Stripe Partners
Mapping lodging needs of Indian travellers for digital experience
In collaboration with Stripe Partners and Tropic Design we executed the project in India as an Indian market expert to help unearth the current attitudes, behaviors, needs and experiences of Indian travellers along with giving contextual understanding of the Indian socio-culture. One of the underlying goals of the project was to capture the diversity within India and to do so, we sought out the cultural ‘whys’ behind these behaviors.
These rooted the research and subsequently informed localized recommendations. These insights supplemented and informed the creation of iterative prototypes and subsequent product designs catering to these traveler needs for the largest American tech company.
Approach
The project spanned over 5+ months and employed a combination of ethnographic research running in parallel with design development. The first phase of the study entailed intensive desk research, market landscaping and remote interviews to map early insights and build hypotheses. This was followed by 3 weeks of in-person field research across 5 Indian cities involving contextual traveler interviews, intercepts, hotelier interviews, expert dinners and periodic synthesis workshops. During this research phase, aligned with the behavioral insights, we also focused on testing product concepts in the form of paper prototypes. The final phase was concluded with a validation research round of the final product prototypes.
If I know that I could take a flight just by increasing my budget by a couple of thousands compared to a train, then I would think of that. It would be a one of a kind of an experience for my family. We have never traveled by a plane. I might reduce my budget for accommodation and use it for the flight ticket.
"
Indian traveller
Delhi
Deliverable
The entire project was executed in close collaboration with the end client and also our other partners. All the teams had traveled to India to immerse into the context and be a part of the fieldwork. Our teams had multiple and periodic download sessions with the client team at key milestones in the project to make the entire process highly collaborative. As a research partner, we delivered a summary report that showcased findings and insights around contextualising product offerings for Indian travellers, along with product design principles and concepts. We also supported the design teams to translate the behavioral insights into tangible UI-UX design principles, features and opportunities.
Impact
Together with our partner teams, we were able to derive unique Indian trends, traveler behaviors and types. These helped the client gain a nuanced understanding of how Indians think, research, plan, book and experience their trips. All these findings through the various research phases fed into the curation of design principles that would underlay the product designs and would help the client strategically position themselves in the Indian market.
Project Team
Project Manager
Research Lead
UX Researcher
UX/UI Designer
