COVID Travel Map | Ali Baquer

Overview

Sherpa is a startup that supplies travel visas and educates travelers around global travel restrictions.
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In this case study, I'll deep dive into how I leveraged the Lean UX framework of Think, Make, Check to design a new product that addressed a gap in our product offering.

Impact:

20+

Partners adopting this map onto their site

60+

Partners linking to this map

Jump to designs

Background research

I started by conducting desk research of prior feedback we've received.

I referred back to past usability tests on our other products, customer operations feedback channels, and partner success feedback channels. I also consulted our Google Analytics funnel to view user drop-off and site traffic.

Key insights

Users didn't know where to start when it came to leisure travel, as they were unsure of which countries were open
Users did not have a visual representation of where it's safe to travel amid the pandemic as restrictions open up.
Leisure travelers need to click and search multiple destinations to find somewhere to travel to

Understanding the problem

Our B2C users (business-to-consumer) users and B2B2C users (business-to-business-to-consumer) feel stuck in the discovery phase of their journey. This is leading to having low confidence in leisure travel and significantly lower site usage compared to other travel purposes.

Requirements gathering

What this solution should do:

Indicate where it's safe to travel, and what is required to travel to a particular destination
Allow users to visualize COVID restrictions for multiple countries at a glance
Let users see a filtered view of the countries they can travel to without needing to quarantine
Factor in how the solution could grow and change with new information and lighter travel restrictions

What this solution should not do (yet):

Include vaccine information, as it was not yet available

Brainstorming

I conducted a brainstorming activity with my design manager and the Chief Product Officer at my startup called Crazy 8's, jotting down 8 ideas in 8 minutes.

A/B Testing

We assumed that a stoplight-like pattern - where red meant heavily restricted, yellow meant moderately restricted, and green meant lightly restricted, was more effective than a monochrome map, and wanted to test that assumption.

We conducted an A/B test with 22 users. We showed users a map that followed a stoplight pattern, and a map that was monochrome, with shades of blue.

Results

~73% of participants preferred the multi-coloured map (statistically significant: p-value < 0.05 at 99% confidence level)
Users also provided qualitative feedback, citing the colours as easily distinguishable and more sensible than monochrome

Prototype

Here's the final prototype I created in Figma.

View prototype

Final design

After a round of usability testing, I was able to arrive at the final designs of this MVP.

Landing page

Travelers are able to see where they can travel based on their location.

Information hover

Travelers can see what is required for them to travel by hovering over a country (or tapping on mobile).

Filters

Travelers can filter their view by only highlighting countries with more relaxed travel restrictions.

Filtered map view

Travelers can visualize the countries they can easily travel to.

Outcome & Reflection

As we gained more information, we were able to add a vaccine toggle, and domestic travel restrictions for the US, UK, and Australia.

Another amazing update to this map was spearheaded by my colleague, Leo, who improved its accessibility, making it accessible to various kinds of colour vision deficiencies.

Overall, this project helped me find a bit of comfort amid the height of the pandemic, as I knew I was working on a product that played a part in helping people try to move forward.

Discovery Map