Google My Maps - Road Trip Planner (Good UX - Write up)

Experience:

Me and my husband are habitual travellers. We have made many road trips since last 8 years. Whenever we plan for a road trip, I have a habit of writing the plan on paper including the map.

This time, I thought to use software's to create my map. I did a small research and finalized to create my map with 'Google my maps'.When I created a new my maps document in google drive (Drive>New>My maps), I felt easier with the navigation. You need to search your starting point it will add it to your layer. You have an import option as well which helps you to get pre-planned map. Then you can add the destination and keep on adding the destinations until you complete your plan.

Adding to this they have icons to make the map more lively, like sports and recreation, weather, animals etc. The plan generated was very simple and easy to use. It made my job much easier. 

Learnings:

Road trip maps are extremely helpful and offline maps are helpful during no data/no wi-fi places. So purpose behind this project is helpful to the user.

Suggestions:

'Share' button is represented as "Draw a line" and it gives you option saying add driving route, add biking route etc. The icon is no way serving the intention behind it. Also, direction icon next to it, is serving it's purpose which is adding the direction. Please re design the share icon for it's purpose.

Original Article Link: https://www.designpractice.io/blog/google-my-maps-road-trip-planner

Alaska Air - Multiple airport alert ( Good User Experience - Write Up)

Experience:

Alaska Air is one of the leading carrier in Alaska, United states. Alaska Air is the major carrier to and from Alaska to different parts of world. Last month, I was booking flight to Anchorage, AK from Chicago, IL. We all know that in United states there will be more than one airports in most of the cities. Chicago, being one of the major air hub in North America, not an exception. 

While booking, I gave start city as Chicago and I didn't notice that the search engine picked up flights from different airports in the same city. There was a small warning message on the top of the search results which attracted me. 

The message was "we searched for all airports in the Chicago. Be sure to note which airports are being used". This message made me to have a look before booking. Otherwise i would have booked tickets without checking the airport.

Learnings:

1. Alerts are extremely helpful during travel bookings. This avoids confusions in the unknown places.

2. The position of the alert message on the website/app is also very important. User may miss the alert, if it is not placed in the right place.

Suggestions:

Alaska Air alert - is extremely small and user may miss it, due to it's size. Improving the size/design is really needed.

Originally this article was published on Design Practice's UX review portal -

https://www.designpractice.io/blog/alaska-air-multiple-airport-alert

Walmart SMS - Pickup Your Order from Nearest Store (Good User Experience - Write up)

Experience:

Walmart is a big chain retailer in US and all over the world with different names. One of their popular shopping experience is 'order online and pickup at your nearest store'. Most of the time, I order online and pickup while commute back to home.

One of the best experience I had with this is, you will get a text message immediately after the order is ready. The SMS will have your order number too.

Learnings:

1. Content was simple but the impact was big. 'Order ready' SMS pops upon your phone. It saves the user's time to check email every time. Also since the order number is in the SMS, it helps.
2. It also provides an option to get HELP by replaying help and you can even stop these messages by simply replaying STOP.

Suggestions:

Order number is a bit big number. There might be other ways to reduce the order number length.

Originally this article was published in Design Practice - Good UX portal - https://www.designpractice.io/blog/walmart-sms-pickup-your-order-from-nearest-store