Design a product for groups of people to plan trips.

1) Clarification

• Is there any geographic region would you like me to focus on?

  • No. Your call.

• What type of trips? Business, Holidays?

  • Your call.

• This product is supposed to be accessed through Facebook App, like Marketplace or Watch, right?

  • Yes. Ideally, it should be inside a Face App like the others.

2) Goal

We are talking about Facebook, therefore this new product should be tied back to Facebook's mission, which is to bring people together all over the world. Having a product to help people planning trips is at the core of this mission, as they will be more connected with the platform through the same interests.

So, here's how I would like to approach this question:

- Talk about some user groups;

- Choose one group to focus and mention some of their pains;

- Based on that, we are going to brainstorm some solutions;

- Then, prioritize one or two solutions;

- Finally, define some success metrics;

How does that sound?

3) User groups

• Business Trips

  • These are business trips, so executives and employees tend to travel for business. Generally, these trips are short and cost-effective.

• Short trips

  • People going to places near their homes, no more than 3-5 hours driving. These trips are not so long, generally over the weekend, and repeated 2-4 times a year maybe.

• Long trips

  • People going to places far away from their homes, generally taking a plane, long hours of flight. People travel this far 1-2 times a year at max.

I would like to focus on short trips, because it is not so affected by working schedule, and generally takes place on weekends. Moreover, places and towns as destinations of these trips are not so well-famous, meaning not so much information about them. I believe that these destinations are not well-served in terms of planning. Does it make sense?

4) Pains

• Not so much information about the location

  • What to do

  • Where to stay

  • Where and what to eat

  • Attractions

• Not so much information about prices

  • How much should I spend?

• What about transportation?

  • Where can I park?

  • How much does it cost?

• I am afraid of some places in the town

  • Where are the safest places in the town?

• Is it a good place?

  • Not enough reviews to get trust

5) Solutions

I am going to use my own experience when I travelled 2 hours to Salem, MA. My worst pain is related to not knowing so much information to actually have a nice experience. So, I am going to focus on it.

• Design a new type of group for trips inside Facebook Groups, with more organization. Basically, you could enter in a group for Salem, click on Restaurants topics for instance, and read all available restaurants, what they serve, reviews, etc. Eventually, it could include Ads as well, driving extra revenue.

• Create a new section inside the app called "Trips", where people could insert some data, such as date and destination of the trip. Then, a bunch of organized information would appear to them, being able to "add" to their plans. They would also be able to read reviews, know prices, and see photos. People could also see shared trip plans from other users. It would also leverage Ads.

6) Prioritization

I could come up with these two solutions, and I would prioritize the second one. The reason is that it's more focused on the long-term.

To go over details of how the process would look like:

- User go to a separate tab inside Facebook App;

- Input key information: departure date, local, duration of trip, goal (attractions, food, rest, etc)

- Based on the goal, the product would make suggestions. Let's assume the goal is to enjoy the food. So, the planner would suggest some restaurants to eat (breakfast, lunch, afternoon lunch, and dinner). 

- The user would explore those options, reading reviews and calculations avg prices by adding those options in the plan.

- After this step, he would repeat the same for other key components (place to stay, attractions, etc) if any and interested.

- Then, he would finish the plan, having the option to share on his newsfeed, stories, etc and integrate on Calendar.

- His friends who had been in that place could see their newsfeed and interact with him specifically on that plan, for instance, a specific restaurant to talk about a meal.

7) Metrics of Success

To test the idea, I would first use a focused group, gathering as much feedback as I can. Then, I would do A/B testing with a larger base.

Regarding metrics of success, I would look into:

• How many visits to the app were made;

• How many plans were created;

• How many plans were created and followed through;

• What's the level of engagement in the App and Facebook as a whole;

  • Reactions

  • Comments

  • Shares

  • Reviews

  • etc