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Shuyu prefers to introduce herself as a "designer"  who isn't confined to any role like motion graphics designer, UI/UX designer, or 2D animator. She relies on her rational thinking and spontaneous creativity to dig up solutions for any existing problem from clients or society at large.

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Shuyu 

Peng

Linkedin

Research

City Sightseeing is the World's largest open-top, double-decker sightseeing tour bus operator. It provides tour bus services in more than 130 cities around the world. As City Sightseeing has grown and expanded, the company now also provides boat tours, train tours, and guided walking tours.

Interview & insights

Questions:

  1. What brings you to this tour today? How do you know about the company?

  2. Have you taken tours in other cities or just in the NY area? Is there any sort of interactive activity on the City Sightseeing tour?

  3. Are you going into this with any certain expectations?

  4. What age group do you belong to?

  5. What are other experiences you have done in the city so far?

  6. Do you have any concerns in general (language, car sickness…)

  7. Where are you from? How long will you stay? Did you have any specific plan before you came on your trip to NYC?

  8. What is the most exciting thing you have done in NY so far?

  9. Do you enjoy the night time or day time activities better?

Results:

  1. City sightseeing has 11 different languages on the tour.

  2. People connect with famous attractions

  3. Sightseeing provides a great tour guide to explain the story of the city.

  4. Buses depart every 10 min. (time saver)

  5. Bus routes cover a big portion of the city.

Cons

  1. The trip is traditional, there is no interactive activity

  2. Price is high

  3. Hot during the summer

Pros

Insights:

  1. City Sightseeing is a very traditional style bus tour through NYC

  2. Six of the most popular spots on the tour are Rockefeller center, Trump tower, Statue of Liberty, Union building, Empire State Building, and Wall street (people are more interested in the downtown tours)

  3. People often plan their trip based on their interests however; at times find themselves diverting from their original plan.

  4. Food and beverage are sometimes included in the tour fee

  5. Tourists are usually exhausted by the night time.

Ideation(3 solutions)

Solution 1:

Phone

  • Online ticket purchasing

  • Worldwide travel guide

  • Personal travel planner

  • Map and navigation

  • Multiple stops route planner

People plan their trips ahead of time before visiting a new city. City Sightseeing aims to provide a more efficient way for customers plan their trips. Users only need to list attractions they want to visit, the system will customize schedules and transportation options for them.

Giving people the chance to enjoy the feeling of lost but able to find the staff that interest them quicker.

Wearable

  • Link to users account, users can pin point attractions passed by and add to their collection

Desktop

  • Reserve tour dates, time and pickup locations

  • Customize tour bus route

  • International travel planning

Hardware

  • GPS tracker

  • Syncs users routes to app, collects users preferences and improves users travel experience

  • Vibrating reminder. Remind users/drivers before bus arrival.

Solution 3:

New York City is so jam packed with history that you might be wondering by a spot you didn't even realize was historical or of interest. The GPS tracking bracelet will vibrate every time you walk past what it believes to be a point of interest for you. Pull out your phone to read a brief history and reviews of the spot you wondered in front of. On the city sightseeing website review and rate the spots you enjoyed the best and the ones with the best reviews will slowly rotate into future tours on city sightseeing.

Mobile

  • Show history of spots you're in front of

  • See reviews from other visitors

Desktop

  • Rate your experience at some of your favorite and least favorite locations

  • leader boards for new spots on the sightseeing tour

Hardware

  • GPS tracker

  • Vibrates when you walk past a point of interest

Since our goal is to refine user experience and provide a smoother flow from planning to exploring the city, we decided to go with solution three, in which hardware features are simplified and thus require less technical knowledge from users. At the wireframing stage, we focused on the hierarchy difference between the desktop and mobile versions.

Final solution:

Wireframes

Testing & Feedbacks 

We asked three people to test out two main features of the mobile experience — like/dislike nearby historical or spots of interest and add them to the trip schedule. Then, from the schedule page, we want to observe how will users browse the trip calendar and map feature.

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Iterations

1. Button UI improvement — move "like" button to image card; keep only "add to schedule" and "no interest" options to simplify the interface.

2. Map page improvement — delete bus route on the Point of Interest and Schedule page

Final design

Solution 2:

Double decker bus and tour guide headsets have been an iconic bus tour duo for years. Because of a lack of innovation, costumers are less attracted and have low expectations for their rides. Instead they'll consider the bus tour as a transportation connecting tourist attractions. With the AR glasses tour and photo syncing features, users are able to enjoy the city without pulling out their phones.

Mobile

  • Online ticket purchasing

  • Route recorder

  • Sync pictures to wearable device

Wearable/Desktop

  • Visual experience during a tour (can shift between daytime/nighttime/helicopter view)

  • Plug-in camera shares pictures taken on the bus to users at the end of each trip

Hardware

  • GPS tracker

  • Vibrating reminder. Remind users/drivers before bus arrival

Visual experience with AR glasses example

Test groups:

City Sightseeing Employee

Tourist Group A

(Have bus tour experience)

Tourist Group B

(Never taken tour bus)

 

During testing, we noticed all three users are confused by connecting buttons on nearby page, and thought the photo of the attraction is the call to action button to add this into schedule, instead of the designated + button. When on schedule page, users pointed out the map section is too small and packed with useless information.

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