Project Overview
TripSource® - keeping travellers cool, calm and connected.
The TripSource app by BCD Travel helps travellers to stay organised and productive while on the go by providing vital travel information with the touch of a finger. Travellers can use the app to easily access and share travel itineraries (airlines, hotels, ground transportation and more) and have a better business travel experience with personalised guides, directions, reminders and travel updates. TripSource is a showcase of excellent design and usability, ensuring that travellers love using the app and even when travelling solo, are never on their own!
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Mobile Travel Technologies Ltd.
Team
Stephen Crowley - Senior UX Designer
Daniel Beere - UX Designer
Project Brief
TripSource, a robust itinerary management app launched in the US in January, ensures that travel information is just a touch away. Travellers can use the app to access and share all of their business travel itineraries, along with flight alerts and other valuable information; the app also provides real-time flight status alerts and gate changes, driving directions to destinations along their journey and even rewards for using the app.
Travellers just need to log in with their corporate email address and TripSource automatically displays their current, future and past trips, with air, hotels, ground transportation and more. Travellers don’t need to input a thing – their bookings appear automatically in the app and can be augmented with their personalised events, such as meetings, conferences and special events. Each itinerary is presented in chronological order, so the traveller always knows where they’re headed next, and if anything changes, their itinerary and information is updated in a flash.
TripSource® by BCD Travel is free exclusively to client companies and their travellers.
The TripSource app features include:
-Intelligent itinerary management to track all business trips including flights, accommodation, ground transfers, maps and directions and details on local amenities, restaurant offers etc.
-Real-time alerts on flight delays and gate changes
-Background synchronisation across multiple devices, offline access to all content while roaming or flying and cloud syncing to multiple devices
-Quick access to booking details, including PNRs
-Ability to add customised, user-generated content.
Project Need
TripSource breaks away from the typical flat list patterns used by other itinerary management applications by creating a user friendly concept of a trip envelope full of cards. Simply pulling open an envelope reveals an easy to follow timeline for the trip with a stack of information cards for each part of the journey.
TripSource uses innovative technology to organise the full trip itinerary into this timeline of cards for the traveller without them having to do a thing. It means that travellers can access the app straight away without trawling through their inbox for old email confirmations.
Giving the traveller complete clarity, TripSource always shows the next card at the top of the stack, illustrating the understanding of where the traveller is and what their next step of the trip is.
At every turn the traveller’s experience is made easier and more enjoyable with clever additions, including getting push notifications for delayed flights and receiving full sat nav. directions from their car rental collection to the hotel with just two taps.
Travellers can relax in an airport lounge knowing that the TripSource app will alert them when they need to move and advise which gate to head to; making the instant checks of the departure information screens a distant memory.
User Experience
Travel can be a very stressful experience so UX design was paramount during the development of the TripSource app. The goal was to ensure that the app not only provides travellers with their itinerary but also removes the stresses of travel, making the whole experience more enjoyable.
TripSource is a showcase of excellent design and usability thanks to the strong emphasis put on both interactive and visual aspects of the app to ensure a cohesive, simple and engaging experience. The user experience was developed in parallel with agile development allowing regular usability testing and iteration with design.
BCD Travel’s aim was to set TripSource apart from other itinerary management apps; making it the app their travellers do not want to travel without. Crafting the interface to the highest quality was prioritised over initially adding lots of extra features, ensuring the main goal of excellent user experience was achieved from the first release. During initial development, the UI was completely redesigned upon the announcement of iOS7. This overhaul brought a refreshed, simpler UI, high quality destination photographs incorporated into each trip card and better maps integration, amongst others, and was launched soon after iOS7 public release.
The result is a very clean, crisp, pick-up-and-use itinerary manager which travellers love.
Project Marketing
BCD Travel has undertaken a strategic marketing campaign to launch and position TripSource as a market leader amongst itinerary management apps. An integrated marketing campaign focused on both online and offline activity to maximise the reach and engagement with BCD’s travellers.
The key elements of the entry campaign included the following:
-TripSource microsite – A one stop shop for all TripSource information, showcasing its features and functionality in action in the form of scrolling screenshots and high quality videos. Visitors are encouraged to share their comments on the app in the ‘reviews’ section, they can read FAQs and check out TripTalk; the home of all things TripSource, covering tips for getting the most out of the app and media coverage of the app.
-PR - Launch press release was issued to industry media to create a buzz around the app. Media coverage included Business Travel News, Business Travel Executive, Skift.
-Promotion - To drive downloads from BCD’s customer base the TripSource promotional banners were included in all BCD’s and traveller communications alongside promotional banners on the main BCD website.
-Social media– Utilising social media was critical to driving visibility and interest in the app. The TripSource Twitter account was setup and cross-promoted by the main BCD Travel account, as well as international BCD Twitter accounts. The TripSource account shares information about the app itself but also news and tips relevant to business travellers in general and has continued to receive great results in engaging with the audience.
Project Privacy
Privacy is a matter of concern for every application today, especially for business travellers, where mobile devices have access to personal information and travel plans. With that in mind TripSource allows users to register using the email address used in booking their trips, TripSource ensures that only email account owners have access to this information using a two-step verification process wherein a new user must confirm via an emailed link that they are in fact the owner of the email account.
Within the app, in order to achieve the maximum level of protection, TripSource makes use of iOS security features such as KeyChain data protection for login credentials and File Data protection for all the content downloaded or created within the TripSource app. TripSource only communicates with Mobile Travel Technologies’ APIs via HTTPS channel, using authentication tokens to access the different services making the full TripSource experience.
Together these measures ensure that TripSource travellers’ information and personal details are kept secure at all times.
Travel & Tourism
This category relates to applications dedicated to travel and tourism services and information.
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