Zeit Time Travel Tourism

 

Background

A decade after the technology was created, Zeit, a subsidiary of Richard Branson’s Virgin empire, has been authorized by the International Concordance on Time Travel to finally democratize the experience of time travel.

With a total of 289 destinations across the world, from prehistoric periods to the present, Zeit offers safe travels to customers that have dreamed of going back in time.

The Problem

How do you design a travel booking site that attracts customers to a new type of experience with a technology that doesn’t yet exist?

This problem affects both the business’s success and every potential customer that would be interested in this type of travel, as it is a unique experience.

As this is a first-of-its-kind technology that the company is trying to sell, it’s important that the booking site is usable, accessible, clear, and good-looking in order to attract customers and sell tickets and packages.

Timeline:

80 Hours, Jan 2022 - Feb 2022

Company:

Zeit

My Role:

End-to-end UX/UI designer. Research, wireframing, prototyping, visual design, user testing

Tools USed:

Figma, Optimal Sort, Miro, Whimsical

 
 
 

Research

Research methods used:

Secondary research, competitive analysis, individual interviews

I conducted secondary research and competitive analyses to better understand the market and industry trends, such as tourist demographics, safety and cleanliness standards, and how companies are digitizing customer and supply-chain interactions. Because Zeit doesn’t have any direct competitors in the time travel market, I compared indirect and secondary competitors in fields such as travel booking, tourism companies, and historical immersion (museums and virtual reality experiences).

Individual interviews were conducted both in-person and remotely over Zoom in order to gain better insight into needs, wants, frustrations, motivations, and other observations about how and why people travel. 

 

Research ramp-up

User persona developed based on research

 

 Interview question examples:

  • “Have you ever used a mobile app or website to book travel, or check on travel plans? Would you say there are issues on mobile compared to desktop? Advantages?”

  • “How does taking trips with other people affect how you go about planning?”

  • “What areas of travel frustrate you?”

Notable insights from my research:

  • Customers tend to be distrustful of companies that have hidden fees and taxes that are not shared with the customer upfront until checkout.

  • Covid-19 has made an impact on the amount of travel and distance of trips that people take in a year, out of fear of contracting the illness or spreading it to high-risk individuals

  • If safety is not a concern, people love to be immersed in the culture and experience of their travel destination

  • Virtual reality experiences could be used to capitalize on emerging technologies and to give customers a way to “travel” while isolating or social distancing during a pandemic

  • Individuals value lots of information about each destination to help make travel planning more effective and efficient

 
 

Define

I took an iterative approach to this project. I gained feedback throughout the project that made an impact at each stage of the process.

For the information architecture creation of Zeit, I created a user persona, some initial sketches of the homepage, a sitemap, task flows & user flows, and low-fidelity wireframes and responsive wireframes for the homepage.

 
 

Initial homepage sketches

 
 

Sitemap

User Flow

 

First iteration wireframes: landing page, browse page, search page, destinations page, trip details page, payment page

First iteration responsive wireframes of the landing page

 

Design

The design direction I went with was futuristic to mirror the novelty of time travel technology. In order to execute this effectively, I first created a mood board to pull inspiration from outside sources, and from there I developed a color palette that I tweaked over time for better usability and cohesion. What I ended up with was an analogous, dark-themed color palette design with a bright sea-foam green primary color for a space-age look.

After I had the color palette and logo, I went about choosing a typeface, creating a style tile, a UI kit with buttons, grid sizes, and other elements, and developed the first iteration of high-fidelity wireframes.

 

UI Kit

First iteration high-fidelity wireframes

 

Test

I created a functional prototype with which I conducted 3 usability tests of 3 scenarios for the main checkout flow.

Goals:

  • Test users’ overall satisfaction with the site’s usability and design

  • Test how users prefer to search for and arrive at destination pages

  • Does the design provide enough trust and information to gain users’ confidence

  • Observe pain points, difficulties, and confusion for users while completing tasks

 
 

First iteration prototype

 
 

Key Insights from Usability Tests

  • The VR section is confusing to users. The VR on the trip details page is too low and looks as though it is a part of the trip purchase

  • An easy to access customer support feature would be very useful to users

  • Participants had questions about the rules of time travel and expressed interest in a FAQ

  • Two of three users didn’t scroll and explore the homepage until told that there was more on the page 

  • Participants mentioned wanted more payment options, like PayPal

Based on my usability tests, I created an affinity map and a prioritization matrix in order to prioritize the most important revisions to the design.

Priority Revisions

  • A customer support pop-up chat

  • A fixed-position scroll bar to encourage page exploration

 

Before

After

 

  • Created a separate, more clear virtual reality product page

 

Before

After

 

  • Included a PayPal option on the payment page for faster user checkout

 

Before

After

 

Reflection

This was the first time I had completed an end-to-end design. This project was a challenge primarily because the company’s technology doesn’t yet exist which meant researching indirect competitors to gain insights into how I was to design this product. The virtual reality feature on the site was one of the last additions I included and expanded upon, and therefore I had not planned out my site architecture with it in mind initially. If I were to do this project again, I would think more carefully about VR during my wireframing and research phases, so that it feels more integrated into the site and less like a late addition.