Zeit - Empathy Research
ZEIT.
USER INTERVIEW SCRIPT.
(introduction)
Hi,
I’m Olesia. I need to conduct a user interview for our new product – a travel booking site called Zeit, and I would like to ask you a few questions about your travel experience as it may be helpful for us to be able to create the product our customers (and, hopefully, you too) will be happy with.
The interview will take about 40 minutes and I think we both are going to have fun!
(demographics data)
Name
Age
Occupation
Income level
Marital status
Children
(user interview questions)
Q. How often do you travel?
A.
Q. Do you travel alone or with a partner/family?
A.
Q. For what reasons do you travel? (Adventure, to get away, for pleasure, etc.)
A.
Q. How do you normally book your travels?
A.
Q. What online booking service do you normally use for booking your travels? Why?
A.
Q. What do you like about online travel booking? (when you book travels via your preferred online service)
A.
Q. What do you find frustrating about booking travels online?
A.
Q. Would you be interested in time travel? Why?
A.
Q. What would be your concerns or fears about time travel?
A.
Q. What would convince you to book a time travel?
A.
Q. Would you need any kind of assistance during your time travel?
A.
Q. How do you imagine your travel? What services do you think there should be?
A.
(wrap up)
Thank you for your time and participation in our research. I hope you enjoyed it. Your feedback is valuable to us and it will definitely help us in creating the product our customers will be happy with.
ZEIT.
CONDUCTING THE EMPATHY RESEARCH.
Hi,
I’m Olesia. I’m here to conduct a user interview for our new product – a travel booking site called Zeit. I would like to ask you a few questions about your travel booking experience as it may come in helpful for us so that we can create the product our customers (and, hopefully, you too) will be happy with.
The interview will take about 40 minutes, and I think we are going to have fun!
Interviewee 1
(demographics data)
Name: Paul
Age: 39
Occupation: Medical field
Income level: High
Marital status: Married
Children: 1
(user interview questions)
Q. How often do you travel?
A. 2-3 times a month
Q. Do you travel alone or with a partner/family?
A. Both.
- And which way do you prefer it?
- Depends on where I’m going to.
- Why?
- Because many of things I like are not what my family are interested in. So I do it on my own.
Q. For what reasons do you travel? (Adventure, to get away, for pleasure, etc.)
A. Knowledge. Pleasure and knowledge. A greater understanding of history.
Q. Do you prefer exploring cities or nature?
A. Nature.
- But you like history?
- A lot of the battle fields happened in ... fields.
- Fair point.
Q. What about accommodation. Would you rather book a hotel room or rent an apartment or something more private?
A. Hotel. I don’t trust people. A colleague said he had a very bad experience with Aribnb.
- What kind of bad experience?
- Difficulty contacting the owner, difficulty checking in. The accommodations were not what they were described as. False advertisement.
Q. What is your preferred means of transport for travelling?
A. Personal vehicle.
Q. How do you normally book your travels?
A. Online.
Q. What online booking service do you normally use for booking your travels? Why?
A. Hotels.com. It’s best to stick with the same one thing ‘cause they offer free nights.
Q. What do you like about online travel booking? (when you book travels via your preferred online service)
A. You receive confirmation quickly. They have certain guarantees and they have special offers on occasion.
Q. What do you find frustrating about booking travels online?
A. Oh like for the user experience? When the price changes as soon as you’re finished booking and you have to pay more.
Q. Would you be interested in time travel? Why?
A. It depends. Can I go forward or backwards only? Can I experience it or am I a fly on the wall? Can I die?
- Those are all good question. Haha. Let’s suppose you can go both ways. You can do some stuff, but there will be restrictions, of course.
- It would be a completely different experience. I think I’d enjoy it.
