Hermex Travels- Turning Customers into Travelers.
Updated: Sep 9
Hermex Travels, a travel agency founded in Nigeria, is at the forefront of innovation in the travel industry, focusing on AI-driven travel solutions. With a commitment to enhancing the travel experience through advanced technology, the Hermex Travels team is planning to:
Incorporate VR features to assist travelers in navigating airports,
Use AI components to streamline the booking process.
Introduce a travel companion named Herssa to facilitate easy and essentially hands-free booking.
Offer a membership loyalty token, Hermex Tokens, which can reduce trip costs and function as a crypto bank.
Provide visa consultation appointments.
Many of these are updates planned for the future, which will be developed later based on user interactions. Alongside a team of three colleagues, I contributed to developing the web application and the smartphone apps for both Android and iOS.
Current goals:
offer activities to complement trips- like seasonal packages from local companies in the customers' home or destination countries.
Translation features
Weekend planer
My role: Lead UX/UI Designer
Challenge
Revise and update past research and screens using new information. find areas of oncern and either adapt or change them completely
Goal
Develop a more comprehensive and efficient website by integrating AI and visa components for booking flights and hotels for both international and local travel.
Seasonal packages
destination based trips
Ai Travel companion
assiting with group travel
Why is this important
When a trip is suggested, it can often lead to stress for both new and experienced travelers. Hermex Travels bridge the gap between the stress of planning for a vacation and ones own adventurous spirit of exploring new experiences alive during the travel planning stages.
Tools Used:
Figma
Miro
Fig Jam
Problem Statement:
How can we create a comprehensive online airline and hotel booking site that utilizes AI for booking strategies?
MVP (Minimum Viable Product): A flight and hotel booking site with some additional features.
Additional Features | Future Updates |
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These features effectively make Hermex Travels a comprehensive solution for both new and seasoned travelers, eliminating the stress of booking and saving for a trip.
User Research
I conducted competitive analysis on companies with similar feature that Hermex Travels want to implement.
What was found:
Many of these companies originated or primarily operate outside the United States and offer multilingual options and trip planning in the form of itineraries.
Each company provides some type of predictive pricing, smart filters, and personalization.
From a marketing perspective, they maintain at least two social media accounts and are leveraging both website and app development.
What was found. | How can I use this information for Hermex? |
Many of these companies, primarily based outside the United States, offer multilingual options, itinerary-based trip planning, predictive pricing, smart filters, and personalization. | Loyalty points and stock options with easy capital conversion. |
From a marketing perspective, they maintain at least two social media accounts and leverage both website and application development. | Multi-city travel is an optional feature. |
My thoughts on what was found
Some features within these companies might be overlooked because other features are more popular.
Creating a multilingual translator page for travelers in various locations
include different types of payment methods as well
Provide a text enlarger for guests with poor eyesight or short attention spans.
If Hermex prioritizes Herssa AI as a travel assistant/companion, having numerous features would simplify the traveler's experience.
Herssa would highlight these features, eliminating the need for the traveler or trip planner to search for travelers.
Existing Site Review
Beginning from left to right, we have the home page, the sign-in page, the new customer sign-up, and the flights landing page.
The previous designs were not deficient; I fully intended to incorporate them into the new design. As a new member of the UX team, the difficulty I encountered was that none of the earlier screens could be altered since they were complete vectors instead of component-based groups.
Areas of concern:
The page does not highlight what actions the user needs to take.
Too many contradictory elements
Certain areas can be adjusted to be more compact.
The Redesign
Minor Challenge
To comprehend the previous flow, I needed to create a map of what already existed.
The web app was underdeveloped, and it lacked much of the essential narrative needed to build an intuitive and comprehensive site.
At first, I had to meet with the existing team to grasp the key features of the site and outline the required changes. As the site was already operational when I became part of the Hermex team, we needed to halt ongoing activities to give me time to perform user research and implement adjustments.
My research plan involved beginning with user surveys and interviews to understand users' typical experiences when booking a trip. Then, I intended to explore how predictive AI could assist in travel.
Results
Most of the data collected was expected:
Easy adaption to flights and hotel accommodation
up to date changes
easy revisions and alterations for main features
24/7 customer support for unexpected changes in travel
What I needed to include:
A notification center and chatbot.
Customizable and secure customer profiles.
A section for conveniently viewing itineraries.
Scheduling visa consultations for INTELLEVISA and general visas.
Later updates include:
An activities section for a complete travel experience.
A customer loyalty point system connected to Hermex which is crypto based (a Solana derivative).
Language translator
Most of the enhancements I intend to implement will be part of upcoming updates to facilitate seamless booking and effective travel planning. At present, our focus is solely on the MVP for flight and hotel bookings, incorporating features that bolster these primary functions.
Wireframes
 | The original navigation is at the top, while the updated and streamlined navigation is at the bottom. |
I utilized user flows and the current site map to assist in redesigning the homepage navigation, ensuring each section of navigation created a clear path for users. This approach was aimed at giving customers a specific goal from beginning to end with every action they undertake.
There were few subcategories in the navigation, except for the menu section, because I wanted users to understand that this was where they could personalize and view their inputs and requests made on the website. |  |
Every primary feature (flights, hotels, and activities) has its own dedicated landing page.
From this point, each area was connected to its specific flow, monitored by the Herssa AI chatbot to offer easy access to accommodation information.
Key take aways so far...
Because I had to dedicate a lot of time to working on the website in addition to developing the app, most of the testing had to take place after the application was finished.
Nonetheless, the extensive knowledge I acquired from creating the website was easily transferable to the app development later on.
I understood that not everything has to be shown on a screen. This is a fundamental concept I frequently neglect because of my emphasis on efficiency.
To keep users on a page, it needs to be user-friendly.
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