Prototyping a New Travel App
How might Bose enhance the travel experience?
The Context
For some, Bose noise canceling headphones have become something they can’t travel without. And yet, the headphones are primarily used in-flight to drown out engine and passenger noise, and then tucked away unused until the return flight. So we asked ourselves, could Bose play a broader role in the travel experience?
The Outcome
A location-based travel app that lets you explore a new city heads-up and hands-free with the help of useful in-ear tips and recommendations.
The Deliverables
Personas, journey maps, a realistic prototype experience, design principles for a voice UI, concept and business model validation
The Team
We were a 4-person incubation team with - A Business Lead
- A Technical Lead
- A Research Lead (me)
- A Project Manager.
Notable Contributions
Design sprint facilitation
Prototype development
User Research
Synthesis & Presentation
01
identifying unmet needs & friction points in the travel experience
We started our process with extensive research to familiarize ourselves with the current state of travel, both from the user and industry points of view.
User Research
We conducted in-home interviews and focus groups to hear from people about how and why they travel, what they take with them, and the highs and lows of their travel experiences.
Industry Research
We attended the SKIFT travel conference to hear how industry leaders were thinking about the future of travel.
Immersion
We traveled to a foreign country where English wasn’t a primary language, and reflected on our own behaviors, and experiences.
At the end of our research phase, we had identified the key unmet needs across the leisure traveler’s journey map.
Using a 2x2 matrix that evaluated “level of need” against “effort required”, we decided to focus our initial concept development efforts on enabling phone-free wandering that feed travelers’ desires for organic and unplanned experiences.
02
turning an unmet need into a product concept
The Need
Travelers want to be able to wander around a new city and stumble upon a charming restaurant, a piece of history or cultural event. Yet they end up being glued to their phones for directions, restaurant reviews and suggested travel itineraries because they don’t trust that wandering will yield the spontaneous magical moments they desire.
The Concept
An in-ear travel guide that offers interesting and relevant location-based information, recommendations and guidance, to help travelers make the most of their trip without having to stay glued to their phone screens.
The Key Questions
1. Will people actually enjoy the experience of getting in-ear tips and recommendations while walking around a new city?
2. Are they willing to wear headphones while exploring a new city in order to receive in-ear tips and recommendations?
3. Can we create a screen-free experience that is good enough for travelers to keep their phones away and trust they’ll get what they need from the app?
We started by creating a map that demonstrated the desired experience we wanted to create for travelers. The goal was that a traveler should be able to leave their hotel/Airbnb and simply start walking around a new city, receiving in-ear recommendations .
We sketched and shared multiple approaches to achieving that experience, and ultimately aligned on one we would move forward with for prototyping and testing: an app that that serves you up a mix of fun facts, useful travel information and restaurant recommendations as you walk about, so you can wander while still getting the information you might want from your phone.
03
building and testing our prototype
To answer our sprint questions, we did not need a fully functioning app. We simply needed to convincingly simulate the experience of exploring a new city with the help of an audio app.
So, we recruited 5 participants to meet us at the North End, in Boston (an Italian neighborhood full of hidden history, charming bakeries and boutique shops). We asked them to walk around the North End with a pair of headphones through which our “app” would periodically give them information about the neighborhood or establishments they were passing. We also asked them to keep their phones in their pocket unless they really felt like they needed it.
For the user, this looked and felt like a sophisticated app that knew their location, and had a library of location-based information specific to the North End. In reality, they were on a conference call and our designated “guide” was unmuting herself as the user passed by specific locations, to provide “location-based” information.
In this short video, you will see our “guide” discreetly following the user, and unmuting herself to provide interesting tidbits of information.
04
key findings
Will people actually enjoy the experience of getting in-ear tips and recommendations while walking around a new city?
Yes! Our users described this as a magical experience that they would even want while walking around their own cities.
Are they willing to wear headphones while exploring a new city in order to receive in-ear tips and recommendations?
Yes, if they are traveling solo. If they’re with other people, they would want to a group experience.
Can we create a screen-free experience that is good enough for travelers to keep their phones away and trust they’ll get what they need from the app?
Yes! The app needs to convey that it’s on even when it is not actively feeding up in-ear information, for the user to feel confident trusting it to guide them around a city without having to take out their phones.
05
building internal conviction
With our initial concept validated, our next step was to build internal conviction for the idea in order to continue moving it forward. We designed a “science fair” for our senior stakeholders (including the VP of Consumer Electronics, the VP of Corporate Strategy and Innovation) that took them through several rooms.
In the first room, we shared some high level information about the travel industry, the role that Bose products might play in the travel experience, and the key unmet needs we had identified.
We then took them to the parking lot, and had them try our travel app prototype for themselves.
Finally, we took them to a second room where we explained how the concept could become productized from a technical and business point of view.
06
the outcome
Our senior leadership was extremely enthusiastic about the travel concept, and the larger vision of creating “heads up, hands free” experiences that unglue us from our screens.
Based on our work, Bose launched the concept of Audio Augmented Reality at SXSW 2018, with the travel concept as the flagship experience.
Bose is currently working with content creators and travel partners to launch Bose AR apps in the app store.
