The Inspiration

In 2018, I sent my mom on vacation. Tired of seeing her live vicariously through my travels, I told her to grab a friend and clear her schedule - I was sending her to Thailand. I handled all travel arrangements, designing a custom itinerary based on the likes, needs, and budget of my mother and her friend.  By day two of the trip, I had received photos of my mother laughing harder and smiling brighter than ever before.  Two things became immediately clear: 

1. I was a great vacation planner

2. Women like my mother needed my help

I soon created Her Holiday, a custom vacation planning service for women of color.  My new business needed a website for potential clients to learn about my services and contact me for a consultation. Here’s how I built that site.

The Problem

Potential clients had no way to learn about my service or contact me.

The Goal

Design a website that a) explains my service, b) shows example trips, and c) directs visitors to contact me.

Research

Research Methods

Interviews  • Surveys  • Competitive Analysis  • Contextual Inquiry

Research Insights & Recommendations

Adapting Research Methods to the User

Adapting to User Needs

To learn about my clients’ needs and interests, I’d first tried interviews. Open-ended questions weren’t working, as clients had trouble articulating their desires. Surveys consisting of yes/no questions and interest rankings yielded slightly clearer answers, but the best information came from my third approach: photo-centric surveys. When shown images of activities, previously reserved clients responded enthusiastically and definitively - “Ooh, I want to do that!”  or,  “No way”.

The Constraints

With no teammates or engineers, I would use a basic website builder.

Insight: Users had strong emotional reactions to Photos

These strong emotional reactions to photos inspired my Visual Itineraries: photo-centric itinerary proposals consisting of vibrant images and minimal text. I used them in trip consultations, and clients loved them!  Once they saw a visual itinerary, they were quick to book.

Usability Testing

I needed to test my prototype with users and collect their feedback. How did the site feel to them? Was it easy to navigate? Did they understand my service? To find out, I observed  6 target users (Black & Brown women and aged 45-65) completing a list of tasks and thinking aloud as they went. I followed up with open-ended questions about their experience.

Defining New Problems & New Solutions

1. mNew Problem

During testing, some users asked questions that implied that they still didn’t understand how customized vacations (my service!) worked. They were only familiar with pre-set travel packages, and did not understand the flexible, a-la-carte nature of my trips.

Iteration