UX of Travel

This blog is an exploration of what travel can teach us about designing better experiences at home. About the Author: Jeff Axup, Ph.D. Jeff is a UX director, designer, and researcher with 20+ years of experience. He has traveled to 33 countries and did one solo-trip for 13 months. His doctorate focused on research methods for designing mobile and wearable technologies for backpackers in Australia. Mission Statement Public Speaking Bio Contact Me Index of All Blog Posts This blog is a personal project of the author and is not affiliated with any companies or employers.

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CASH

Mexico is still heavily cash-based despite the availability of credit cards in many places. Going back to carrying a full wallet, dealing with coins, difficulties making change, misplacing money, and running out of money (atm runs), and just general payment inefficiency, make it seem like stepping back in time. Slowly but surely the US is moving cashless. Between digital wallet/IDs, Apple pay, and ubiquitous credit cards I can almost leave my cash and many of my cards at home. The day cash disappears entirely will be a good one for humanity.

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It appears developing nations are picking up QR codes and digital health even faster than the US in some cases. This hospital has moved their entire Covid testing station outdoors. You walk up (no appointment needed) scan a QR with your phone camera, fill out the form, and submit it online to get your tracking number for your place in line. They call your number, you go in and get the swab test in a shipping container and then leave. They WhatsApp you a receipt for payment from your phone number which was in the form. 2 hours later you get an email with a PDF with a QR code and password for your result. The QR links directly to detailed test results online. Results in 2 hours.

This is a better process design and UX than most testing sites in the US! Imagine this process only a few years ago with paper forms, carbon paper, standing in lines, and in-person results pickup. The only improvement would have been online payment from a digital wallet instead of cash-only.

Photos of the overall test process:

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Some of the most clear bathroom signage I have seen yet. This must save them about a thousand “which way is the restroom” questions per month.

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On the topic of Michelin stars, official rating systems, and what actually produces a good restaurant user experience: I have pretty much given up on San Francisco restaurants despite the so called world-class ratings. Reasons: reservations required, small cramped seating and tables, insufficient restrooms, expensive food, impossible parking, getting hassled on patios, etc.

Compare this with our Christmas Dinner in Puerto Vallarta. We walked in without a reservation still in our snorkeling gear, got a table for six people, ordered a seafood feast and great cocktails for $120 total including tip, on a major holiday where many restaurants are closed. Cheaper labor costs, cheap real-estate, and a plentiful supply of local seafood certainly helps. However the main point is to not hassle the customer and let them have a pleasurable experience. Many restaurants (and cities that create the laws they operate under) are not producing environments where it is pleasurable to dine out. Strangely developing countries often do better, due to the lack of unnecessary rules and costs.

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The perfect design solution for a COVID-era toilet. Industrial strength foot-pedal flush!

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It is a pleasure to find small towns (e.g. San Pablo) with so few cars you can walk in the streets without constantly looking over your shoulder for fear of being run over. This town also has sidewalks, which we take for granted in the US. In Bali for example, there are no sidewalks and you walk in the streets with crazy mopeds speeding by.

It is entirely possible that the ground-level may once again become the protected domain of the pedestrian as eVTOLs ((air) and Boring tunnel transit starts to take off.

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Real life influencing icon design 😉

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In a 3-story Mexican palapa hut design, the stairs for the top floor need to be quite steep in the available space. To solve this problem each step alternates between the left and right side to allow the steps to be placed very close to each other. Both a very ingenious solution and also pretty dangerous. The dog was willing to go down them but not up them.

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This was the only visible door on the outside of a ferry station in St Barths. Male? Female? Non-gendered? Not pairing labels with your icons can be problematic.

Finally solved this one after finding an exclusively male toilet around the other side of the building.

This bathroom in Mexico was much more clear. It also only uses a visual but the use of a more complete picture as opposed to an icon helps immensely. One does wonder what they might use as the gender neutral bathroom picture.

