Welcome Back! Last time we looked at the importance of and relationship between Duty of Care and Duty of Loyalty. If you haven’t read Part I, no worries! Here's a brief summary:
Duty of Loyalty infers that travelers should refrain from behaving in a manner that would be contrary to their organization’s best interests on a work/school-related trip.
At OffWeGo, we focus on the Duty of Loyalty. We engage our travelers where, how, and why they want to be engaged with the goal of reducing risk and increasing compliance through social connection and community, comparison of in-destination resources, and proven gamification techniques. We do this through our mobile app that matches travelers together while giving access to executive-level safety & security support services so that travelers can have fun and travel managers know their travelers are safe.
So that brings us to today…
What is UX Design?
In short, (because a whole blog post could—and has—been written about this topic), UX Design stands for User Experience design.
In digital design, UX Design refers to everything that affects a user’s interaction with a digital product. People generally asses products according to the following criteria:
- Value - Does this experience give me value?
- Function - Does this product work as it’s supposed to?
- Usability - Is it easy to use?
- General impression - Is it enjoyable to use?
Don Norman is often thought to be the Grandfather of UX Design. He explains:
No product is an island. A product is more than the product. It is a cohesive, integrated set of experiences. Think through all of the stages of a product or service – from initial intentions through final reflections, from first usage to help, service, and maintenance. Make them all work together seamlessly.
Don Norman, inventor of the term “User Experience”
Successful products (the iPhone, Spotify, TikTok, etc.) all stem from a cohesive user experience. They follow each individual user’s journey from onboarding to exit, ensuring they come back for more—new yearly iPhone upgrades, personalized Discover Weekly, exciting new content a scroll-a-way. UX Design often has many foundational roots in human behavior and is based on psychology. Stay tuned for next week as we dive deeper into this aspect in regard to gamification.
TLDR: Good UX Design goes a long way in creating an enjoyable experience that keeps customers/users coming back for more.
Don’t just take our word for it - check out some awesome experts on the subject:
- Ergonomics of human-system interaction
- What is User Experience (UX) Design?
- The psychology in UX design
- Design Psychology and the Neuroscience of Awesome UX
➡️ Interested in Learning more?
So, how did we create such a great user experience?
🔬 Customer and User Research!
By talking to both our customers and our users we were able to gain valuable insight into both sides of the problem. It is a core belief at OffWeGo that by prioritizing the end user and developing an enjoyable solution from their perspective will drive overall company growth–if our users are happy, our customers are happy, if our customers are happy, we’re happy.
This is why we talked with over 2,500 students through a variety of surveys, personal interviews, focus groups, and casual anecdotes to create Version 1. We consistently built OffWeGo with a team of at least 2-10 students to ensure we reach our goal of engaging every student in travel risk management. In fact, we found that the information gap, stems from a mismatch in travel anxieties.
😵 Key Learning: Permanxiety in Gen-Z travelers differs from their counterparts
In 2017, Skift Research coined the term Permanxiety. It’s this constant state of anxiety ... that pervades every part of our lives today, whether it’s politics, whether it’s social media, whether it’s our daily lives commuting, whether it’s listening to the news and how that then translates into the anxieties that show up when we travel.— Rafat Ali, Founder, CEO, Skift
Permanxieties show up everywhere and are exacerbated when we travel due to stress, whether it’s worrying about geopolitics and germs or airline baggage blunders. The interesting thing is when polled about their biggest travel anxieties students said travel safety was a distant third—after social and financial worries.
So how do we solve the permanxiety issue for Gen-Z travelers? Good UX Design that solves their issues first! When the user is engaged and happy their travel managers are engaged and happy.
What do we mean by we our mission:
To engage every traveler and every travel manager in travel risk management, often times when organizations design Duty of Care policies and/or solutions, they focus solely on the travel manager. This makes sense. After all, they are the primary beneficiaries if the system works well. However, as we outlined previously, the reciprocal side of the traveler is equally important. Just because a policy or tool exists doesn’t mean your travelers will actively adhere to this policy or procedure.
We must approach each traveler at an individual level. What are their travel anxieties? What do they care about during their day-to-day that’s going to keep them engaged and an active participant in the reporting process?
This is where OffWeGo comes in…
We use a combination of behavioral science, psychology, and behavioral economic frameworks to nudge the traveler to report geolocation, mental and physical wellbeing, risk tolerance, and more on their terms. Travelers never have to report information they don’t want to (unless required by their sponsoring organization for specific purposes).
Here are just a few things travelers are saying:
