by Vas Mylko, Roman Bilusiak
We implemented several visible and non-visible things. All they are focused on practicality and usability. Among them: perimeter, user’s fine-tuning, variety of trip plans.
Perimeter
Our Lab version showed the active Perimeter, while the Production version did not. We thought it would overwhelm a user. During further testing, especially during the release of Nordic countries Curious Sweden, Curious Norway, Curious Finland we lacked the viz of the custom-defined Perimeter. To keep it informative and unobtrusive we draw the Perimeter with a thin dark dashed line. The practicality and usability improved for us. Hopefully, the usability improved for you.
Fine-tuning Form
We accumulated user feedback on what is needed for practical breakthroughs. Mainly it’s fine-tuning of the trip plans and comparison of the trip plans. Travelers want to customize the points, e.g. set duration or duration range at the point, pin a point to the specific date/dates, always include the point even if it contradicts the trip duration/budget, exclude the point, more points like this point (that defines the custom theme), etc.
It’s a huge amount of work… For the beginning, we decided to experiment with the entry points to the fine-tuning form/page. There are two main representations of the trip: graphical and textual. Graphical rep is the map with the route with the points. The points are clickable. Notice a hamburger icon on the right from the point name in the popup balloons. The hamburger icon is the entry point to the fine-tuning form.
The textual rep of the trip is the list of points that you are searching with. It consists of a starting point (the first one), waypoints aka travel-through points, a finishing point (the last one). The point names must be as on English Wikipedia. There is a prompt with auto-completion as you type. As soon as the point is recognized it becomes a point-tag, visualized with a very light gray rectangle. Now that point-tag is clickable. Below is a recording of clicking on the several point-tags within the search box.
Clicks on the point-tag in the search box and on the hamburger menu in the balloon over the map are equivalent — they are opening the fine-tuning form for that point. Click on the point name in the balloon over the map is opening that point on English Wikipedia or Atlas Obscura.
The fine-tuning form could be closed in three ways. 1) Back button — left-pointing arrow in the header. Nothing happens, you go back where you were. 2) [Save & Close] white button. It saves your edits but doesn’t initiate a new search within those new requirements. It saves your time as you could edit point by point without waiting. 3) [GET TRIP] red button. It takes all saved params and applies new unsaved params and initiates a new search within those requirements.
Fine-tuning Plans
The plan is to allow editing quite a lot. This fine-tuning form could be long, scrollable. There is going to be a list of sections. Each section will have its own input fields and knobs. Below are some draft wireframes from the Lab.
There are other sections in the works: exclusion radius around the point, special tuning of cyclic trips (where the starting point is the same as the finishing point), travel-through POIs, very important POIs. Special fine-tuning could be needed for a new trip topology that we call “Flower” in the Lab. Special fine-tuning could be needed at the journey scale, e.g. Perimeter with exclusion regions.
You could try the initial implementation of the fine-tuning entry points at https://curiosio.com. Follow your curiosity and stay tuned.
