Case study PostMyTravel

The PostMyTravel app is part of one of the largest projects done at PushButtons. The entire project includes hundreds of research sessions (user needs research, usability research, and customer satisfaction research), as well as designing a few applications.

One of these apps is PostMyTravel. Designing the app wasn’t easy. Our target were travelers and tourist industry representatives but, unfortunately, the period of research and design fell in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But let’s start from the beginning.

About our client

PostMyTravel is a brand that is part of Infotower Technologies, whose mission is to provide solutions for the tourist industry. They have two product lines. PostMyTravel (which we’ll describe in detail later) lets travelers create unique travel journals and souvenirs. On the other hand, PostMyTravel Business supports travel agencies in selling their tourist trips and events thanks to an original way of presenting their offer.

Challenges

The challenge was a very large scope of the project and an imprecise vision for the end product. The app was supposed to be a ‘do-all’ supporting travelers on their journeys. Our research confirmed that this was a good direction.
However, the most challenging part was to narrow down the list of requirements based on travelers’ needs to only include the most crucial ones. It was as difficult as convincing our client that reducing the scope and creating a more basic, stable version including the most important features is the right way to go.

One of the other challenges
was to conduct in-depth
interviews both in Poland
and the USA.

Process

In our opinion, it’s always good to start with a workshop to find out about the vision of the client, their expectations, and their business goals. Because the scope was so large, we conducted a few workshop sessions, involving our key design team members, to better understand the motivation, discover any limitations, and determine the outcome of the project.

We couldn’t forget about in-depth desk research to find existing solutions supporting travelers and find their strengths and weaknesses in order to build the products consciously.

We researched and analyzed the largest possible number of tourism-related mobile apps and websites, multimedia authoring tools, and travel journaling apps.

Our user needs research consisted of over 100 research sessions! We interviewed travelers and tourist industry representatives to get to know their needs and propose complementary solutions. We conducted sessions in Poland and in the USA (thanks to our researcher from Washington). This certainly gave us a broader perspective on the tourist industry.
The interesting part was conducting research in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, which apart from learning about the industry itself, allowed us to see how it changed in the face of the pandemic.
Analyzing the current situation and a standard development plan to meet the identified needs wasn’t enough. We also had to think about the future of the tourist industry and how it’s going to work after the pandemic.

We summarized the analysis stage into a vast report (of a few hundred pages), which aimed to serve the client as a base to design PostMyTravel and support their further activities related to creating new functionalities and planning the marketing strategy.

For PushButtons, the report was a basis for creating a vision for the MVP, its principles and key functionalities.

When our client accepted the design direction, we started working on the structure of the app.
We presented our vision on clickable mockups in Adobe XD.
The next stage was adding a UI layer to the UX mockups.
We worked on this project as an extension to the client’s team. We took part in everyday team meetings and supported the IT team in the development process. This allowed us to clear up any doubts or adjust the design to any changes resulting from e.g. technology limitations.

Our role in the project wasn’t limited to designing the app. We’re still working with PostMyTravel and supporting them in further activities related to the development of the app. We adapt to new requirements and design new features. Our CEO Sebastian Białas is working beside our design team to support the client in creating a business strategy and in discussions with existing and potential business partners.

Thanks to our client’s awareness about the importance of user satisfaction, we conduct regular usability tests with users. We create a report for each research session including recommendations for changes and development. Once the client accepts an area for change, we design and create UX/UI mockups ready to use by developers. This way, our client can be sure that the app is developed in accordance with users’ expectations.

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How we
worked:

1. Setting business goals and project assumptions

Together with the client, we set business goals the app was meant to support. We analyzed a long list of expected functionalities and helped to reduce it to the most important ones for the MVP version. The findings from user interviews helped us enormously.

2. User research

In-depth interviews conducted with travelers in Poland and the USA helped us understand problems and challenges that arise during travels. Interviews with tourist industry representatives made it possible to identify business opportunities.

3. Desk research

We reviewed dozens of tools for planning travels, creating travel journals, and organizing multimedia. Then, we reviewed systems used for offering tourist offers.

4. Design strategy

Having carried out the research and analysis, we created a design strategy for the PostMyTravel app. We outlined the elements for the MVP and for further development of the app.

5. UX/UI mockups

The last step was to create UX mockups. We prepared a complete set of views which made it easier for the developers to implement them.

6. Further research and development

We continue conducting regular usability tests for PostMyTravel, we interview travelers and tourist industry representatives to improve the app and plan its further development.

The team

To ensure continuous and transparent communication between team members, we involved a Project manager in the design process, who kept in touch with the client.

Depending on the needs, we chose specialists for specific tasks in the project. All the research was conducted by two researchers.

We had a UX designer responsible for designing mockups and giving the direction for the graphic design. The UI was designed by our graphic designer who was supported by the UX designer to make sure that the graphic layer is consistent with project goals and the UX mockups.

The research conducted in the USA was done by our researcher who has Polish roots but lives in Washington.

We carry out each step of the project in close cooperation with the client’s team.

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Result

The very idea for the app is rated highly, it has high marks usability-wise, and a paper postcard sending feature is considered an original idea.

All this makes us proud to be working with PostMyTravel!

The mobile app is only one of the many elements on which we’re working with the PostMyTravel team, but we’re afraid we need to keep it a secret for now 😉

What we
learned:

The PostMyTravel project had a lot of challenges. We had to work out how to work together, prioritize, and advise. We’re happy we can be a part of this project because it’s an amazing opportunity to gain experience.

First of all, this is the first time we’ve conducted research on such a large scale. In total, we’ll conduct over 500 research sessions throughout the project! It’s an enormous challenge in terms of organization and logistics, and we’ve made it work really well. Doing research in two different countries across the ocean from one another wasn’t easy but thanks to that, we opened our American branch 😀

Working with a client who is a true visionary was a challenging but great learning experience. It’s awesome to see so many great ideas for the development of the app but it can also be challenging. So what we’ve learned from it was to freeze the list of features and plan further development. This was possible through prioritization and constructive discussions with the client.

We’re also advisors in the PostMyTravel project. Our CEO is involved in business talks on behalf of PostMyTravel, which allows us to gain sales and marketing experience, get to know a new industry, and have a different perspective on business. It’s been an invaluable journey that will have an impact on our future projects.

Finally, regular usability tests of the app give us a unique opportunity to verify our solutions. This doesn’t happen too often so we’re eager to learn what we can do better to improve our work.

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What
our clients
say…

Nothing gives more comfort than trusting a business partner. In the case of Push Buttons, this trust is at maximum.

Tomasz Werner, CEO, Infotower Sp. z o.o.