Challenge 3: Usability Evaluation and Site Redesign

6 min readJun 4, 2021

For my third IronHack prework challenge, I will develop a study case for the Despegar app, if you are not from Latin America, this is very similar to Hopper or Kayak.

Overview

For this challenge, I am going to pick one of the new seven wonders of the word. I choose Petra in Jordan, because is in my travel bucket list, also I had to pick a user, before taking this decision I been repeating my mantra “I’m not the user of the product I’m creating and evaluating”, so I had chose a different style of traveling, that I’m not familiar with a Young group — 20–40 y/o (4)

Description: You and your friends have decided to invest and spend some quality time together. You are planning your trip one year in advance to really make it happen and accommodate everybody’s schedules and needs. You’d like to share as much time together and plan for a lot of fun. You’re interested in a mix of culture and leisure. You have all saved for the last year for the trip so, while you’re still price-conscious this is the opportunity to spoil yourselves.

Research

Nearest airport / most convenient airport to destination:
Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, Jordan.

Currency and exchange from your own currency:
1 Jordan Dinar = 28.08 MXN = 1.41 USD

Medical needs: vaccination, visa, etc.
Mexicans along with other nationalities require a passport to be valid for at least six months, also a visa that can be acquired at your arrival.

Here you can find a list of health recommendations and vaccines before traveling to Jordan.

Nowadays, in Covid 19 times is important to consider that measurements are constantly changing:

Tourist Entry: Partially Allowed

Testing: All arrivals must have a negative COVID-19 past, no older than 72 hours and it’s required to undergo a second PCR test upon arrival.

Quarantine Required: Depends

Quarantine Details: Quarantine for 14 days required for some countries.

Wardrobe recommendations:
Desert climate so it is advisable to wear light-colored and breathable cotton clothing and although it is tempting to wear shorts, it is recommended to wear loose-fitting pants to avoid burns. The most important thing in your outfit should be sunscreen, hat, cap or turban and sunglasses.

Days needed to visit attractions:
To visit Petra you can spend 4 days in that region, but considering that you will be traveling for at least two days, it is advisable to stay between 10 and 15 days.

Benchmarking

I conducted a heuristic evaluation, for this case I chose Kayak, Skyscanner and Despegar.

Testing

I talked with 5 potential users between 26- 40 y/o, but first they took a 5 second test here, you can see the results here, (this document is in Spanish). It was very easy for them to identify how to carry out some actions within the app.

When conducting the interviews 4 out of 5, found the amount of information you can find in the home section overwhelming. 5 out 5 found an easy to use Despegar app, but feels overwhelmed with the amount of information in the home section.

3 out of 5, did not remember dates they use when looking for a fly, when they were looking for accommodation, (and blame themself).

1 out of 5 looked for a tourist package, and couldn’t find “Emergency Exists” when trying to change the accommodation.

Task:

I gave the same task to everyone, planning a 15 days trip to Petra in Jordan flying from Mexico City between February to April 2022. They had to book a flights, hotel, hostel or apartment in Petra or Wadi Musa, and also they will need a car or transportation big enough to travel with luggage, and extra activities. They can spend $100,000 MXN ($5021.39 USD)

Insight:

Once you look for a flight and try to look for accommodation the app does not autofill destination or dates
Home page is filled with offers and banners that you can also find in the Offers menu.
Nav bar disappears when you have made a search, so the only way back is clicking the arrow many times. In some features like the package there is a progress bar but you can use it to go forward but not backward.
In many descriptions about hotels, the app does not display special characters, so is very difficult to read.

After think about what the users said and did, I have some ideas to redesign Despegar app, to tackle some of the pain points:

Create a simpler homepage with just essential items.
Keep the nav bar in all the pages
Help users to keep the search engine fill when change category (accommodations, flights or car), help them predictive text options like places of interest, to make an easier search

I start with some low-fi prototype, this is a benchmark journey where the passenger could research prices and options without buying.

This is the home page where I try to take some elements to make navigation easier. Here’s a sample of low-fi prototype:

Now, search for a flight and the nav-bar is present in case you change your mind, or you can watch as many pages with flight options, and use the nav-bar to go back without clicking in the arrow many times.

Then they can look for a hotel and use the nav-bar to go back home.

And then look for transportation in the same way, the app will help with places of interest where they can leave the vehicle.

Then I worked in a mid-fi prototype, you can try it here.

Conclusion

Many times I’ve used this app before, and never noticed how it can be improved. Now I can see that it is a never ending process because times, necessities and users may change, and I find that process fascinating.