Background
In recent years, Helsinki has become an increasingly popular travel destination for individual Chinese travelers who seek authentic Scandinavian experiences. In 2017, City of Helsinki partnered with the Chinese tech giant Tencent to build a smart city tourism model. The design team and I began the 6 month journey of creating the best digital travel services for Chinese tourists. My role was Product Designer plus being the User Researcher.
Outcome
A one-stop WeChat Mini Program was launched to enable Chinese visitors to easily discover activities and sights in Helsinki, find a route there, and pay for the trip with just one click. All within one Mini Program.
Impact
Shortly after the successful launch of the Helsinki mini-program, several tourist destinations in Finland have begun building their own mini-apps and connecting together. For example, Finnair started collaborating with the team to integrate flight travel experience into the on-stop service.
This project made Helsinki as the pioneer in smart tourism globally. It was awarded as the most innovative digital service, Grand One 2019, and Silver price of Vuodenhuiput 2019 Finland.
This project made Helsinki as the pioneer in smart tourism globally. It was awarded as the most innovative digital service, Grand One 2019, and Silver price of Vuodenhuiput 2019 Finland.
Helsinki mini-program views
Empathize target users with a Cultural Probe and interviews
The journey started by building a deep understanding of the customer journey, especially what are the needs and the pain points of the Chinese travelers visiting Helsinki. To tackle the challenge in recruiting Chinese travelers in Helsinki and receiving reliable data, I chose“Pop-up Interview” plus“Culture Probe” as the qualitative research method. For the culture probe, a toolkit was created and given to the research participants to enable them easily capture and document their experiences in Helsinki in a fun way. It also gave the team inspiring first-hand insights.
Field Study (Culture Probe & Follow-up Interviews)
Create unique value proposition based on innovation triangle
To supplement the qualitative insights about user behavior, an in-depth desk study on the competing domestic tourism-related services was conducted, and followed by an analysis of the Helsinki city strategy, the existing open API sources and Tencent's technology capabilities. Through the synergy of human, business, technology aspects, the team crystallized the value proposition as City as the Experience — offering Chinese tourists with in-depth and up-to-date content, practical transportation freedom to easily get around, and native payment experiences.
Value Proposition
Craft the best one-stop digital experience and services
Product vision was visualised based on the unique value proposition and followed by crafting the digital interactions and interfaces.
Product Vision
In addition to achieving a seamless across the entire customer journey, the design team put big efforts into finding the balance between the App interaction pattern that Chinese users are used to, with the Helsinki brand and the Scandinavian minimalism philosophy. Two rounds of qualitative validation and iteration were conducted before the launch of the mini program in the Autumn of 2018.
