Our problems are about design. Knowledge, usability, navigation, markets, marketing,graphic design, storytelling, gamification

Roberto Peretta

Università degli Studi di BergamoArea didattica di Lingue e Letterature straniereProgettazione e gestione dei sistemi turistici /Planning and Management of Tourism SystemsCentro Studi per il Turismo e l'Interpretazione del Territorio (CeSTIT)

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism ManagersLecture #5. Wednesday, December 4, 2013

What are we talking about?

2

From design to gamification

1. Knowledge2. Usability and navigation3. Markets and marketing4. Graphic design5. Storytelling and gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

Design

3

From design to gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

Suppose you are part of a Destination Management Organization (DMO), or at least work for a DMO – as I hope you will.

When you build your destination’s website – or app, or any digital communication product – you may run the risk of producing something that appeals to you, but was in fact not really designed.

You may run the risk of producing something that was not really meant to perform its task, but only to appeal,like – as Don Norman’s example goes – Starck’s Alessi juicer…

Knowledge

4

From design to gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

Quite obviously, since you have to inform your tourists through your website – or app – you first have to know about the destination you represent.

And knowledge is mainly kept and transmitted by books.You need books!But books are not digital…

Please, never copy a book into your website!

Please, do not do like the Ministerio del Poder Popular para el Turismo of Venezuela did in their website…

Poder popular?

5

From design to gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

Usability?

6

From design to gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

According to Wikipedia, usability is “the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use.”

Usability!

7

From design to gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

Usability can be technically and informatically measured.In a nuthsell, however, your design problem about usability deals with situations where your website’s visitors

• can not find what they are looking for• feel uncertain: “what should I do?”• stop and get lost• feel like loosing control• feel exploited

Navigation

8

From design to gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

According to Wikipedia, web navigation refers to “the process of navigating a network of information resources in the World Wide Web, which is organized as a hypertext or hypermedia.The user interface that is used to do so is called a web browser.A central theme in web design is the development of a web navigation interface that maximizes usability.”

The first condition to be checked while evaluating the quality of any web navigation is whether a menu is always available in each and every page of the website.

Other conditions may also – or rather should – be considered.

Breadcrumbs

9

From design to gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

If you remember a previous slide in this presentation, you know that a situation to be avoided is making your web visitor feel lost while visiting your website.A widely used solution are breadcrumbs.The term comes from the trail of breadcrumbs left by Hansel and Gretel in the popular fairytale.

Kiwi Breadcrumbs

10

From design to gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

Another navigation tool is the mouse-activated image name.

Markets: e-commerce

11

From design to gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

A DMO’s website task is to sell the destination itself, allowing tourists to reserve hotel rooms, and buy tickets or city cards.This can be performed by introducing e-commerce functions.Basically, as far as e-commerce is concerned, a DMO may1.find an agreement with an OTA or a metasearch;2.simply list local products like hotels, linking their websites;3.build a proprietary reservation system within a DMS,or, well… a DMO can even skip the e-commerce question at all…

Consequences of the three e-commerce options

12

From design to gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

1. By finding an agreement with an OTA, or a metasearch,a DMO looses control on reservations, butgets some money, according to the affiliation agreement.

2. By simply listing available products, typically local hotels,and providing links to the hotels’ individual websites,a DMO may stick to its impartiality rules, butin practice sends tourists to reserve through OTAs,since a list of websites is not easy to navigate, and provides no comparison among hotels, their services and prices.

3. By building a proprietary reservation system within a DMS,a DMO encourages local operators in networking, and keeps reservations in its territory under some control, buttourists may keep using OTAs (they’re likely to do so), and such systems are as expensive to build as are hard to maintain.

Markets: marketing

13

From design to gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

Web marketing has been widely researched – though the term in mostly used in Italy.Globally speaking, web marketing is more commonly called online advertising, or Internet advertising.According to Wikipedia, online advertising “includes e-mail marketing”, that is sending e-mail messages and newsletters, “search engine marketing, social media marketing, many types of display advertising (including web banner advertising), and mobile advertising.”

Currently, social media marketing is quite fashionable.Enterprises – as well as destinations – have opened Facebook pages to interact with their audiences, and try to increase it.

As for search engine marketing, we will deal on the topic on December 18.

Graphic design

14

From design to gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

The perception users have of a website depends very much on the look-and-feel of its template. It provides the ambience!

Logos

15

From design to gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

The destination’s and the website logo may be very relevant to its brand. A logo must be graphic! Shapes, not fonts…

Storytelling

16

From design to gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

If you tell a story, you’re more likely to be listened by your audience, and you can well put into your story some recommendations to buy – or at least to visit.

BartolomeoColleoni

Bergamo,Colleoni Chapel

Malpaga,Colleoni Castle

Gamification

17

From design to gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

If you make people play, they’re going to have fun – and are more likely to remember of you in the future.

App gamification

18

From design to gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

An app made in Oporto advises according to the user’s feeling.

Augmented Reality

19

From design to gamification

UniBg 44111 2013-2014 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. #5

TripWolf provides augmented reality, itself a sort of gamification.