Q. What would be your concerns or fears about time travel?
A. Can I get a random disease? Haha. I’d like to have the capability of staying there for as long as I want.
Q. What would convince you to book a time travel?
A. Price. And location. Convenience of getting to the area.
Q. Would you need any kind of assistance during your time travel?
A. I don’t need help.
Q. How do you imagine your travel? What services do you think there should be?
A. I’d need a guide – not a person – that could give me information about where I could eat, for instance, or where I should go to see something cool.
Interviewee 2
(demographics data)
Name: Alexandra
Age: 28
Occupation: SEO-assistant
Income level: Average
Marital status: In a relationship
Children: No children
(user interview questions)
Q. How often do you travel?
A. 4-5 times a year
Q. Do you travel alone or with a partner/family?
A. Either with a partner or with family. It’s actually a good way to combine having a good time with family and enjoy a new experience.
Q. For what reasons do you travel? (Adventure, to get away, for pleasure, etc.)
A. I travel to explore new places.
Q. What exactly do you enjoy exploring while travelling?
A. Just in general, you know, to see and experience something new.
Q. Do you prefer exploring cities or nature?
A. I’d say cities located close to a beach or a forest, a town up in the mountains maybe. So that I can live in the city, but still get to enjoy the nature as well.
Q. What about accommodation. Would you rather book a hotel room or rent an apartment or something more private?
A. A private apartment. Or at least a hotel suite with a kitchenette. I enjoy making my own food.
Q. What is your preferred means of transport for travelling?
A. If it’s close then train. If it isn’t – plane. For local transport I’m ok with public transportation. Taxi maybe. Renting a bicycle would be ideal.
Q. I see. And how do you normally book your travels?
A. Online.
Q. What online booking service do you normally use for booking your travels? Why?
A. I use Booking.com. I’ve been using it since I don’t remember when.
- What makes you like it so much?
- Well, I’m just really used to it. It’s easy to navigate and offers lots of different options. I also have Genius and discounts.
Q. What do you like about online travel booking? (when you book travels via your preferred online service)
A. I like that it doesn’t take much time, you get all in one place and you don’t even have to communicate with anyone in person to get what you want. Yep. I’m an introvert. You get all you need from the comfort of your home.
Q. What do you find frustrating about booking travels online?
A. I don’t know. I’ve never had a really frustrating experience. Sometimes you can’t get the dates you want for the accommodation you like.
- I see. Were there ever any issues using the site?
- Let me think. Oh wait, yeah, there is one! It gets really annoying when you try to make a payment, but something goes wrong, and you have to do it all over. Oh wait, it was a different site, not Booking. No, I guess I have nothing bad to say about Booking. It is convenient, and it has very good filters.
Q. Would you be interested in time travel? Why?
A. I think so. I’d do it. Sounds interesting. Can you go to both the past and the future? Would be cool to go see how it is there. But not for long, a couple of hours maybe.
Q. What would be your concerns or fears about time travel?
A. That I might get stuck there? That’s why I said I wouldn’t go there for long.
Q. What would convince you to book a time travel?
A. A guarantee that you can go back any time you need. Also it would be cool if the service was similar to Booking.com. Where everything would be in detail and you get a clear picture of what it’s like there so that you know if that’s what you want.
Q. Would you need any kind of assistance during your time travel?
A. Not during. But before it I’d like to talk to a person who could give me advice on how to prepare for my trip better and what to expect from it. That kind of stuff.
Q. How do you imagine your travel? What services do you think there should be?
A. I don’t know. All I would want is a button you press to go back any time you need. A map of the destination maybe. Something that would work like Tripadvisor and give you recommendations on where to go, what activities are available.
Interviewee 3
(demographics data)
Name: Pedro
Age: 31
Occupation: Composer
Income level: Average
Marital status: In a relationship
Children: No children
(user interview questions)
Q. How often do you travel?
A. 4 - 5 times a year.
Q. Do you travel alone or with a partner/family?
A. Mostly with my partner.
Q. For what reasons do you travel? (Adventure, to get away, for pleasure, etc.)
A. To discover new places, go on adventures and enjoy. About a year ago I just moved to Europe from South America, so I’m definitely planning on traveling to most of the countries in Europe since they are so different compared to where I come from.
