The Seven Wonders: Visit the Great Wall of China
China is a country with a long and colorful history. The first Chinese dynasty Xia was ruling China 2000 years BC. If you travel to China, you will find a lot of architectural monuments. There’s Forbidden City, Emperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum Site, Tiananmen Square, and many many more. However, the most famous among all of them is the Great Wall of China.
The Great Wall of China, the largest man-made project in the world, is a series of ancient fortifications built in northern China. Although named the ‘wall’, it is an integrated defense system including not only lofty and solid walls, but also massive signal towers, barriers, barracks, garrison stations, and fortresses along the walls, together forming an insurmountable line, for thousands of years, to protect the territories of ancient Chinese states against the nomadic tribes from the northern steppe. This long wall, just like a gigantic dragon, winds up and down across deserts, grasslands, mountains, and plateaus, stretching approximately 21,196 kilometers from west to east of China.
Plan your trip
For the purpose of this challenge, I’d like to focus on the people who have a tight budget. They are not picky can accommodate the most affordable, adventurous, genuine experience. However, we need to remember in China there are some restrictions if it comes to accommodation in hostels, hotels, etc. In China, hotels need to have a special license to host foreigners. If they don't, these places are available only for the Chinese people. Usually, in less popular places hotels don’t have it and we’ll have to search for more expensive chain hotels.
Travel to the destination
The most comfortable connection we will have with Beijing Capital International Airport. The average trip from Berlin to Bejing takes 10 hours. From there you can easily travel to the Great Wall of China. Unfortunately, most of its remains are in very poor condition. There are several famous places where the Great Wall of China is well preserved and looks just like everyone imagines it.
Badaling
The part of the wall closest to the center of Beijing is the best rebuilt. Apparently, this part of the wall makes the greatest impression, but unfortunately, due to the proximity and ease of access, it is the most visited by tourists, so it is also the most crowded part of the wall. One-way drive from Beijing takes approximately 1 hour. It’s also the cheapest option since we can take a bus.
Currency
The official name for the Chinese currency is Renminbi, which literally translates to People’s Currency and is abbreviated to RMB. It’s good to exchange some money before your trip.
1 RMB is €0,13
Medical needs and visa
When going to China, we do not have to vaccinate, but it is worth thinking about it.
Visa is necessary while traveling to China. Tourist Visa (L) is issued to individuals in order to travel freely in most regions of China as tourists. A tourist visa can be single or double.
Wardrobe recommendations
For the purpose of this challenge, we will be traveling to Beijing in April 2021. In April weather in Beijing is quite good, between 18–22 degrees. It can rain and since the Great Wall of China is in a windy area, it’s good to take a jacket.
How long do we need to visit
If we want to visit the Great Wall of China we need 1 day. Of course, traveling to China itself takes more time.
Benchmarking
In this challenge, I'll compare 3 very popular travel apps and choose the one that fits the best to my world trotters' needs.
I’ll conduct the Heuristic Evaluation by Jakob Nielsen and compare Kayak, Skyscanner, and Hooper.
“ Heuristic evaluation is a process where experts use rules of thumb to measure the usability of user interfaces in independent walkthroughs and report issues.”
The whole process is based on 10 values that you can find below:
I created a table where I compared all these three apps. I used Skyscanner before, I heard about Kayak but I’ve never liked it. Hopper was a new thing for me and I really liked it, even though there are some things I’d redesign. As you can imagine, I chose Hopper to work with later.
Time for testing!
I asked 3 of my friends at the age of 28–34 to help me with this challenge.
I ran 5 seconds test where I asked my users 3 questions. Their answers were pretty similar.
- What did you use?
- What can you book with this app?
- Where did you find search inputs?
Later on, they were supposed to book:
- flights for 1 person from Berlin to Beijing from 15th to 19th of April, 2021,
- hotel for 1 person in Beijing from 15th to 19th of April, 2021,
After finishing their tasks this is what they told me:
Pain point 1:
Dates in the first calendar were not visible. You could find the month and prices range, but to see the dates and days above you needed to click on the particular month. This wasn’t comfortable and clear for them.
Solution: The best option would be adding at least dates on the calendar. Numbers are usually not difficult to insert. The calendar would be more readable. The users wouldn’t have to go and check dates on their phones for example.
Pain point 2:
Secondly, two of my friends who are Europeans told me they didn’t like how days range was used. In Europe we start the week with Monday, in the US it’s usually Sunday in the calendar which can be confusing. As for my American friend, that was pretty normal.
Solution: Hopper is available in many markets. The best idea would be to create one international version. most of the countries start their calendars on Monday and this would be the best solution.
Pain point 3:
This part of flight booking was the most annoying for all of the users. For each of them, the best flight should be the fastest and relatively cheap. Hopper showed them a cheap flight but the trip round way took over 2 days. This was not clear until they clicked to check the flight.
Solution: Hopper has to work on its results readability. Their search engine should be redesign so the best result was not only the cheapest but also the fastest possible.
Pain point 4:
This part came from a hotel booking. They noticed the Hopper team was not very coherent. Here calendar starts with Monday not with Sunday when they were booking their flights. The Hopper team should keep it tidy and decide on one option.
Solution: As mentioned in point 2, there’s no coherence with the calendars. There should be one international version of it.
Pain point 5:
One of the most irritating parts. Instead of getting hotel search results, Hopper moved my users to some special offers which had 5 pages in total. If the users decided on booking 2 and 3-star hotels there should be the results for their search.
Solution: There are too many extra options in Hopper that are quite irritating for the user. As users, we want to get from point A to B as soon as possible. Adding extra options is never user-friendly. The same hotels will be visible in the results, Hopper should remove these 5 pages of extra options. The information about possible price reductions can be added to every hotel separately.
Pain point 6:
This part wasn’t very comfortable for my users. In the bottom right corner, there’s a pin icon. Usually, there’s an anchor in apps.
Solution: It would be better if this pin icon was in the bottom left corner.
Summary
Definitely, this challenge was the most difficult of all. Running tests from the very beginning, interviewing, gathering information, and make conclusions from all of them can be complicated. The easiest part for me was coming up with the solution to all the pain points of my test users.
