Project Brief

King Safe Safaris (KSS) is a tourism company in Uganda that specializes in delivering tailor-made safaris to the heart of East Africa. KSS funds the Gift Angels Foundation (GAF), a non-profit organization that provides basic services to various underserved communities in Uganda. King Safe Safaris needed a new website to introduce its services and highlight its support for Gift Angels Foundation.

Business Goal

  • Design a website to increase traffic, introduce the company's tours and services, and highlight their contributions to non-profit organizations - Gift Angels Foundation.

Business Challenges:

  • Limited financial resources hinder the establishment of a robust international payment infrastructure, necessitating manual booking processes.

  • Building credibility and fostering trust among website visitors remains a significant challenge.

ROLE

Lead UX Designer

Key Performance Indicator

  • Conversion rate: Number of potential customers’ inquiries converted into actual bookings

  • Total Traffic and Individual Sources: Understanding the total traffic to the website and its sources (such as organic search, social media, referrals, etc.) helps in evaluating the effectiveness of marketing efforts and identifying which channels drive the most visitors.

  • Net Promoter Score (NPS)

  • Identifying the most popular safari tours: By identifying popular tours, website content and marketing efforts can be tailored to highlight these offerings, potentially increasing overall bookings and revenue.

Research 🔍

Stakeholder Interview

In the initial phases of this project, our focus was on gathering essential information about the safari tour business while understanding its association with the Gifts Angels Foundation. Due to connectivity limitations, communication with the stakeholder was primarily conducted via email. Through a comprehensive questionnaire, we delved into various aspects including the business's history, current services, itinerary, pricing structure, level of engagement with the Gifts Angels Foundation, existing challenges, target demographic, and key performance indicators.

User Interviews

We interviewed 6 users, who had been on and booked a safari tour before or were planning to do so. Demographic:

  • Middle-aged and young travelers (a rise in age 35-50)

  • Millennial demographic- focused on sustainability (want to make sure their travel dollars are truly going to make a difference to local communities and wildlife in Africa)

Key Insights

4/6 users do want a small, tailored, authentic safari experience that includes interaction with the local people

6/6 Users have a preference for clear information on budgets and safety precautions.

6/6 Users prefer a clear and simple layout design with primary information clearly displayed.

4/6 Users are more willing to book a safari tours with a company that supports a non-profit organization

5/6 Users looked at real reviews on the site that helped them build trust with the tour operator.

Competitive Analysis & Feature Inventory

Our team reviewed over 15 Ugandan safari tour websites despite limited initial information. Key findings include:

  • Pricing is crucial for safari tour searches, yet many competitive websites lack transparency in this regard.

  • Competitors' websites exhibit cluttered and inconsistent UI, with confusing calls-to-action, poor whitespace utilization, and an overwhelming layout.

  • Almost all safari tours offered by competitors are for private profit and are not linked to any NGO that supports local communities.

User Journey Map

Based on research insights, we created a user journey map to get a better understanding of users expectation.

Personas

Based on the interviews/user research, we created one persona to highlight their goals, motivations, needs, and frustrations.

UX Design

To harness our collective creative potential, each team member cerated sketches for every page. Later on, we moved on to create mid-fi wireframes. Few iteration for each screens can be seen below.

The team then discussed which layout would work best based on business requirements and user expectations.

Usability Testing

We conducted 6 remote moderated usability tests using the interactive prototype to achieve our research goals. These goals included evaluating the ease of task completion, validating design concepts, and pinpointing sources of user frustration or confusion. Our testing primarily focused on assessing user-friendliness and navigation, gauging user interest in making inquiries, and examining the credibility of the site.

Final Design

Learnings

  • Collaborating with a startup business founder and design team had its own set of challenges. The major challenges and constraints were:

    • Communication only via email led to an untimely response from the stakeholders. We solved this problem by preparing as many questions as possible before sending an email to prevent further delay.

    • Barriers to communication (Language barrier) and time differences were beyond our control.

    • The challenge of creating a website only using WordPress posed another challenge to our team since no one knew how to use it

  • Working within those constraints has made me appreciate the weekly design meetings. Although we had to be concise with the topics we needed to discuss, there was still flexibility to veer off topic when necessary.

What’s next for King Safe Safaris?

  • Provide information on what specific actions King Safe Safari is taking to ensure Traveler Safety (e.g., mask policy, sanitation practices, guide info)

  • Provide consistent and Detailed Information on Services across packages (e.g.,What’s included and excluded from packages, prices, business partnerships)

  • Add customer reviews and testimonials on the site (and even better for some, to read them on third party sites like Yelp). This will help build credibility of the business, and trust with potential customers.

  • Add an “FAQ” section to answer questions that first-time safari travelers would have about what to expect, pack, etc.