TRIPCENTS

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Tripcents provides a mobile application designed to enable people to save for travel through automated transfers to a dedicated savings account. They also provide features that encourage users to plan and save for a trip with friends.

TASK

PROVE MARKET VALUE

Determine if there is a market value for Tripcents offering of saving for travel.

CHALLENGES

LOW PERCENTAGE OF USERS SAVING

PAYWALL INTRODUCTION

Tripcents launched their app in May 2018. Although they saw high initial download rates, very few people actually began saving for travel. On August 20, 2018, they introduced a subscription-based paywall that drastically reduced the usage trend they had been seeing; after this, even fewer people were making it past the paywall to set up a savings account.

OUTCOME

25% INCREASED CONVERSION RATES

Research insights confirmed and validated, there is a desire to save for travel and informed the design improvements we made to the current app.
Design recommendations Increased conversion rates by 25% per day within two weeks of implementation.
Provided enough data that Tripcents felt confident to remove the paywall and pivot their focus to maximize and grow the usage of saving for travel.

MY ROLE

Team Lead, UX Research & Design

I partnered with six UX designers to conduct in-depth research into understanding the market value for Tripcents ability to save for travel. I organized and managed contextual inquiry interviews with the product that helped identify what was working and what wasn’t. I also interviewed current customers in order to better reveal users behaviors and motivations. Along with the other designers, I conducted multiple synthesization methods that identified pain points and personas. Evangelizing for the customers and business goals, I ideated with the team until we came to an agreed upon product design direction. The insights gained from our research and usability testing allowed Tripcents to make decisive product decisions moving forward.

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PROJECT:

Mobile App Research and Design

TOOLS USED:

Sketch, InVision, Calendly

TIMELINE:

3 week sprint

“We’ve all had trips we were dreaming about but kept putting off because they were expensive and difficult to plan. Or we’ve spent months planning group getaways just to have the majority of people drop out at the last minute because they didn’t save enough.”

— Tripcents

DISCOVERY + RESEARCH

APPROACH

UNDERSTAND TRAVELERS AND SAVERS

Our desire was to understand how travelers approach planning, saving, and budgeting for travel, and how an app that requires sensitive information from its users (such as personal and banking details) could build trust. We also wanted to understand what financial tech apps (i.e. Twine, Mint, Acorn, etc) did to build trust with their users and if there was a correlation with people currently using Tripcents and Financial Tech apps.

METHODS

As a team of six we divided the research into understanding the potential user, the current user, current usability pain points and how the features ranked. Utilizing the following methods:

Current User Interviews
Potential User Interviews
Competitive market analysis
Heuristic reviews of the current app and pain points
Card Sorting
Information architecture breakdown and restructuring
Affinity mapping
Personas and Journey Mapping
Design Studios

FINDINGS

EXPERIENCED TRAVELER INTERVIEWS

Initially we interviewed experienced travelers who we thought would fit the Tripcents profile only to find that these travelers were not necessarily the target market. On the contrary, we found the target market to be inexperienced travelers with a desire to learn how to save and budget.

KEY INSIGHT

ALREADY HAVE ESTABLISHED ROUTINES

We found that experienced travelers already had methods in place for saving and planning. Experienced travelers provided invaluable insights, despite them not being the target market, that we incorporated directly into the app design in regards to planning and budgeting.

CURRENT USER INTERVIEWS

Along with another designer, I interviewed 10 current Tripcents customers to better understand how they were utilizing the app, what had attracted them to download it in the first place, and how Tripcents had instilled and built trust with them.

KEY INSIGHTS

1. INTENT TO SAVE IS HIGH

I found there were a multitude of features that caught their initial attention, the main one being the ability to save for travel independently and with friends. However, the actual percentage of current clients that had started a travel fund was much lower than the intent. For instance, many people would get caught up in the planning and exploring features of the app and would not actually set up a saving fund.

2. BUDGET RECOMMENDATIONS MATTER

When asked what they would like to see the following concepts repeated.

show detailed budget recommendations that they can control
provide guidance on how much to save to meet goals.

3. NEW “GO WITH THE FLOW” USER TYPE

Through the current user interviews we were able to confirm speculations about the demographic and personality type using Tripcents. It was believed that most everyone who was using the app would consider themselves a planner, out of the 10 we talked to, this was confirmed 100%. However the feature that allows the planners to invite friends to plan for a trip lead me to uncover an additional persona, one that wasn’t a planner, but rather a friend of the planner, somebody who is more likely to go with the flow. This, along with the other research insights lead to the development of the following personas.

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE + FEATURES

Tripcents appeared to have a case of too many features and we wanted to understand which ones actually created the MVP. Through usability testing of the current app and features the following insights were uncovered, which in turn aided the design recommendation changes.

