This is my disposition analysis on Lonely Planet, the largest travel guide book publisher in the world. I applied Erikson Questions to see how Lonely Planet website reach out to their targeted audience and how to improve their content strategy. It is interesting that the book publisher is called "Lonely" Planet, because it could be interpreted to mean that people around the world are seeking greater connection and that travel is a way to bring people together. In fact, they don't do a good job to provide connection opportunities to their users.

1. UX DESIGN
A s s i g n m e n t # 4
Shantelle Liu

2. ERIKSON QUESTIONS
• Erik Erikson, one of the first developmental psychologists, came up with eight questions that go through our life span in 1959. In his
theory, when we are in different ages, we will have keep asking ourselves separate existential questions. The deep questions in
different psychological stages influence the direction of our lives and represent the tendencies that we think about this world.
• The eight questions are as follows:
I. 0-1 years: Can I rely on others?
II. 1-2 years: Can I do it myself?
III. 3-5 years: Am I good or bad?
IV. 6-12 years: Am I good at something?
V. 12-19 years: Who am I?
VI. 20-39 years: Can I share my life?
VII. 40-64 years: Do I matter?
VIII. 65+ years: Can I die in peace?
• The eight questions can guide content creators to know what your target audience are concerning about. If your meme can help users
to answer the question they are facing in their developmental stage, your meme is more likely to attract attention from that age group.

3. CASE STUDY: LONELY PLANET
Lonely Planet is the largest travel guide book
publisher in the world. Its website attracts millions
of views each year. According to Lonely Planet
Travelers Pulse Survey, the bulk of the audience fall
between the ages of 18 and 34, though over 24
year olds make up a majority of that number.
Based on Erikson questions, the target audience’s
existential question is “Can I share my life?” People
in this age want to make connections and fine the
one they can be with in the rest of life.
However, the menu bar in the home page doesn’t
include any links related to connection building.
Users can just find travel guide and travel service in
the main page. Users can’t find a content that can
help them expand their personal connection until
they pull down to ”Ask for advice” section, which is
almost in bottom of the page.

4. CASE STUDY: LONELY PLANET
When click “Ask for advice”, users will direct to
Thorn Tree forum. This service provides travelers
with advice, hints, tips, and more importantly,
countless connections. In this page, users can find
travel buddies, ask questions, and exchange tips.
For people who want to find a like-minded person
or build connections in the largest traveler
community around the world, this page definitely
can help answer the question “Can I share my life”
to the target audience.
Unfortunately, viewers hardly find a direct link in
the home page to let them go to the Thorn Tree
forum. And “Ask for advice” sounds very vague. It
doesn’t demonstrate that users can build
connection here.

5. Recommended Improvements
1 Add “community” button in the menu bat of the home page, and link the
button to the Thorn Tree forum.
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Change “Ask a advice” to “Find a travel buddy” in all pages.
Promote Thorn Tree forum in Lonely Planet’s campaign.
Create more functions for users to build connections. Currently, people
can only use destination, start date, and end date to find a travel buddy.
Lonely Planet can add more filters such as age, gender, country,
education, personality and so on in the search bar.
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6. Business Outcome Metric
• Increase page view and click rate
• Increase the number of users
• More revenue from advertisement
• More positive customer reviews
• Attract more customers from other travel websites
• Increase Brand awareness and loyalty