Q. Do you prefer exploring cities or nature?
A. I find them both equally interesting. I think it depends on where I’m visiting. Personally, if it is nature, I choose some place with woods or mountains. A nice beach is nice too. On the other hand, exploring cities is fun too. Cities with interesting history like in Europe, big famous cities like in the U.S.A, for example.
Q. What about accommodation? Would you rather book a hotel room or rent an apartment or something more private?
A. I think it depends on where I am. My first option would be to stay in a hotel. Preferably the ones that are more homelike rather than a normal hotel room. If a hotel is not really an option, renting an apartment on Airbnb for example would be good too.
Q. What is your preferred means of transport for travelling?
A. Airplane and train. If train travel is available and the distance is not that big, I would choose the train. Traveling by airplane if more for long distance traveling or when you want to save some time.
Q. How do you normally book your travels?
A. Through booking or some other app like, for example, Hopper (just air traveling).
Q. What online booking service do you normally use for booking your travels? Why?
A. Booking.com, Hopper.
Q. What do you like about online travel booking? (when you book travels via your preferred online service)
A. It is usually fast and easy. You can do it at any place as long as you have a good internet connection. There’s no need anymore to go out and buy tickets.
Q. What do you find frustrating about booking travels online? Anything irritating about using your fave booking site?
A. I don’t find anything frustrating about booking travels online.
Q. Would you be interested in time travel? Why?
A. Yes, as long as I can come back to the present time. I think it would be a really interesting experience. Though I would say it wouldn’t be for everyone. Some rules should be set. Like age, reason for traveling, things you can carry and things you cannot, etc.
Q. What would be your concerns or fears about time travel?
A. Being stuck and not being able to come back and also (if I travel back in time) to change the future in an unwanted way.
Q. What would convince you to book a time travel?
A. That it has been tested before and knowing it is safe, specially from someone I trust. Like my partner, family member or a close friend.
Q. Would you need any kind of assistance during your time travel?
A. Maybe only on my first travels. For example having someone to explain how it works, what to do and what not to do.
Q. How do you imagine your travel? What services do you think there should be?
A. I imagine traveling through time would be fast and straightforward. The rest of the experience I imagine it would be very exciting, full of new things to see.
I think an emergency service should be there for sure. Someone I can call if I need help or if I really need to come back urgently, an automatic way that would take me back to the present time would be useful too.
(wrap up)
Thank you for your time and participation in our research. I hope you enjoyed it. Your feedback is valuable to us and it will definitely help us in creating the product our customers will be excited to use!
ZEIT.
USER INTERVIEW DEBRIEF.
Goals.
2 of the 3 interviewees travel to explore new places, while 1 of the 3 also hopes to learn something new about history.
The interviewees were equally interested in exploring cities and nature.
Needs.
1 of the 3 interviewees prefers to stay at hotels, meanwhile the other 2 prefer accommodation with a more homey feel.
For transportation, 2 of the 3 choose airplane and train, while 1 prefers personal vehicle.
Motivations.
Easy navigation, discounts, bonuses, special offers, getting all in one place, booking from the home comfort without having to talk to other people, clear detailed info on destinations. (for online booking)
Price, location, convenience of getting to the destination, guaranteed safety. (for travelling)
Frustrations.
Desired accommodation unavailable on the desired dates.
Payment not going through.
Unexpected price change during booking process.
Fears.
1 interviewee demonstrated little trust in renting from private home owners (Airbnb).
All 3 interviewees demonstrated fear of having difficulties returning from their travels at their convenience.
Expectations.
New, exciting things to experience.
Written guidance on food, activities, etc.
Emergency support.
Possibility of early cancellation and return.
Note. All 3 interviewees demonstrated interest in our unique travel services as well as preference to book their travels online.