Prototyping OneOrb: Your All-in-One Travel Guide

Introducing OneOrb: Your All-in-One Travel Guide. Planning a trip is exciting but it requires work, and with the added complications of the COVID-19 pandemic, travelers can easily overlook necessary paperwork and information. OneOrb is an upcoming mobile app that will be a faithful travel companion, offering various functions including weather updates, currency exchange rates, cultural norms, and COVID-19 regulations for every country. The prototype has garnered positive feedback, with users suggesting improvements such as a FAQ section and more emphasis on places to visit. Stay tuned to discover how OneOrb can change the way you travel.

Planning a trip is exciting but it requires work, and with the added complications of the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s the reason we created OneOrb, an all-in-one travel guide mobile app prototype that aims to provide comprehensive information about laws and customs, exchange rates, restaurants, pandemic regulations, and more for different countries. The app prototype received user feedback suggesting improvements such as adding a FAQ section, more emphasis on places to visit, and modifying the section order.

Planning a trip is exciting but it requires work. That’s the reason we created OneOrb, an all-in-one travel guide mobile app that provides comprehensive information about laws and customs, exchange rates, restaurants, pandemic regulations, and more for different countries. User feedback suggested adding a FAQ section, more emphasis on places to visit, and modifying the section order.

Intro to OneOrb, Your All-in-One Travel Guide

Going on a vacation is one of the greatest pleasures in life, but at the same time, it requires work and dedication so that everything planned goes as expected. Currently, the world is experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic and due to this virus, many countries have made mandatory changes that we must comply with. Some of these changes have a direct impact on travellers.

At the moment, to travel to Chile, foreigners and residents need a negative PCR test taken at least 48 hours before the date of the flight, and when travelers set foot on Chilean ground they must have filled out an electronic paper where certain data, among other things, must be specified. But... Do all travelers know this in advance? Absolutely not. A member of our team witnessed with their own eyes some foreigners arriving in Santiago who had not filled out the electronic paperwork required to enter the country and did not know that they would have to spend days in a sanitary residence. What happened to these travelers? For now we do not know, but surely their itinerary was ruined and if it was not, the bad time spent at the airport will not be forgotten.

As evidenced in the first part of this work, there are many people who feel a lack of easy and simple access to all the information needed to organize a trip in the best way, so that, at the time of doing so, the only way is to search arduously, across different websites, asking friends and family or simply having unanswered questions.

For this and much more, we created the OneOrb platform, which seeks to become the faithful travel companion for all travelers. It will have multiple functions, including updating people about the necessary papers to enter Chile or the destination they have chosen.

We want to prevent trips from being ruined by carelessness, so by downloading OneOrb you will have the ideal companion that does not forget any detail. If you want to find out about all the additional functionalities that our application will have, we invite you to continue reading this article.

Features

For every country listed, the mobile app interface includes, but is not limited to, the following features and examples:

• Leyes y normas culturales: Main differences in laws and customs of the country. For example, in Chile alcoholic beverages cannot be legally consumed in public. There is also a zero alcohol tolerance law, which implies that the driver of a car cannot drink, and neither can the passengers in the car. Consider this if your idea of traveling to Chile includes a roadtrip through the country.
• Tipo de cambio y moneda: The user enters an amount in their currency and the system uses the current exchange rate in the currencies defined by the user.
• Clima: Hourly and daily weather
• Restaurantes Recomendados: Nearby restaurants with useful information, such as price level, food type and time distance by car.
• Normativa Covid: A mandatory PCR test is required for all travelers at least 72 hours prior to embarkation, as well as a second one at the Santiago Airport. If the test is positive, it is required to stay for 12 days in a sanitary residence, which is a hotel of the traveler's choice.
• Mapa y Recomendaciones: Basic location and variety of restaurants, bars and points of interest nearby.
• ¡Tips Directos!: Recommendations based on the country you are in. For example, Chile is well known for its wine culture, so the app includes this suggestion: If you want to go out for a drink or accompany your meal with something, the first choice will always be a good wine. Chile is known worldwide for being a great wine producer, since the climatic and soil conditions allow a wide variety of white and red grapes to develop very well.
• Comunidad: A section to connect with other foreigners and locals in the city you are in.

Prototype

OneOrb App Prototype.mp4 (5.12 MB) 

User Feedback

Interviewee 1

- Is this available for each country?

- It's good, but I would add a FAQ section and add questions from users.

add questions from users.

Interviewee 2

- I would change the light blue color of the background because it is very pale, I would put something contrasting (ex: purple or orange)

- It's great, very good, you can understand how it works, I love it.

- Isn't everything for all countries?

- I feel the Places to Visit tab is missing.

- Would change the order of the grid: First Places to Visit, second Map and Recommendations, third Recommended Restaurants, fourth Climate, fifth Covid, sixth Direct Tips, seventh Laws and Cultural Norms, eighth Currency, ninth Community.

- He suggested changing the order in the Currency section to put at the top the currency one wants to know how much 22 Euros is equivalent to, and below that it should say the conversions to Dollar, Peso, Real, etc.

- The Covid part is very important at this time.

Interviewee 3

- I would change the design to one more in line with the idea of the application. For example, use backgrounds of touristic places or travel graphics, without it taking away from the content and not generating not generate confusion.

- The use of icons instead of words to select a section stands out a lot.

- He likes it a lot

Interviewee 4

- He was very surprised by the design created, as he did not expect to see something so "real".

- He asked if it would not be available for all countries.

- As she traveled during the pandemic, she highlights the COVID-19 section, since it was a problem for her to find the it was a problem for her to find the information and because she did not do it in time, she lost days of walking to do it.

Interviewee 5

- Suggests putting a button on the home screen that indicates which country they are currently in. Because depending on the country where you live, the papers that covid papers that are requested from travelers are different.

- He asks if internet is needed to use the app, considering that not all travelers contract roaming. 

Interviewee 6

- Could there be a way in which the user can suggest information about new tourist attractions, new exchange houses, etc.? new tourist attractions, new exchange houses, like waze, so that the page can be constantly

constantly feedback and keep it updated.

- He likes that the design is simple and intuitive.

- It is not clear to me how the community section of your application works. Can users share content so that whoever follows them sees it? Because I didn't see a button that would allow you to see your profile or share things.

- I quite like the colors, design and general style of the app.

Interviewee 7

- Sometimes reading a long list of written information makes me lazy.

I would like the information to be delivered in a more didactic way.

- You could include a kind of game within the app that tests us on whether we have absorbed the information about whether we have absorbed the information.

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