This presentation is a culmination of my coursework from General Assembly's UX Design Circuit. As part of my class, I conducted user exploratory user research, competitive analysis, performed feature prioritization, did card sorting and information architecture, created lo/med/hi-fis, build a clickable prototype, and performed usability testing. The Family Fun Finder application is intended to improve the process for parents to find and plan family activities at their travel destination.

1. FAMILY FUN FINDER
UX Design Circuit Final Project
January 2018 | Ellen Rotenberg

2. OVERVIEW
Ø The driver for the Family Fun Finder is to improve the process of planning activities
Ø As a parent of young children I was curious to learn tips from others on their current
approach and perhaps even learn about websites or apps that I would want to use
Ø Through user research, I found that parents who are planning activities to do with their
families at their travel destination use an ad-hoc collection of tools to locate, learn
about, compare, and book activities – but they are not satisfied!

3. USER RESEARCH
Understanding users’ approach to family activity planning
Methodology:
15-20 minute interviews (phone or in person)
Number of participants: 3
Conducted: Dec 2017
Key Findings
Ø Parents rely heavily on online reviews (primarily TripAdvisor) to help make activity
choices
Ø Spending quality time and making memories is the number one goal
Ø Activity planning is a time consuming process. It is difficult to know what needs to be
reserved in advance vs. what can be done ad hoc while on the trip
“Planning activities for children in different age
groups is a balancing act”
“Online reviews play a big role in my decision making
process”
“I use TripAdvisor for narrowing and filtering activities
of interest before and during my trip”
“There are so many sites out there. It’s a bit
overwhelming!”
Quotes

4. USER INTERVIEWS: AFFINITY MAPPING
Emerging Themes
• Users depend on multiple
information sources and review
sites to make decisions
• Timing of activity booking (e.g.,
before/during trip) and age-
appropriateness is top of mind.
• Streamlining the activity booking
process is highly desired
• Activity suggestions would a be
welcome addition to help the
planning process
• Family involvement in the
planning process varies

5. COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Research findings
* Examples in parenthesis are based on competitive research
“People are struggling to find meaningful
information about where to go and what to do
and they need assistance booking their travels”
(US Family Travel Survey, 2017)
“Two-thirds of Americans say spending quality
time as a family is the most important part of
taking a family vacation” (Bill Sutherland, AAA)
There is an overwhelming number of digital
resources for travel-related information
Categories include*
Ø Activity website
Ø Crowdsourced User Reviews (Trip Advisor, Yelp)
Ø General Search Engines (Google)
Ø Hotel & Owner-Rental websites (Disney, Atlantis,
AirBnB)
Ø Local Tourism websites (NYC, Visit Philadelphia)
Ø Membership Rewards Sites (AAA, AMEX)
Ø Online Travel Agencies (Orbitz, Expedia, Priceline)
Ø Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest)
Ø Tour Operators
Ø Travel focused articles, blogs, and podcasts (NYT,
PitStopsForKids, Ciao Bambino)

6. COMPETITOR FEATURE COMPARISON
A selection of features on competitor/ comparable sites
Destination Type
Ahead &
Calendar
Selector (Orbitz)
Typical time
spent
(Google)
View/update search
input (Trip Advisor)
Activity Preference Sliders (Squaw Valley)
Suggestions
(Amazon)

7. MEET LISA
Working professional. Wife,
Mother of 2
Lisa is a 35-year-old married mother of two sons, ages 5 and 9, living in the
Philadelphia suburbs. She works full time. Lisa cherishes her family and wants to
ensure that they spend meaningful time together, and she wants to ensure that
they maximize their opportunities for fun when on vacation! She is comfortable
using digital content sources and websites. She is a well-prepared traveler that
does a lot of research before the trip through searching review sites, talking with
friends, and reading travel-related articles. She wants to be knowledgeable about
what they can do at they do at their travel destination in order to reduce frustration
on not knowing what to do or missing out on an activity because she didn’t book in
advance. She refers to her planning materials before and during the travel, to help
her feel confident. Traveling with family can be stressful!
Frustrations:
● Uses a variety of sites to get a sense of options making
activity planning a time consuming process
● She’s not always aware of what activities would be best
for her children’s ages and interests
● It’s difficult to determine distance between activities,
days open, and how to book
“I’m looking for family oriented activities within a reasonable
distance from my destination”
Goals:
● To locate enjoyable activities spend quality time with
her family
● To do research on activities ahead of time and leave
flexibility to access once at the destination
● To focus in on activities that meet her families
preferences
● To reduce the number of sites she needs to visit to
learn about and book activities

8. STORYBOARD
Lisa is planning her
family’s spring break
vacation and is looking for
things to do at their
destination
She enters some details
about her child(ren)'s
ages, their destination, the
date of the trip, and the
types of activities they like
to do into the Family Fun
Finder website
The website returns a list of
matching results tailored for
Lisa’s family. She’ll soon be
on her way to fun-town!

