Native travel app design
Big Bus Tours are the largest open top sightseeing tour operator in the world. While I was design director at Conjure, I led the design for a native mobile app.
Lead design • Product design • Native app • User research • UX/UI
The brief
Design a new native mobile app to upsell attractions as well as improve BBT’s NPS score, through improved customer service.
Approach
Working closely with the Big Bus Tours Customer Experience team, we began the project with a comprehensive discovery phase. This involved a series of workshops to identify customer and business needs, the output of which was a prioritised road map of requirements.
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We carried out a series of workshops to identify customer and business needs, the output of which was a prioritised road map of requirements.
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We created customer personas to build a picture of customer needs across their journeys with Big Bus Tours. We had to remedy two key customer struggles: frustrations around delays, and awareness of diversions or closures on routes.
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We went through several iterations for the app UI, experimenting with typography, transitions, colour and information design.
The initial focus was on delivering a Minimum Viable Product; the core features essential for the app to bring value to the customer. Big Bus Tours new offer had to remedy two key customer struggles: frustrations around delays, and awareness of diversions or closures on routes.
UX/UI design
We focused on the three key moments in a customer’s journey:
Pre-trip
Onboarding questions help us profile the customer (type of traveller and interests). The focus is on selling a ticket and gentle notifications with offers to help drive conversion.
On-trip
Using device GPS to predict when a customer is in a Big Bus city and likely to be taking a tour.
Post-trip
Following a tour, feedback is captured via a survey.
Outcomes
Revenue from in-app ticket purchases increased by over 100% for two consecutive years. The mobile app had a 4.7 star app rating and won the UK App Awards, for best travel app.
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Revenue from in-app ticket purchases increased by over 100% for two consecutive years.
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The mobile app had a 4.7 star app rating.