Case study: Tourism in Tabuk ... A Destination for Seekers of History, Sea and Snow
Heyy medium folks, today I’m going to share my case study for project 3, which I worked with my amazing team members Sara Alshihry, Rofan Alghamdi and Maria Aljaroudi. Get reading to fall in love as I have fallen in love with Tabuk. Then prepare your tickets to visit Tabuk because I know I have. ✈️
Did you always think Saudi Arabia has only deserts? then you’re going to be shocked to learn that we have snow in Saudi Arabia. Not only snow, but Tabuk also has a little bit of every side nature, sea, snow and mountains. also has a huge history and historical places.
Disk research
Some facts about Our client Tabuk
Tabuk also spelled Tabouk, is a region of Saudi Arabia, located along the northwest coast of the country, facing Egypt across the Red Sea. It has a population of 910,030. Its capital is Tabuk. The history of the Tabuk region dates back to 5,000 years ago.
Survey Insights
We wanted to know more about Saudi locals and whether they know about Tabuk or not, that’s why we conduct a survey and we came up with this result:
then we wanted to understand our user's habits and what they do and what do they prefer? that's why we had to ask the main research questions:
- What are the problems you face when choosing your destination?
- what motivates you to visit the Saudi local region on your vacation?
- Describe the activities you enjoy participating in while travelling?
- how could the tour guide improve your experience?
- describe your perfect vacation?
- what do you know about Tabuk?
after that we set up an interview goal which is:
- Understand Saudi locals pain points
- What are their motivations to visit a local region
- What they know about Tabuk
Business Research
To come up with a good platform we had to understand our competitors. Therefore we created C&C Analysis, SWOT, Leaf Diagram and Heuristic Evaluation.
C&C Analysis
Key insights:
- Most apps provide detailed flight information about the location and timing of a trip or activity.
- Dubai Tourism is distinguished by planning trips in terms of the type of trip, place and suggestions based on the user’s location, interests and organizing the time and day of the visit.
- Trip Assist has a simple basic plan tool that helps create trips and arrange the destination with a starting date.
- Visit Dubai and Airbnb have multiple options, from the tourist guide to the attractions.
- Airbnb has a five-star rating system and allows user reviews on every experience it helps the user to know if it matches their requirements.
Heuristic Evaluation:
Key insights:
What we will do:
- Make the errors more clear
- Use high-quality imagery
- Make it as simple as possible
- Make the UI aesthetically pleasing
- Use onboarding for new features
What we won’t do:
- Make it too wordy
- ِApply poor information architecture
- Adopt unfamiliar modules
- Use uncommon UI for users
SWOT Analysis:
Leaf Diagram:
Business need vs User need
User Research
Affinity map:
We conduct our interviews with 30 users and come up with these insights and statements which helped us later on to create a problem statement.
Key insights:
- Users didn’t have enough knowledge about the city of Tabuk, and this is the main reason why people don’t go and explore the place.
- Users were interested in learning about the civilization, culture and historical character of Tabuk.
- Users do not make reservation decisions until knowing the available activities and reading the reviews.
- They generally like to plan their trip before travelling.
- They want to meet the locals and have a local experience.
- They are interested in enjoying nature in a calm atmosphere and taking pictures.
- They are interested in the cold weather of the area and the lines to try new activities.
- They want to get to know the places through a tourist guide, but they want to maintain privacy.
Persona:
From all the data we have gathered from the affinity map we were able to create our persona, Omer :
Problem Statement:
Saudi local tourists face difficulties in finding the right information when trying to discover new travelling experiences for their local vacations. Our solution should aim to provide sufficient information about Tabuk’s history and culture by a guiding experience.
User journey:
after that we created Omer user journey, Omer hearing about Tabuk's nature, planing for Tabuk then travel to Tabuk and use our app there.
After that, we started to visualize Omer's journey by creating a storyboard to showcase Omer's problem and our solution.
Feature Prioritization:
We started to suggest possible features and priorities according to what our users preferred, impact and effort.
key features:
Features description:
- Review text with picture
this feature allows you to write your review and adding a picture for it.
- Smart tour guide
this feature provides an audio guide to hear stories about the culture.
- tips and information
the feature will provide basic information about the places.
- planner tool
this feature is for planning and managing your tasks and projects.
- wishlist
features that allow the creation of collections with desired products saved by clients.
MDP
Branding:
Branding was excited, we wanted to create a brand for Tabuk that was inspired by Thamudians and the ancient Arabs as it was in Tabuk before Saudi Arabia was established.
User flow:
Task flow:
Sitemap:
we did a card sorting with 17 users and after that, we created our app sitemap.
Wireframes
of course, after sketching on paper ideas then we did our lo-fi and mid-fi wireframes on Figma, we started with annotated wireframes.
Annotated Wireframes:
Delivery
Testing:
Tabuk app Mockup:
We created a final prototype to present our solution.
What could be next?
- Interactive map
- Activity trailers
- In-app flight and hotel booking
- VR Mode
In conclusion:
- We have learned so much about Tabuk.
- We started to value Tabuk’s nature and history.
- We understood Saudi’s pain point in domestic tourism.
Finally
“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.”
Teamwork is what made this journey amazing, fun and successful. All I can say without a team effort, collaboration and dedication we would never fly and reached Tabuk. Thanks to my amazing teammates for their dedication and hard work. Now go and book a flight to Tabuk then just enjoy the nature and snow that waiting for you out there. ❄️