KEY INSIGHTS + CHALLENGES

1. People want to see their money

Based on two factors

Trust: either they are excited and are giving toward the trip
Or they feel like their money is being taken from them

2. Savings or travel planning, can I do both?

People tend to use the app either for travel planning or for savings; they can’t seem to bridge the gap between these.

3. Why should I subscribe/save?

There was general confusion and a lack of understanding of the value proposition, how was the app going to help them save? Along with huge resistance to the paywall due to not understanding the value.

DIRECTION + VISION

Tripcents is an app to

support and educate new travelers

to save for their adventures.

Tripcents needs to

1. Be Financially Forward

every direction taken by the user must lead back to creating a saving fund

2. Provide Bite-Sized Education

showing the user piece by piece, building trust, providing maximum exploration and saving support.

3. Allow users to see and track their money

Visualizing the answers to simple questions:

How much money do I have?
How am I giving to my savings programs?
Where is my money being allocated?
How close am I to my goals?

DESIGN + DIRECTION

From onboarding to establishing a saving fund, the proper information must be provided to enable a user to feel confident with Tripcents. However, the process to set up a travel fund is lengthy and requires a lot of sensitive personal and banking information. The wrong word or the wrong flow could cause someone to pause and not move forward. The following design directions were implemented and tested to help us understand the right time to introduce the paywall in the user flow and when to direct a user to set up their travel fund. Allowing Tripcents to capture the user’s momentum, excitement, and trust.

1. FINANCIALLY FORWARD

ONBOARDING

For the onboarding process, four screens of gradual disclosure were created and tested, at the end of the disclosure, users could recount the general idea of what the app was and could do for them, however, confusion still remained regarding how the saving fund would work and the specifics of the bank terms and agreements.

ROUTE USERS TO SET UP ACCOUNT

Whatever direction a user takes through the app they need to be brought back to creating a saving fund. After the onboarding flow users were allowed to choose to set up a travel fund or start a plan. 83% of users chose to “explore the app” and plan a trip before setting up their bank details. It became apparent it's extremely important to route the user back to setting up a fund once they are fully done exploring.

2. PROVIDE BITE-SIZED EDUCATION

MAXIMUM EXPLORATION

Adding in the right items to create a trip budget with and providing predicted costs for each item was the direction we chose to explore in more depth. The items selected for the budget were influenced by the experienced traveler’s insights.

CREATING A PLAN AND PREDICTING COST

We implemented a logical way in which most people plan a trip, choose a location and dates, and who they were traveling with into the user flow. This planning process, in turn, informed and populated an editable, suggested budget and estimated trip cost, along with a suggested amount to save to reach their goals. This approach received positive responses during testing, everyone appreciated the specificity of the budget and wanted to be able to adjust the inputs manually and toggle off what they don’t want. This direction keeps Tripcents financially forward while providing valuable planning capabilities.

3. TRACK AND SEE YOUR MONEY

The account balance was established as the first and foremost thing seen on the homepage. The account details provides breakdowns on where the money is coming from and going. All of this tested well and confirmed the importance of keeping the app financially forward. There was positive responses from testers to the data visualization of the money, they felt it keeps them engaged with the giving money concept and the saving progress. However users wanted a way to see future projections of their progress in order to make saving plan adjustment.

Paper Prototype

CHALLENGE + CHANGE

THE PAYWALL PIVOT

The paywall was a challenge throughout the entirety of research, from where to introduce it to why subscribe and pay for the tripcents offerings. I raised the question of what other alternatives they had based on their business model and this caused Tripcents to question if the paywall was the best direction. The data supported that the paywall was causing drastic drop-off rates, testing showed a negative response to it and general confusion. And within two weeks of working with our team, Tripcents felt confident from the research data to change directions and drop the paywall.

NEXT STEPS

In closing, Tripcents was provided with all the data and research collected and the following direction recommendations.

ON-BOARDING LANGUAGE

Testing showed positive improvement with the direction we took, a little more refinement should provide confidence with setting up an account and immediate value provided right upfront.

DATA VISUALIZATION

Incorporate the right ways to see and track your money the positive feedback in testing supports the financial forward direction for Tripcents

SHARE A TRIP - INVITE A FRIEND

The decision was made to focus on defining the MVP first. Once the value of Tripcents is immediately clear, the invite a friend conversion rates should increase. More exploration will be needed, along with addressing the user flow from the perspective of the persona Ben.

DEFINE THE LANGUAGE OF SAVE

Be clear with your definition of save, the word “save” has different meanings to people and this was encountered in testing.

FEATURES TAILORED TO ALL PERSONAS

The user flow our team chose to focus on was Anne. We believed that by solving her problems an MVP would be created that would apply to all three users. For phase 2 additional features tailored to Ben and Paisley can be introduced.