Think Greece

Overview

Project Type: Desktop Web Application & Mobile iOS Application

Description: Create a GIF Creator on the GIPHY website to allow users to create their own content

Problem: Greece is in economic crisis. Other countries that have faced economic setbacks have turned to tourism to improve their economy. Improving the travel experience to Greece will ease the  increase tourism and encourage visitors to visit again. Iceland and Croatia have adopted similar rebranding tactics to their tourism.

Solution: The rebranding process will start with the creation of digital tools. Our solution is three fold:

• Redesign of the HD Desktop version - to improve navigation
• Create a login/account feature
• Designing a Greek travel iOS app to help potential and current tourists better access information, view more attractions, and assist them in planning their vacation.

Team: DOUBLE DRAGON (LEE & LIN)

 MY ROLE - RESEARCH LEAD & MOBILE DESIGNER

• Developed and implemented  the research plan
• Developed the conclusions that would inform the design
• Performed most of the administrative components of the project and made sure we met our deliverables timeline

DaeHee Lee - Design Lead

• Drafted the medium fidelity and high fidelity wireframes as well as most of the graphics for this design.
• Performed most of the prototype testing

Tools & Techniques: Surveys, Interviews, Sketch 3, Adobe Illustrator, Invision

Final Assets:

• Project Plan
• Research Plan
• Annotated Wireframes
• Usability Testing Findings
• User Flows & New Sitemap
• Scenarios & User Stories
• High Fidelity Mock-ups for Desktop
• Interactive High Fidelity iOS Mobile Prototype

User Research

Brand Background

Greece has always been a popular tourist destination for international travelers.

Research Plan

This plan was drafted to help us understand how tourists perform international travel. As the problem was defined, I added a card sort and a user flow analysis to inform the new information architecture.

• Competitive & Comparative Research
• Feature Analysis
• Surveys
• Interviews
• Card Sort
• User Flow

BRAND ASSESSMENT

We looked at Greece because it has been in the news due to its economic problems. Other countries who suffered similar problems were able to revive their economies by increasing tourism. To see how Greece stands next to other nations who rely on tourism, we looked at Iceland, Croatia, and Spain. 

• While there is a lot of useful content on the website, Visit Greece website could be more communicative
• There is not currently a mobile version of the website.
• The website could better serve users by offering tools that assist with travel beyond a listing of articles or places to visit.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS:

Iceland and Croatia were chosen because these countries recently rebranded their tourism campaigns to increase visitors to the country and stimulate the local economy. We looked at Spain as an example of another country that attracts a lot of tourists.

We found that Croatia offers both a mobile app and the ability to create an online profile to allow users to find and save information. Web-based location service that identifies the location of the user to assist them in finding directions to places they want to visit

SURVEYS 

Once we had an understanding of the competition and their approach, we directed our attention to GIPHY users to inform our design.

To examine behavior, we distributed a survey to 38 respondents, ages 20-57, mostly women (60%), who almost all identified as being “very comfortable” with technology. Most shared GIFs using iMessage, Facebook, and email.

• Not many users had even attempted to make a GIF (only 4 said that they had)

• A few users with design professions found making a GIF to be easy with the right tools

• One user enjoyed making them because it offered a rewarding feeling that they could express themselves

INTERVIEWS

We asked survey respondents if they would be willing to be interviewed so that we could have an in-depth understanding of how they use GIFs, why they use them, and how they would create one. 

Interview Findings:

• Users loved exposing themselves with GIFs  but making a GIF was a mysterious process to most
• Users who had tried to make GIFs before found it to be time-consuming or difficult to do
• Users don’t often have the tools (such as video editors) to make GIFs

Users Defined:

We created three personas to represent the three main groups of users on the Visit Greece website and iOS app.

Designs:

We held a design studio where we drafted many ideas for the GIF Creator. So that we could keep the design simple and usable, we narrowed down the features so that we were building a product that best met the needs of the user without going overboard.

User Testing

User testing began with a hand-drawn low fidelity paper mockups, which users found to be easy to navigate. Those early wireframes were developed into a medium fidelity prototype that was tested successfully on five users. During this testing round, users mentioned that they wanted to log into the website to save their work, some wanted a text editor with multiple fonts, and others suggested that color may help them distinguish some of the various elements of the web page, which may have been confusing within the black and white schema of our mockup.

While user feedback was helpful, we had to be careful not to take in too many suggestions. Although having an extensive text editor would have been appreciated by some users, we wanted to focus on the functionality of the design.

FEATURES

view prototype