The Why

For years, we were trying to improve our tiket.com app to give users seamless journey in doing hotel reservations across Indonesia and beyond. New features were being launched, bugs were being fixed, and tons of others improvements and product decisions are put into developments. But, after that, we realised that the product decisions were mainly executed based on business decision/ to fill the gap with competitors. We didn’t have some source of truth from users as our foundation in making decisions.

Indonesia itself is a massive archipelago with more than 17.000 islands. Most of our Usability Tests and survey participants were mainly from the main island/ capital city (Jakarta) only. But will that be enough to represent the vibrant and diverse culture behaviour in Indonesia? Moreover, what do those people think about our app in general? Is demographic variance make any difference in defining user’s hotel-booking behaviour? Those questions were the reason behind why we think we really needed to go out and see for ourselves.

At the end of the day we were expecting to find out answers about several issues below:

• User’s journey in hotel-booking process
• User’s segmentation and persona
• Key insights for current problem/ usability issues in our app

For this article context, I will only be writing about user’s segmentation and persona and the process of getting the result.

The Research Process

We decided to pick 5 top user demography areas that currently uses our apps (Bandung, Jakarta, Surabaya, Makassar, Medan), and recruit 4–5 users from each cities for in-depth interview. Our research process includes:

• Qualitative data collection (n=23)
• In-depth interview, guerilla interview, field observation and usability testing
• Quantitative survey (n=207)
• Qualitative & Quantitative data analysis

As for the research team, we realised this might be the biggest fundamental research process that we’ve ever done in hotel team, and so we didn’t want the research team to do this by themselves. We paired up 1 PM, 1 Researcher, and 1 Designer to team up and assigned to one of the dedicated city to get all business, user, and design perspectives.

The research and interview process (all photos are taken with users’ permission)

The process took roughly a month and consisted of 3-day activities for each city. For additional process, we tried to experience the whole hotel-booking process from user’s perspective: pre-booking (looking & researching about hotels), booking (in-app booking process and payment), and post-booking (checking in at the hotels, etc.) to immerse ourselves within the users’ real environment.

The Creation Process

After getting all the data that we need, we used all of the qualitative datas that we have (audio interview, UT videos, field observation, and personal notes) and turned them into codes or values, in which at the end, being grouped into several different themes.

The Process of Persona-making, in collaboration with UX Researchers (Fadhil & Zahra)

We ended up getting four different themes (ease of use, risk averse, hedonic behaviour, and price value), and next, we validated those results with survey validation, and lastly, created four different personas using each themes and values.

Different Types of Hotel-Booking User Personas

Here we have four different personas that serve as our main users. Each types have different purpose, behaviour & motivational factors, as well as constrains in using our app. Meet our personas:

1. The No Sweat Player
   No Sweat Players seek fast and last-minute booking. They are simple and direct, they prefer to make quick decisions and just rely on presented information without wanting to research more. This type of users will feel turned down if they see complicated process or hidden informations.
2. The Spotless Seeker
   Spotless Seekers seek perfection in whatever that they plan. As a great planner, they research and find information thoroughly, not only in one app but also comparing with other apps to collect valid information. They value quality and certainty, so when facing incomplete or false information, they might not trust the app anymore.
3. The Pleasure Seeker
   Pleasure Seekers seek experience and pleasure. They usually travel in group and enjoy traveling during holiday/ weekend time. As group traveler, they prefer hotels with benefits and facilities, emotional values (instagrammble spots, etc.) as well as variety of options. That being said, they dislike limited options, and simply, bad visuals.
4. The Bargain Hunter
   Bargain Hunters, just like the name, seek the most economical efficiency from each booking, making them competitive and sometime impulsive in behaviour. They hunt vouchers and promos and love loyalty programs. The more benefits, the better, and that’s why, once they find better promos, they will leave the app.

The Utilisation

After all the hustle and long process of getting this 4 personas, you might ask, what’s next? What to do with this information? How you define your product using this very different personalities?

Firstly, these personas helped us in making decisions, both in design level and also high level, in defining which direction should we bring the products to. Moreover, this proves that defining one personas for such diverse users will never work. With all different cultures, demographic background, economy & psychological behaviour in Indonesia, we managed to narrow everything down to 4 pattern (or maybe there’s more!), but now, making decisions will be fairer to all users. Not only to serve users in big cities/ particular type of users, we can now weigh our options and serve the needs of all types of users.

In practical, we also defined the how to on not to piss specific types of users, and how to win their hearts. Even though fulfilling everyone’s needs might not be possible, but we can find safe middle ground when presenting the design.

How to Win User’s Heart, grouped by journey and personality

For example, quick filters/shortcuts might be a great options for The No Sweat Player, but at the same time, if not being presented right/ too hidden, then The Spotless Seeker might not be able to find it. Instead of putting more shortcuts to reduce clicks/ decrease booking window, we also need to think about the needs to find detailed information without being hidden or feeling rushed to book.

Key Takeways

• Indonesia is a diverse country, so one persona might not be enough to be used as foundation in defining product & design decisions, especially for apps that is being used throughout the country.
• The persona practice does not serve as absolute truth but rather as a tool to define pattern and makes decision making easier and more objective.
• As trends evolve, persona also needs to be re-visit and re-evaluate to make the products more and more relatable.