9. FEATURE PRIORITIZATION
The Family Fun Finder is a activity discovery tool that allows Lisa to find activities at her travel
destination that meet her families’ interests. Lisa can save her favorites (post registration), allowing
her to refer back to all of her research while at her travel destination, so that she can be “open to
experiencing her travel destination w/o being too prescriptive.”
User Goal Feature
Lisa wants to find enjoyable activities spend quality time with
her family
• View activity details (e.g., location, hours, activity
description, activity type, appropriate ages), view location
on map.
• Integrate information about wait times, popularity, and
directions
Lisa wants to do research on activities ahead of time and
leave flexibility to access once at the destination
• Save activities to favorites
• View saved favorites
• Sign-in / Registration
Lisa wants to focus in on activities that meet her families
preferences
• Multi-step search query builder with destination, dates of
travel, party size, age ranges, and activity preferences as
input.
• Filter & Sort options
Lisa needs to reduce the number of sites she needs to visit to
learn about and book activities
• Federated search across activity information websites,
review websites, travel information aggregators
• Incorporating reviews

10. USER FLOW

11. PAPER PROTOTYPING
Design changes based
on paper prototype
feedback:
Ø Allow users to search to
occur without registration
Ø Requesting age ranges
for entire party size to
account for
multigenerational travel
Ø Allow user to input depth
of interest in a given
activity category

12. LO-FIs

13. HI-FIs

14. USABILITY TESTING – Task Scenario 1
CLICKABLE PROTOTYPE
Input travel destination and travel dates
Imagine you are travelling with your family to
Charleston, South Carolina, United States. You are
staying in the French Quarter and plan to travel from
March 10th to March 15th. Walk me through how you
would input your travel destination and travel dates.

15. USABILITY TESTING – Task Scenario 2
On your trip to Charleston, South Carolina, you will
be accompanied by your spouse and two children, a
total party size of four. Show how [you] would enter
your party size, and how you would enter the age
range for your 6 year old child.
CLICKABLE PROTOTYPE
Input Party Size & Age Ranges

16. USABILITY TESTING – Task Scenario 3
Your family loves outdoor activities. Please walk me
through how you would indicate your love for outdoor
activities. (For purposes of this test, we will leave all
other things to do options as you see on the screen).
Input Things to Do
CLICKABLE PROTOTYPE

17. USABILITY TESTING – Task Scenario 4
CLICKABLE PROTOTYPE
Move from search results summary
to search result details
You want to learn more about Old Tyme Carriage
Rides. Please show me how you would do that.

18. USABILITY TESTING – Task Scenario 5
Save to favorites
You want to save Olde Tyyme Carriages Rides to
your favorites. How would you do that? Where would
you go to view activities you have saved?
CLICKABLE PROTOTYPE

19. USABILITY TESTING
Δ / + MAPPING
Methodology:
30 minute usability testing (WebEx/in
person)
Number of participants: 3
Conducted: Jan 2018
Key Findings
(+) Overall users found the prototype easy to use,
intuitive and easy to navigate
(+) Including ’Time Spent’ and ‘Projected Weigh Times’
was greatly appreciated with for travelling with kids
(+) Sliders for things to do were well received
(Δ) Activity category labelling was confusing and not well
understood
(Δ) Users were expecting information about pricing and
ways to buy activity tickets/book reservation from the
activity results

20. CHANGES BASED ON USER TESTING
Current labelling is confusing.
Replace with 'Activity Types' and
retest
Add more info text on activity type definitions and
provide an example. Make the fact that an activity
may fall into more than one category

21. CHANGES BASED ON USER TESTING
Show user their input at the top of the screen for context
(You’re going to Charleston, South Carolina from March
10 – 15 2018”). Move rest of elements down. Add tip on
why age range is required (e.g., “Some activities have
age restrictions)
Integrate pricing information as well as call to action
to commence ticket purchase. Would add
information in the boxed area as feedback was this
information is highly desirable.

22. NEXT STEPS
Ø Incorporate changes in prototype and retest
Ø Build out screens for the ‘Get Inspired’ functionality (envisioned as a
combination of browse by destination, by age, and by activity type +
itinerary recommendations)
Ø Iterate on ways to incorporate user location knowledge into search results
Ø Prioritize content sources to integrate