Fleeps
Market Research
Stakeholder Interview
Where
Basel, Switzerland
Role
What
Team
Three Designers
Project Type
Client Project
Duration
Three Weeks
We -as three free spirit travel lovers- believe in improving the way people explore the world, driven by a vision to provide users a personalised and seamless travel experience.
What is Fleeps?
(Not your typical travel platform)
Personalized Experience
Fleeps is a travel platform dedicated to redefining how people explore the world, promoting authentic, off-the-beaten-track adventures that transform ordinary journeys into extraordinary and unique experiences.
Expert Travel Creators
You can discover the best experiences with Fleeps as you are connected with passionate "Travel Creators" who offer personalized recommendations based on their firsthand knowledge of global destinations.
Market Research
The online travel industry was expected to grow in 2023 compared to the previous year. In 2022, it was around 475 billion U.S. dollars, and they thought it would go up to more than 521 billion in 2023 and even hit over a trillion dollars by 2030.
Despite the sharp increase, the market size of tourism worldwide remained below pre-pandemic levels, totaling around two trillion U.S. dollars in 2022. As forecast, this figure is expected to rise to nearly 2.29 trillion U.S. dollars in 2023, surpassing the peak reported in 2019.
Problem Discovery
Business Painpoints
Search
The team’s main goal is helping the user find the perfect creator by enhancing the discovery of relevant information.
Content
Current styles to present content, make the platform less engaging and appealing for both creators and end users.
Booking
The current booking system doesn’t provide confirmations to users, causing confusion and lack of trust.
So how can we discover people? I mean, right now we have this usual things with like filters and, and just like buttons and everything.
Quentin, Developer
Current booking is just painful. Users don’t know and we don’t know either if the request has been processed or not.
Timothée, Co-founder
Design Goals
Better Discovery
Develop a system that optimizes the discovery of creators and presents them in the most favourable manner that helps them to be discovered easily.
Better Presentation
Improve the presentation of the pages and present the content in more user-friendly way to increase the interaction within the platform.
Better Booking
Create a new booking procedure aims enhancing the overall user and travel creator experience, streamlining the process for both parties.
Competitor Analysis
Worldee
User experience and interface get cut in the middle of the journey because of the lack of CTA buttons and transparent navigation.
Thatch
Does not offer a effective way to promote creators. This makes difficult connect and engage with them and their offerings.
Fora
Offers cohesive navigation, a structure and a strong social proof, providing a secure decision-making experience.
Quantitative Research
Google Forms
82 participants
Challenges That Users Face
Unclear information
80%
Search filters
45%
Lack of recommendations
36%
Lack of options
27%
Interest In Using the Travel Personalized Platform
Not interested
1
2
3
4
5
Very interested
4.1
Importance of the Visibility of Travel Advisor
3.0
Not important
1
2
3
4
5
Very Important
Importance of Reviews and Ratings
4.0
Not important
1
2
3
4
5
Very Important
Important Search Filters for the Users
Budget range
90%
Activity preferences
82%
Destination flexibility
71%
Transportation options
56%
Group sizes/companions
36%
Language preferences
11%
Qualitative Research
User Quotes
The information is overwhelming and lacks relevance. I am not sure about going further.for the booking.
Darleene
The profiles lack the credibility. I desire more visual elements, I want to believe in their profiles and expertise.
Betty
I'm looking for a more personalized experience. For now, I loose the context and easily get lost.
Marteen
We conducted a usability testing of the existing platform as part of our qualitative research. This approach gave us a better understanding of pain points and a chance to observe user feelings and behaviours.
Existing Homepage
“How do I know which one to pick?”
Existing Creators Page
“I thought those cards as clickable destination cards. But not.”
Research Synthesis Shows That;
Wrong focus
Fleeps' website primarily spotlights travel creators, overlooking the traveler's experience.
Drop in Engagement
This leads to a lack of personalization, reduced wanderlust inspiration, and decreased user engagement.
Effects on Revenue
It adversely affects both user confidence in their choices and the revenue generated for travel creators on the platform.
Meet Our Persona: Aria!
Adventurer Aria
The free spirit traveler
33
Female
France
Open-minded
Adventurous
Passionate
Independent
I want to explore new places and discover hidden gems through experienced travelers.
