information.
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We inserted an overlay for the images where they can act as a "Book now" and "What's nearby" button to lead them to the new pages to instill a cleaner look rather than the existing animations that could slow down the loading speed.
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The "Book Now" button leads to a page where visitors will be able to book package deals that is inclusive of the room and some activities they can do while they stay there as we found that some users appreciate a good packaged deal.
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The "What's nearby" button leads to a page where visitors or hotel guests will be able to look at the activities that is nearby the hotel and they will be able to filter by the type of activity and sort them out by popularity and distance as well. This is not new and is something many users will be familiar to and find useful.
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From the interactive map page, we thought it was a good opportunity to allow users to book a tour with the hotel after exploring the many possible activities and locations they can visit. So why not experience all of it comfortably while the hotel deals with the logistics. They can go to their next destination on the page where they can book the hotel tours.
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The "Local Area" tab from the homepage leads visitors to an overview page where they have the option to explore what's nearby, the package deals that the hotel has to offer, and lastly, there is also an option to allow outside visitors to also book the guided tours with the hotel even if they are not staying there.
User Testing
Casual In-person interview which was unfortunately not recorded
Information architecture was not as straightforward
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The interview was carried out with 3 participants in-person who happens to either be our friends or family members as COVID was posing difficulties for us to connect with others face-to-face. The metrics that we decided to have were thought to be the main things we should focused on with the proposed changes to the site.
From the summarized user testing results below, it showed that users prefer more straight forward naming conventions, and a clearer flow of information and the location of CTAs even though they did appreciate the aesthetic look of the site. The hovering effect was deemed to be quite an influential change that affected how users were able to figure out where to go to as the text will appear only when hovered on. This was a
Hovering effect was aesthetically pleasing
The filtering bar on the What's nearby page was found to be very helpful
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The naming of "Local Area" on the homepage was not clear that it is where they can go to book packages and tours
The pictures on the homepage was confusing for one participant who was wondering why Marina Bay Sands photo was there when it is Raffles Hotel page
It was not noticeable that they could hover on the images to see the overlay
To make all interactions visible on the homepage
The naming should be clear. There should be the word "Tour" for the
guided tour and "Packages" or "Deals" for the packages the hotel are offering
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Challenges and Takeaways
Designing for real users does not necessarily require complex solutions
Possibilities for the next design phases
Naming of pages and the navbar have to make sense to the user and guide them to make the intended actions
Though it did took a bit of thinking for us to come up with a suitable titles, perhaps it was not as complicated as we thought it out to be and simple titles could have directed the users better into taking the action we want them to take.
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Some component functions was used in this project but it does not look like a good MVP (Minimum Viable Product).
We were still using screenshots and some pages, images, and information were not plugged in yet. The next design phase should result in a more complete look and include more information in order to assess if the prototype make a good MVP.
Images displayed without any other visuals are thought to be just plain pictures.
As the resting state of the images looked like just normal "unclickable" images, it was hard for users to tell that there was a hover effect in place.
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This was an interesting takeaway for me because it showcased to me on the importance of usability testing. As we become the person designing the screens, we may be subjected to our bias towards our own designs or this could result in an oversight of such issues.