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Digital payment systems (mainly credit cards in this case) are becoming pretty ubiquitous, even in small towns in the developing world. However a good cell signal can still be hard to find - resulting in magic wand hand waving rituals to get payments to go through. All of this should be satellite.

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UX isn’t just about graphical interfaces or even digital experiences. It’s about that shopping experience in a hut, on an island with only boat access, with sand under your toes.

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I don’t know why it took airports 30 years to figure this out. Perhaps mobile phones with alerts finally tipped the balance towards not needing general announcement broadcasts.

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Airlines are starting to level up their UX. On the screen is something you might expect to see on a physical sign: the seat number. This is typically information that is hard to find (small, above seat) and typically confusing since it corresponds to three different seats, and is sometimes placed between rows. To solve this problem, why not use the screen when it is not in use before a flight, and show this information in a very large font, in a location that is unambiguous? The only downside to this design strategy is when you need to find your seat again after using the restroom in the back of the plane when all of the lights are out.

Right below it is a physical sticker, indicating that on-board movies are available on this flight and in fact, in this seat. So it is a location-aware notification for something that is sometimes not present, and which is often hard to determine the availability of. It is also advertising, but it is also an appropriate way of advertising complex information to the user that isn’t obnoxious, unlike many digital formats. They also used it to advertise in-seat power, which is something else that is typically hard to locate the existence or non-existence of.

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Worst microwave interface ever.

Goal: Heat food for 60 secs. Failed.

Interface designers should always start a design with a ranked list of the top 3-5 use cases. The top use cases should be simple to find, quick to complete, and highly automated. Other lesser-used, and more complex features, shouldn’t get in the way of the most frequent and critical tasks.

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Many years after their original introduction, QR codes are finally taking off and finding their target use case. Surprisingly, even 3rd world countries are adopting them, and COVID seems to have increased demand for not touching pieces of paper. In Costa Rica we used them to prove our COVID test result status, automatically join the local WIFI network, and view menus in restaurants and hotels. Sometimes technologies just need to wait for the right timing to see mass adoption and become a standard.

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Line Management Suddenly Becomes Commonplace

Apparently it took COVID 19 to get restaurants to start thinking about managing their lines, as well as reducing the amount of things you need to touch in the process of eating a meal. Who knew it was as easy as putting some tape on the ground?

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Touch-free Design

The Coronavirus has finally made the world aware of the dangers of touching dirty surfaces. The problem is that our product and service design hasn’t being paying attention to this as a requirement. To add to the problem, it is often products from different companies that are being assembled into one service use case by a 3rd party, such as a restaurant owner.

In the above two examples, a communal bottle of BBQ sauce sits, undoubtedly teeming with bugs and dirt on the outside, waiting to be picked up by a bare hand that will shortly be used to eat fries and a sandwich. Similarly, in another restaurant there is a blow dryer which will blow dirty air onto your hands, followed by a door handle, once again teeming with bugs, that needs to be opened by a bare hand. It’s no wonder we pass viruses around so easily. You should be able to eat lunch or use a restroom without touching anything other than yourself.

Now is the time for a touch-free and sanitary design movement. Some of it is product design, but a lot of it needs to be service design. Ketchup can be dispensed into ramekins prior to use, movement sensors can dispense recycled towels and open doors when you approach. Cars can mechanically open doors for you. Credit cards can respond to a tap instead of an insert, and people can pay by phone. We can stop using paper money which is a disease vector. Public transit can be designed so that you don’t have to hold on with your hands. Food can be served so that utensils, instead of hands, can be used to eat it. Toilets can auto-flush. The list goes on and on.

The argument for touch-free and sanitary design is simultaneously an argument for automation. You don’t want a bathroom attendant handing you your towel. You don’t want to touch anything to request things or do things. You want the technology to predict the simple things you want, and then automatically do them for you (see previous posts). If we changed the design of our world in this way, we would be reducing the contagion rates for new diseases in the future, and making society a lot safer.