UI/UX researcher and designer, usability test conductor, wireframing, prortotyping
Figma, FigJam, Mural, Google suite
2022, Sep.- Dec.
Google Maps, developed by Google Inc., stands as a global leader in web-based mapping platforms, offering unparalleled functionality. While Google Maps has continually evolved to foster user engagement and user-generated content, it has encountered challenges in facilitating seamless communication among co-travelers.
In my project, I conceived a new feature: a co-travel key status tracker within Google Maps. This innovative addition caters to users' desire for real-time sharing and receipt of travel progress updates, fostering a sense of co-awareness among fellow travelers.
Co-travell: the process where travelers navigate from different locations and met up at a specific location
Supporting communications between users while co-travelling using Google Mpas remains to be a problem space as existing application functionalities are shown to be limited. This led to a gap in users' communication needs when using Google Maps.
To enable users to communicate during co-travelling within Google Maps by building an in-app communication system.
Theme 1 Socialization in the user-generated content travel domain
Google Maps began its local guides project in 2015 to seek local contributions from individuals globally. And it introduced its shared-list function in 2017, allowing users to create and share a list of favourite places or travel destinations with community. In the same year, Google launched the business messaging service, allowing customers to communicate directly with local businesses in real time.
Theme 2 Socialization in communication between individuals
Google Maps developed the dropped pin service, which allows users to share precise GPS coordinates with friends and family. However, research shows that while Google Maps is great for route navigation, it lacks certain crowdsourced social networking elements, such as notifications and status updates on current situations, like traffic and route changes.
An interview study with 10 participants is conducted beyond the desk research and product analysis to further understand specific user needs to communicate with each other and their communication habits during co-travelling.
To understand people’s co-travelling experiences.
1. What types of information are people interested in while co-traveling and why?
2. What factors affect a user’s communication needs when meeting up？
I conducted semi-structured interviews to understand our participants better. Each interview study is about 15-20 minutes over Zoom. The study provides a lot of insightful quantitive and qualitative data.
Participants would consistently update their status to other co-travellers when meeting up
Participants shared their privacy concerns, preferred a more efficient and accurate way to communicate
Participation needs different communication methonds based on the communication modality
The functionality needs for this design is to support and maintain the user’s co-awareness of each party’s key travel progress status on Google Maps while co-travelling. The co-awareness and communication will be implemented by the designed system to allow sharing and receiving the key status.
The primary goal of this stage is to identify areas of improvement and gather comprehensive feedback to ensure that the final product meets the needs and expectations of the users.
To allow users to exit the key status tracker while still able to navigate using Google Maps, I added the exit button aligns with the existing change view button.
Rather than inconsistent green dots indicating online/offline status between individual and group co-travellers, I iterated with the yellow highlight for the selected co-traveller status.
Along this path, I came to a profound realization about the pivotal role that research plays in the entire UX process. It became abundantly clear that the foundation of successful design and project outcomes lies in the meticulous groundwork of research. The early research phase emerged as the bedrock upon which all subsequent project components rested. It was during this phase that I honed my skills as a communicator, engaging in insightful interviews with our users. I discovered that formulating precise questions and selecting the appropriate research methods yield more valuable data for subsequent analysis and decision-making.
Usability testing holds a paramount role in UX projects due to its ability to unearth critical insights that profoundly impact the user experience. By observing real users interact with the newly-designed feature, I gain firsthand knowledge of usability issues, pain points, and areas where improvement is needed. This live feedback ensures that design decisions align with user expectations, contributing to a user-centric approach.
