A centralized platform for travel companies and destination marketing organizations. Digitalising Finnish tourism, a Visit Finland case study. The challenge: To kick-start the digital evolution of the travel ecosystem within Finland. The preexisting system limited travel companies, only providing the ability to update product information twice annually, whilst forcing information to be updated manually across multiple channels. To create a communication channel between different stakeholders in the industry. Especially travel companies and destination marketing organisations — allowing small medium businesses the chance to easily acquire specialist support. To update current low quality data. The scattered information is an issue, particularly for media and international travel agencies. The basics: Client: Visit Finland My role: UX Design, UI Design Duration of the project: 3 months design & development https://traveldatahub.com Website: Learn Insights Build MVP Measure Analytics The method: — Validate product hypothesis, eliminate risks. — Identify product features that users actually need. — Iterate based on real feedback. The beginning: The start was all about learning. Firstly, defining and prioritising the goals of the project took centre stage, and the chosen medium were workshops. Working with Visit Finland, stakeholders were identified and prioristised to lay the foundation for future design decisions. The vision: A vision canvas was utilised to gain an understanding of product objectives and goals and create user epics & stories. Below are examples of the user stories created: — As a (travel) entrepreneur, I can enter in, remove and update my company and service details into the system so that I have the principal control on my own marketing message. — As a (travel) entrepreneur, if am I cooperating with my local DMO I will select them to curate my content. In a case where there is no local DMO or if for some reason I choose not to work with the local DMO I can choose Visit Finland to curate the content. — As a ‘Visit Finland’, the data can be enhanced by our third party partners. — As a curator I understand when and what to check so that I don’t need to spend a lot of time on individual changes. -As a (travel) entrepreneur or a curator, I understand how much any information is used so that I can understand which data has the most impact and shall be enhanced. User interviews: Validation questions were defined, created and woven into interview structures for all stakeholder groups. User interviews were directly undertaken with small entrepreneurs, travel companies, destination marketing organistions, online travel agencies and Visit Finland. 28 total interviews Example validation questions Small Entrepreneur Can you break down how you promote your business online? Can you walk me through how you create the content for your marketing activities? Can you describe step by step how you update and maintain the gathered information? How do you check your online visibility and marketing data? Travel Company Can you break down how you promote your business online? Can you walk me through how you create the content for your marketing activities? Can you describe step by step how you update and maintain product information? How do you go about making tailor made marketing messages for your different market segments? Can you explain the process of tracking the results of your marketing activities? Destination Marketing Organisation Can you walk me through how you gather the information regarding attractions, products and services? Can you describe step by step how you update and maintain the gathered information? Can you break down how you then use that information? Unexpected bonus feedback: To better understand the problem from different perspectives interviewees were given the opportunity to fill out a vision canvas, providing invaluable insights into the problem space. Vision canvas example from DMO: “Today, when small and medium-sized tourism companies want to have their products to be visible/promoted/sold in different channels they have to update their information to too many channels. This is unacceptable, because SMEs lack in time and this leads to not up to date/non-existing online information. We envision a world where destinations could easily manage their product offering and promote products according to target group preferences. We're bringing this about through using the VF national database.” Key problems Interview results: Two times a year update: A clear barrier & problem revolved around the existing MyStay portal opening just two times a year for a two-week period. Meaning if travel companies and small entrepreneurs missed the period they couldn’t update any product data until the next open time slot. It also created a huge pressure & backlog for destination marketing organisations, clogging up the process of updating data leading to a lack of quality datasets. Multiple data locations: Travel companies & small entrepeneurs had to source and input data from multiple different channels and locations, wasting time & resulting in a lower quality of data and lack of clear communication channels. Key problems continued Interview results: Quality of data: Numerous locations to update data, combined with different times of access and different