Experience Map & Interviews (Additional Primary Research)
I conducted Individual Experience Mapping and interview sessions with 6 of my survey respondents. From these combined research methods, I aimed to gain insight into the areas of the group traveling process people find most challenging and stressful, from planning to traveling, to after the trip. Participants were instructed to map a recent group travel experience from before the trip to after, so I could decipher which areas of the group traveling process people find challenging and why.
Instructions Given to Participants:
An experience map is a visual story of someone's experience with something. It allows you to visualize your actions, thoughts, and feelings throughout each stage of a process. Today, you will be creating an experience map about a recent group trip experience. The goal for this activity is for me to see the big picture of your journey so I can figure out which areas of the group traveling process can be improved.
In the "Toolkit" below, you will find pre-selected images, words, and emojis that can help you describe your traveling experience. You will also find a timeline. The timeline is split into three phases: "Before Trip", "During Trip", and "After Trip". Everything above the line indicates a positive experience, and everything below the line is negative. The higher up you go, the more positive it is. And the lower down you go, the more negative it is.
Your job is to drag and drop images, words, and emojis from the toolkit that help describe your travel experience into the timeline. Feel free to add your own words, images, and emojis if you find it necessary. You will have 15 minutes to map your experience.
Results
Below are the results from each participant's experience maps.
Once participants completed their experience maps, I asked them to walk me through their experiences and explain why they chose the images, emojis, and words that they did and why certain experiences were negative or positive. After participants did this, I interviewed them about their responses.
Interview Questions:
Before Trip:
- What role did you play in planning and organizing the trip?
- Explain how decisions were made during the planning phase.
- Were there any conflicts or disagreements when planning?
- What did you do to prepare for the trip?
During Trip:
- Tell me about a time when something didn't go as planned and how you overcame it.
- Describe how you resolved or overcame disagreements or conflicts with the people you were traveling with.
After Trip:
- How did the trip affect your relationships with the people you traveled with?
- If you had a budget, did you stay within the budget range you intended to? Explain why or why not?
- What was your experience like with splitting shared expenses?
- Is there anything you would do differently in the future when traveling in groups? Explain what you would do and why.
Analysis
Next, I created a journey map including the most common experiences, actions, touchpoints, emotions, and pain points relating to the financial aspects of group travel.
Based on participants’ responses and the journey map, the top pain points people experience within each phase of the group traveling process are:
Before Trip (planning phase):
- People having different budgets
- Save vs splurge disagreements
- Activity disagreements
- Deciding who puts their card down
- Unequal planning efforts between group members
During Trip:
- Unexpected costs and fees arising
- People having different cost-splitting preferences
- Lots of math and converting to split costs
- Activity disagreements
- Different spending preferences
- Deciding who puts their card down
After Trip:
- Dealing with expenses that were put off
- Making sure everyone gets reimbursed
- Down in money/went over budget
- Unexpected costs added up
From analyzing participants' experience maps and interview responses, I conducted analyses that led to the following conclusions:
