After the initial meeting where the group decided on the application to create, the next step was to look at the kinds of people who would use it and what they would use it for so that the group could further look into the features of our application  and the potential price point for the application.

These are the main audiences the group have discussed so far:

• Tourists
  • Locally: people who are visiting a new state or city
  • Globally: anyone going to a new country
• People new to an area e.g. when you move house
• Travellers, such as groups of young people on a gap year

Tourists will be those on booked holidays, such as weekends away or two week breaks abroad and would mostly use features such as the ability to store their holiday information, maps of the local area and information on health concerns and local customs. People new to an area could use the application to discover local restaurants or entertainment venues, as well as find safe routes through the city. Travellers would use the features such as the ability to store their itinerary for the trip so they don’t have to worry about losing it, as well as plan where to go next. As well as this, they could use the application to provide basic translation so that they could speak the local language and ask for help.

Jeff Lewis states that “Travel is listed as the seventh most popular app to download with the most successful apps being planning, photography, social, deals and bookings, maps/navigation (particularly offline maps), TripIt, itinerary planning and recommendations” [1] and statistics show that “60 per cent of smartphone users downloaded travel apps, and 45 per cent used the apps to plan and research their trips”. With smartphone users forecast to surpass  two billion next year [2], this provides a huge market for travel applications and in an already competitive market, it is important to stand out from the crowd. Because of this, the group has decided to match the pricing point of other applications – free.

The group did consider other options, such as free for a set period of time or set number of users in order to gain a user base, however this idea was discarded as it was felt that it would hinder word of mouth. This was the same case as freemium models, as the group thinks that it is important to not mislead the user and provide them with the best tool possible. Having said this, the freemium model is a fallback plan should the group decide to change our pricing structure.

This post represents that the group has chosen appropriate economic and social Contextual Factors that directly link to the marking criteria, and are vital to understanding what requirements the product will have in terms of target audience and product pricing. These are based on market analysis, evaluation of existing products, and identification of app features. There is evidence that these have been chosen intelligently (by reference to literature and analysis) to produce a conclusion of professional quality, leading to a successful product. 

References

1. Mickaiel, I. 2011, Mobile the new black for travel, ZDNet [Online] [Last Accessed Mark 2015] [Available at: http://www.zdnet.com/article/mobile-the-new-black-for-travel/]
2. Curtis, S., 2014, Quarter of the world will be using smartphones in 2016, The Telegraph [Online] [Last Accessed: March 2015] [Available at:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/mobile-phones/11287659/Quarter-of-the-world-will-be-using-smartphones-in-2016.html]

Written by Millie.