data structures led to a lack of quality, accessible data especially for products of smaller entrepreneurs. Marketing Material: Bad data means bad marketing material, leading to destination marketing organisations such as Visit Finland & Visit Turku wasting precious resources updating and checking information, leaving little time for promotion of products. Industry communications: Industry communications operated around emails. MyStay allowed for submitting data twice annually, and if any data was incorrectly submitted, the communications ended up being consumed inside an email trail. ‘Just another system’: An interesting finding, and one of the most difficult to overcome lay with small entrepreneurs. Many had a distrust for existing systems, and suspected a new service would mean another login to remember, and more booking fees. Key problems continued Interview results: UX of existing product forms: The existing form for MyStay was difficult to navigate, which caused multiple problems, especially when only accessible for two times a year. Many travel companies and smaller entrepreneurs didn’t see the value compared to the effort required, therefore weren’t motivated to keep data up-to-date. Industry support: Due to industry communications having an inherently bad process key support was missed for those who required it, especially in relation to marketing and sharing expertise knowledge. “My problem is the lack of time, I manage 10 different language versions.” “When you have to collect the info — it's quite a process — it would be easier if we'd have an online forum — so that they [travel companies] would update their information, prices — instead of sending it back and forth by email.” Prioritised features Interview results: After synthesising the interviews and combining the knowledge with the stakeholder prioristisation, features were prioritised for the MVP. The build: With defined features user flows were made to have an overall picture of the information architecture. Onboarding & feedback The UI: The onboarding included information on how to directly send feedback anytime whilst using the datahub. This was important as acquiring feedback at the moment was a key part of the iteration strategy. MyStay import The UI: As part of the onboarding, travel companies and small entrepreneurs could import any number of preexisting products that already existed on MyStay with the purpose of easing the transition to a new service. TC’s & SME’s The UI: After loading MyStay products they can be seen as cards on the main view. The ability to edit and add new products is also available. The left-hand menu gives access to the dashboard, company information and channels. Curator dashboard The UI: The curator view allowed for destination marketing organisations to see products imported by the small entrepreneurs and travel companies. The data could them be edited, published and used to created marketing content such as digital catalogs. Product form The UI: One of the most crucial challenges was the product form as an improved visual look and user experience were critical in the attainment of quality data. Below you can see the old form vs. the re-designed version. Curator & Product Owner demos The demos: To see a more detailed look at both the destination marketing organisation and small entrepreneur & travel company flows, simply view the demos below: all attraction photos Attraction segments External Link to Product Product Type Capacity Suitable for Season Experience 15 People Individual & Group Summer Contact Details Availability 164 Lake, Lapland, 00200 Attraction title This outdoor trip in the Eastern H elsinki archipelago offers a great combination of exercise and relaxation: after a kayaking trip to a nearby island, a delicious and a plentiful picnic with local F innish delicacies will be en j oyed on one of the islands. The trip is suitable for everyone and the paddling pace will be easygoing. The guides will be there for your comfort and safety. K ayaking Tour and Picnic in the Archipelago 2 00€ p/p A Touch o f Parad i se i n the Mi dst o f L a k e l and H iking & Campin g Lapland Published 65€ p/p K a y a ki n g Tour and P i cn i c i n the Arch ip e l a g o K ayakin g Lapland Published 50€ p/p A G u i ded Hik e i n Fi n l and ' s D ee p est G or g e to H o ly B a p t i sm W ater f a ll H ikin g Lapalnd Not Published 300€ p/p S nowmo bil e S a f ar i to the H us ky F arm ! H usky Safar i Lapland Not Published 2 30€ p/p Gli m p se o f the Arct i c - H us ki es i n N uu k s i o N at i ona l Par k H usky Safar i Lapland Not Published changes ( 4 ) pdated ( 11 ) ( 1 9 0 ) S ll ( 2 7 6 ) (7 1 ) Search s 3 9 Name D ata H u b Curator I n f ormat i on P l a y Curator D emo P l a y SM E & TC D emo Learned features Iterating on the go: Product status: Initially the products filtered into a mass list, however, it was quickly identified curators(DMO’s) needed a status for edited & updated products, making their workflow simpler. Activity log: In addition to the product status an activity log was provided for the curator workflow. Product completeness score: The product completeness score was cricital for improving the quality of data, providing an easy prompt for travel companies whilst letting curators know at a glance which data was missing from the product form.