Exploring changing traveler preferences based on types of trips they're taking as a key area to accelerate personalisation across the business.
A new personalisation program was formed to address the gaps in delivering personalisation at scale. Part of the program’s remit was looking at experiences that can accelerate personalisation adoption across different teams. With the aim to drive retention rate of returning app visitors.
I was the lead designer on the project and worked with a product manager and stakeholders to define the problem space, identify key opportunities and develop initial concepts. After researching and validating initial concepts I helped define initial proof of concept to be built.
A new data layer to accelerate personalisation via network effects.
As a result of our work we identified a key area of focus to accelerate personalization across the business - trip types and preferences. This has sparked several conversations across the organisation, accelerating some already underway initiatives. In addition a proof of concept is now in development taking an iterative approach towards the initial concepts.
To define area of focus I led a series of workshops inviting domain experts to participate and have their input on how we could accelerate personalization.I then worked with senior management and product partners to define a framework and prioritize a shortlist of concept based on personalization impact, technical feasibility and user value. We then conducted deep dives on the shortlisted options and chose to focus on a concept that allows users to create a trip profile that would hold their preferences and could be reused for future trips based on the type of trip
I then worked with research and product management to create concept designs that could be put forward for research. Exploration included mapping out flows, reviewing competitors and connecting with internal teams in related spaces. Concept designs were intentionally broad to capture as many mental models around this idea as possible to then further refine the concept.
Following insights from the first round of concept research I mapped out key component of the experience into a framework that would allow us to easily iterate based on user feedback. This was then followed with another round of concept research with new iteration of the concept that focused more on an implicit experience. These two studies helped us to arrive at a finalised concept we want to build towards.
A huge part of this project was not only defining an experience that is valuable to users, saves their time and drives retention, but also the underpinning data layer of trip types that could be scaled out to accelerate personalization.First two concept research studies helped us hone in on what is a trip type, but we needed more extensive approach to define initial set. To do that I worked with a product manager, data scientist and user researchers to combine quantitative and qualatative approaches to define and initial set of trip types.
Having finalised the concept and initial set of trip types the next step was to scale down the concept to something that can be built to start enabling this data layer and iterating towards our north star concept.This included me working with a product manager to look at existing data to better understand opportunity areas and define iterative approach. Partnering with a researcher, content designer and getting developer and stakeholder feedback to create cross platform design specifications.
Definition of new data layer, future vision and POC to tackle first steps.
As a result we’re now building our POC to unlock the trip type data layer and will be iterating towards north star trip profile and preference concept. This project was challenging and exciting in many ways, the scope and resourcing shifted through out the lifecycle. Meaning I had to lead and inspire teams on the potential benefit, make connections across different teams to get to the final outcome.And finally it’s a very strategic project with a high level outcome that I believe will accelerate personalisation across teams driving retention, but it is setup in a way where we can deliver value fast and iterate towards a north star concept.