Help travelers relive their trips

What's the solution?

Unique items purchased while traveling carry meaning, but sometimes travelers choose to not buy something and later regret it. eyecatcher is a service that connects travelers to those things they wish they would’ve purchased but didn’t so they can relive their trips. We connect those who seek specific items (seekers) with local experts (scouts) who help them buy those objects using their personal networks.

Seeker posts story and selects scout

Meet Lisa. She regrets not purchasing a vase in Venice, so she posts her story with a photo on the eyecatcher platform. She sets a reward price and selects a scout based on his expertise, experience and reward bid.

Scout searches and shares journey

Meet Stefano, the scout Lisa selected. He knows his way around Venice. While he searches for Lisa’s vase, he shares photos and videos of the same streets Lisa remembers exploring, which takes her back to that memorable time and place.

Seeker confirms, pays and receives

Lisa sees the vase that she wants from the photos Stefano posts. She confirms the price and pays. Stefano gets his reward, eyecatcher gets a portion, and Lisa gets a vase just like the one from Venice that she regretted not bringing back.

How did we get there?

Our theme for the class was “Travel” and our group’s focus area was “Stuff”, so we set out to understand what travelers did with their belongings during their trips. One common theme emerged about emotional connections travelers had with specific objects that they either brought back with them, or regretfully didn’t bring back.

We further explored this direction by having volunteers discuss why objects purchased on trips carried meaning. We also created a card sorting exercise to see which types of items travelers valued the most. Meanwhile, I used one participant’s story as inspiration to reconnect her with an object she wished she would’ve bought.

Takeaways

Make your prototype experience as close as possible to your service. I lived the frustration of not locating an object, which strengthened the case for change.
Use stimulus in research. I built an activity based on another activity I built for a class on research stimulus, which eventually led to our final concept direction.
Fiercely debate your ideas with the understanding that it’s nothing personal. We had many long discussions that proved to be beneficial for creating a compelling service.