by Vas Mylko, Alex Sukholeyster, Roman Bilusyak
After the release of Canada, we did semi-hallway testing for Canadian road trips. Instead of set-up in a high foot traffic area, utilizing bystanders to test the product, two of us chased the people in the area.
User Testing
We got interesting feedback, specifically for trip planning in Canada:
- Short trips (5–9 days) in the relatively local area were not diverse enough. Especially for cyclic trips, e.g. start in Montreal and finish in Montreal.
- Long distance trips — even coast-to-coast — had to be possible in a shorter time. Users expected that half-day See & Do in the waypoints still had to be possible.
- Users confirmed that there is a need in the byway trips. It is something in the middle — on top of Google Maps or HERE WeGo pure routing and below the recommended trips by travel professionals and enthusiasts. E.g. it must be totally possible to start in Toronto, visit Niagara Falls, Ottawa, Quebec City and finish in Montreal within 1 week.
We dug into the depths of how our travel AI worked to fish for the opportunities to make it work slightly differently. After two weeks of pursuing this goal, we have unlocked smarter intelligence. Let’s have a look at the screenshots of the trips that became better [from a traveler’s point of view].
Smarter Intelligence
Below are search results for a cyclic search query: start in Montreal, finish in Montreal, no waypoints specified, duration 7 days, $3,000 budget for two. Pay attention to the shapes of the route (in red) and the number of waypoints on the route, size of the list (a text column below the map). Don’t try to read those small labels, unless you open image separately and zoom it.
As a byproduct, we unlocked diversity for longer trips. Below are search results for acyclic search query: start in Toronto, finish in Montreal, desired-required waypoints are Niagara Falls, Ottawa, Quebec City, duration 15 days, max $5,000 budget for two, frugal comfort [cheapest option].
Pay attention to the shapes of the route (in red) and the number of waypoints on the route, size of the list (a text column below the map). Don’t try to read those small labels, unless you open image separately and zoom it.
Below are search results for acyclic search query: start in Toronto, finish in Montreal, desired-required waypoints are Niagara Falls, Ottawa, Quebec City, duration 15 days, max $5,000 budget for two, comfortable.
Speedy Mode
OK, now is a new concept — speedy visiting — because there is no more time to make the trip within the desired duration. The budget also plays a role here, especially the deficit of the budget.
Below is a search result for this trip: start in Toronto, finish in Halifax, the desired travel-through are Niagara Falls, Ottawa, Quebec City, Montreal, duration 10 days, max budget $5,000, comfortable.
Notice “fast” markers and an opened balloon from one of them. Our optimizer has made it within 10 days, within the desired constraints, but at the price of no See & Do recommendations in “fast” waypoints. A typical “fast” message looks like this, zoomed in below.
Grey Area
If you got only 4–5 days, and still want to make it from Toronto to Montreal via Niagara Falls, Ottawa, and Quebec City, you’d better use plain Google Maps or HERE WeGo for plain routing without any optimizations. There will be no time left for See & Do at the waypoints because the total distance is too big…
Curiosio is a tool for those who want to experience most curious locations on our entire planet. We have started from See & Do and from cars. Will add Experiences in the future. Will add multi-modal transport (bus, train, plane, boat) in the future. Curiosio is for curious travelers.
Link to current beta3 is https://beta3.ingeenee.com
