Journie - True blue cultural experiences
Travel is a universal experience. With that being said, there's a world of difference between travelling and touring with respect to recreational aspects. Travel opens doors to a wide range
of experiences.
India is a melting pot of different cultures with a wide range of languages, traditions, music, art and food. The list is endless. It is impossible for anyone to be able to experience everything that the country has to offer.
Every year, India celebrates a number of festivals and events that take place in neighbourhoods around monuments and temples. But it is impossible for everyone to witness everything in person. Without witnessing all the festivities and celebrations, the cultural experience would be incomplete.
The challenge...
How Might We enhance the experience for the avid traveller
to get a fully loaded slice of a place in India?
Scope of Work
Research
Opportunity & Competitive analysis
Personas & Customer journey
Synthesis, Ideation & development
Wireframing & Prototype Mockups
Feedback & Validation
Solution
A travel application with a guide that accompanies travellers around neighbourhoods to help them experience the true essence of culture.
Duration
6 weeks
Who is this for?
Travellers looking to get the authentic experience of local culture.
Target Audience
Indian Residents - Other states/ cities
Non Residents of India - Born and brought up abroad, wanting to find their roots
Foreigners - People who belong to other countries
The Prime Target
Kavya
Age : 24
Location :California
Occupation: Student
Kavya is an architecture student who loves travelling. She
was born and brought up in the US. She does a lot of research before travelling. She likes exploring off beat places and enjoys learning about different cultures.
Interests : Travel, Art, Architecture, Exploring culture
Personality : Adventurous, Sportive, Extrovert
Goal : She wants to travel to India to find her roots and get to know more about her culture.
Frustrations : She knows that there are a lot of festivals in India but finds it impossible to keep going back to experience everything. She understands the local language but can’t speak it.
Customer Journey
With knowledge about Kavya's travel routine, I was able to figure out which point exactly I had to intervene at.
Let's see how the Journei app helps her find her roots and explore her culture better....
Scenario :
Kavya has landed in India. She finds out about the Journei app though the Travel and Tourism Board of India and decides to download it to explore neighbourhoods.
1 -Kavya gets acquainted with the App and her local guide Indra.
She goes on to learn about how convenient it is to use with Indra's help.
She chooses her place of visit.
She chooses the adventure and downloads it. It's now saved and can be used offline.
AT THE TEMPLE:
Kavya has finished exploring the temple and is ready to start her adventure.
Once she is at starting point 1, she gets invited to choose from a list of experiences.
She picks the one she likes - The Golu festival or the festival of dolls.
She can now enjoy this through Augmented Reality Interactive experience by moving around in the vicinity to see how the space transforms during the festival.
Play the video to view the experience
Once she finishes, the app offers her a list of other festivals she can experience.
She picks the Kolam street festival. Kolam, as the art form is known in South India, can be seen in towns and temple squares all over Tamil Nadu. Kolams adorn homes and businesses for special occasions, such as festivals, auspicious observances, and marriages. One of India’s most distinctive art forms is that of Kolams, in which patterns are created on the floor or the ground using materials such as colored rice powder, dry flour, colored sand or flower petals. They feature during the various Hindu festivals, and often follow designs passed from one generation to the next and are traditionally done by girls or women. .
Similar to the Golu festival, Kavya can now enjoy this through AR to see the space transform during this festival. She can learn the history, the significance behind this and also where she can learn this art form or source materials
Play the video to view the experience
After that, she selects the Thiruvizha or the Chithiram festival. also known as Chithirai Thiruvizha, Meenakshi Kalyanam or Meenakshi Thirukalyanam, is an annual celebration during the month of April. It is celebrated during the Tamil month It lasts for one month, of which the first 15 days mark the celebrations of the coronation of Lady Meenakshi and her marriage to Lord Shiva, and the next 15 days mark the celebrations of the journey of Lord Alagar(Vishnu) from Kallazhagar temple in Alagar Koyil to Madurai.
Similar to the Kolam festival, Kavya can now enjoy this through AR to see the space transform during this festival. She can learn the history, the significance behind this and join in on the festivities.
Play the video to view the experience
After watching the video, Kavya is amazed by the sculpture and wants to find out about how they are made.
Indra helps her get information and offers to show her a video about how it's done.
Play the video to view the experience
Kavya wants to see how it's made firsthand and possibly learn this art form. Indra offers to guide her to the sculptors' workshops nearby. Indra also makes it easy for Kavya to get around even if she doesn't speak the local language.
Similar to these experiences, Journei offers a wide range of options to experience. From the best food stalls to relish local delicacies to getting filter coffee, visiting the local flower market and the significance of flower stalls near temples, Journei lets travellers enjoy local culture.
Types of Experiences on offer:
History of neighbourhood (mythology)
Ancient tales & secrets - horror stories, beliefs & customs
Festivals (Events & more, history)
Markets (Flower, fruit, vegetable etc)
Food (Local filter coffee, ancient food places, must try things)
Artisans (goldsmith, blacksmith, sculpture, potter, )
Artists (dancers, singers, musicians, tanjore painting, glass painting)
Parrot tarot, Mehendi (henna on hand)
What can she do?
The challenge
Travelling in India can be quite a task if you don’t speak the local language.
The language and dialects change every few 100kms. People in each state speak a different language. Lots of temples and these cultural neighbourhoods are not in the main city.
Tourists often have to travel long distances in various modes of transport, ask for directions from locals and communicate with the locals for everything.
While using the virtual tour feature, it would be a hindrance for people to keep going through options in the menu. To do away with it, The voice assistant would help with all the suggestions and make it easier for them.
How does she improve the experience?
1 - Communicate with you in the language of your choice, explain history, the significance and answer any questions needed.
2 -Translate everything you want conveyed to the locals- from ordering food, to ask for directions and anything else required.
3 -Accompany you like a friend on the tour.
4 -Give you directions to get to the spot without having to look at the screen and figure it out.
#MyRecipe
Project type- Individual
Ingredients
Process
The idea was to have an app with more cultural context in India. I started off by interviewing people - Indians & foreigners. I drew from my own experience - friends from different countries told me what they loved about India and the problems they faced. The most common issues I came across during research was - language barriers, feeling lost in a new city and lack of internet sometimes. That completely changed my direction. I narrowed it down by focusing on my prime target's journey. Then, I started going wide again to see how I could incorporate the use of more senses to make this a truly exciting & holistic experience. I developed a prototype to deal with all the issues. The validation process was back and forth until I got things right for my target audience and that's how I fine tuned the other features.
My takeaways
The direction of this project changed multiple times. It was extremely hard to nail down the opportunity space. Travel is very wide and each person's experience was unique. Accessibility was a big highlight in my research process. Everyone in the interviews spoke about language barriers and cultural contexts and how they find it very confusing in India. Each person has their own pace and it was important for me to try and offer something for everyone. Most people think of Travel as a uniquely visual experience but they don't understand how the other senses come in to play.
See Design Approach