Bio
Aria always wanted to explore places off-the-beaten-path and go on exciting adventures. As much as she likes to travel with friends, she also values the time spent alone during holiday. She doesn't know much about her destination and needs some inspiration to feel comfortable taking action. She also doesn’t have much time on her hands and doesn't know of any information sources that could offer her the answer to her concerns.
Goals
To have a well-structured trip
To minimize time spent on trip planing
Learn about destinations from first-hand experience
Needs
Personalized itinerary suited to her needs
New inspiration about her upcoming trip
Behaviors
Spends around two and a half weeks on trip planning, including finding accommodations.
Seeks guidance and suggestions for activities
Values reviews and comments from others
Strives for a balance and flexibility in travel plans
Frustrations
Procrastination, especially in trip planning
Concerns about safety in certain areas
Uncertainty on what to do in a new place
Missing truly secret spots
Time-consuming planning process
The current creator-focused user experience and information architecture is not meeting the needs of travellers for having a tailor-made experience and ignite their passion through the expertise of our creators. This causes a drop in engagement, which leads to decreasing retention rates to our business.
New UX Strategy
Research Based Approach
We engaged in a collaborative effort to formulate a new UX strategy, which involved conducting both qualitative and quantitative interviews.
Boost the Visibility
Initially emphasized travel creators' articles to boost platform visibility, but identified redirection issues that caused user confusion.
Data-Driven Decisions
Implemented a new UX strategy involving research, prototyping, and iterative testing to enhance user experience on the travel platform.
Ideating for Solutions
To provide users with clearer and more personalised travel journeys, we incorporated search function on the homepage, a country-based search page, ensuring that users can easily find the information they were looking for.
We had an idea for implementing the Calendly booking API to automate and simplify the booking process. We designed badges for the travel creators that show their expertise to build trust between the users and their profile.
Usability Testing with Mid-Fi Prototype
Before diving into the high-fidelity phase it was very important for us to test our design decisions with target audience. We knew that we were driven by data and solid assumptions but it is still crucial test the flow, UI and the overall experience.
We conducted 5 user testing. 4 of them were remote via Zoom and one was live testing. During the Zoom testing we gave certain tasks to users and observed their actions via the shared screen. Their hesitations or confidence were key elements.
Despite the satisfaction about the overall experience and flow, there were to main points on the homepage and new search page that needed to be improved.
Homepage
Main Search Page
As design constraints, we leveraged pre-existing Tailwind CSS components for efficiency and consistency. When there was not an existing elements for our design, we created and crafted page layouts and user interface elements that are in harmony with Tailwind CSS.
Style Tile for the New Fleeps
Aa
Aa
Aa
Aa
Aa
Aa
Aa
Aa
Aa
Aa
Aa
Tailwind UI
Design System
Aa
Open Sauce Two
Semi-Bold
Aa
Open Sauce Two
Medium
Aa
Open Sauce Two
Regular
Step 2
Find a Creator
Choose a matching creator and connect via a free 15 min call
Jane Cooper
Sustainable travel
Solo travel
Van
Backpacking
Multi-day hikes with camping gear, exploring remote or mountainous regions, and embracing outdoor camping experiences
Around
the world
Traveling across multiple countries or continents to explore diverse cultures and landscapes around the world
Nature
Road trip
Wildlife
Backpacking
Slow travel
Design Systems and Documentation
Success Metrics
During one month after the implementation of the proposed search function on the homepage, the increase in new user sign-ups was 8% percent.
The addition of "How it works?" steps including with CTA to explore the creators resulted in being the most clicked route ended up with successful booking.
Also, Fleeps development is busy with implementing rest of the key features based on our proposal for user-centric platform.
Final Prototype
As the co-founder of Fleeps, I was highly impressed by the work done in a three-week project. Despite a tight timeline, they provided valuable external insights and creative solutions for our product development challenges. Their innovative ideas, delivered rapidly, have been immensely beneficial.
Timothée Duran, Co-founder
What Went Well?
What Did Not Go Well?
One aspect that presented challenges during the project was the considerable amount of time dedicated to brainstorming. We sometimes found ourselves allocating more time to this phase than originally planned. This occasionally led to delays in progressing to the execution phase, requiring us to carefully reevaluate our time management strategies to maintain project momentum.
