With the ability to take virtual trips, the site ui and overall experience simplified in a huge way. It ties up a lot of loose ends. Therefore it is important to look once again at the mindmap and see what content needs realigning with this new concept, this will allow me to understand the user journey much better.
Using the virtual tours idea, the entire explore section has been updated and pulled together in an easy to understand concept. This means focus can be shifted to the other areas of the mindmap to understand how they can be pulled together.
One point is important though, is that the content should all be made to be in a cartoon/digital style. One thing to point out is that nowhere in my research did i find a site that mixed digital & drawn content with real imagery. Therefore I have to make a choice on the type I would choose. I do this with ease, as my main characters are drawn in a cartoon style, to allow me to fill the site with bright colours that match this style I need to make sure the rest of the site is covered in this way. I looked further at possible artwork I could include on my site and browsed sites like Creative Market that would allow me to purchase content created by other people. I wanted to find something that fit my site, and had the elements for monuments of each location. I found the following bundle;
Every element seen in the images are editable in an illustrator file therefore, there are exactly what I need and I can use them with a a standard liscence for commercial use. The liscence details can be found here (https://creativemarket.com/licenses?utm_source=notification&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=product-purchase-receipt). The reciepts can be seen below;
Another very useful resource is the poster elements that are also editable, that casn be used thoughout my project. The posters can be the way the user looks the trips available, then once they click on the poster version, they can go through to the starting page which is a full width landscape version of the same image. Below is all the different posters that I bought from one pack;
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- Vector retro poster. Spain. Flamenco dancer in red dress with fan in her hand. Flat design.
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- Vector retro poster. Maldives. Hammock between palm trees. Flat design.
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- Vector retro poster. Muizenberg beach. Holidays in Cape town, South Africa. Travel poster. Flat design.
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- Vector retro poster. The Taj Mahal in the pink haze at sunset. Vacation in India. Travel poster. Flat design.
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- Vector retro poster. Vietnam, Hanoi. Travel poster. Flat design.
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- Vector retro poster. United Arab Emirates, Dubai. Travel poster. Flat design.
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- Vector retro poster. Vacation in Paris. Eiffel tower at night. France. Travel poster. Flat design.
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- Vector retro poster. Italian city on the Mediterranean sea. Vacation in Italy. Seaport. Travel poster. Flat design.
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- Vector retro poster. Huangshan mountain in China. Travel poster. Flat design.
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- Vector retro poster. Trolltunga. Man looks at the sky. The Nature Of Norway. Travel poster. Flat design.
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- Vector retro poster. Mount Fuji in Japan. Travel poster. Flat design.
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- Vector retro poster. Holland. Mills in the field. Field of tulips. Travel poster. Flat design.
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- Vector retro poster. Sydney, Australia. Opera house. Harbour bridge. Travel poster. Flat design.
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- Vector retro poster. Holidays in London, England. Big Ben. The River Thames. Travel poster. Flat design.
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- Vector retro poster. Holidays in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Statue of Jesus Christ on the mountain. Travel poster. Flat design.
and below is an example of how one of these posters can be edited to be a widescreen image;
This method means the entire mindmap seen earlier needs to be updated. The updated of the mindmap can be seen here;
Part of the idea with the site now being artwork based, the website will no longer be able to include certain elements, like the user uploaded content as they would be real imagesthat wouldn’t look right in the animated enviroment. Certain things like History, Art and the cookbook are no longer sections of the site that would be executable in such circumstances, therefore they should be removed from the sites’ functionality.
The trips have made it easier than ever to allow the users to meet people from other cultures too, instead of the previous idea, where users would pick the person they would most like to talk to, based on location, it means the kids are able to socialise with the people they meet during their trips. Keeping in touch after that would be as straightforward as messages and mini games, making the experience much more aligned with real life aspects of travel, where people randomly meet rather than choosing how to meet.
It also means there needs to be simplification of a users profile, making it more streamlined with the rest of the website. This can be a little pop up that contains all the information about that player. This same small popup will be used throughout the site and even as the way for the user to view their own profile.
You can see it has almost completely changed the service I am offering. The removal of the rewards system discussed in this previous post here **** has meant there is no way to track progress as the progress is seen as cultural rather than informational, which means that it is very difficult to track. This mean therefore that the educational sector of the service has been removed.
The idea of taking virtual trips, has simplified and hugely changed the purpose of the site.
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