Nordic Noir Tour Report

NNOORIDRIC TOURS INTERDISCIPLINARY EXAM PROJECTFrom Scandinavia with Crime Nordic Noir Tours: How to improve their visual identity & gain more tourist attractionErhvervsakademiet Group Members Link to Prototype:Lillebælt Balazs Korcsog http://104.152.168.36/~nordicnoirtours/MMD Int. Class Baldur Arge SveinssonGroup 24 Eduard Carmocanu Link to Admin Panel: Erna Guðrún Gunnarsdóttir http://104.152.168.36/~nordicnoirtours/admin/#Hand-in date: 18.12.2017Number of Keystrokes: Councellors Admin Username: Admin70.404 Marc Altfuldisch Admin Password: Admin René Birkholm Michael Koch Link to Code/ GitHub: Bjarne Slipsager https://github.com/EduardCarmocanu/nordic-noir.git Jens Berg Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sXAN4jwpZM Style Guide: https://company-128124.frontify.com/d/209Rvi86N- ISX/nordicnoirtour-com

EXECUTIVESUMMARY This report provides the process of redefining visual aspects of Nordic Noir Tours brand and the re- design and development of their online platform as well as coming up with a publishing plan for the solution. Using the design thinking method and a well-organized project management, the group finds the right path to conclude with an optimal solution. With the research gathered and analysed, it was clear the company is not up to date with the de- sign and online solution compared to the unique product they offer. By offering a tested and coherent design and development, a more suited online product is deliv- ered, along with a plan to publish the new platform. The report also investigates the fact that the development has limitations. The time frame for the development of the product results in some features could not be created. The size of the company and budget results in some features could not be added for the reason of the company would not be able to handle the tasks that follow set features. 2

TABLE OFCONTENTINTRODUCTION (BALAZS) 4 Content Audit (BALAZS) 39 Test Plan - SURVEY (BALAZS) 73PROBLEM DEFINITION 5 Pinterest (BALDUR) 39 The Testing (ERNA) 74METHOD SECTION 6 User Flow (BALAZS) 40 The Design Manual (BALAZS) 75SCOPE & LIMITATIONS 9 Project Plan (EDUARD) 41 Coding (EDUARD) 77ANALYSIS 10 Sub-Conclusion (BALAZS) 42 Project Structure (BALDUR) 79DISCOVERY 11 IDEATION 43 Style guide (BALDUR) 86Introduction Introduction to Sub-Conclusion (EDUARD) 87to Discovery (BALDUR) 12 Ideation (ERNA) 44 EVOLUTION 88Project Management (BALDUR) 13 Site Map (EDUARD) 45 Introduction toDesk Research (ERNA) 14 Use Case Diagram (EDUARD) 46 Evolution (EDUARD) 89Nordic Noir Tour Research (ERNA) 15 Sketching (ERNA) 47 C.R.A.P. AnalysisBenchmark (BALDUR) 17 Wireframing (ERNA) 48 - New Website (ERNA) 90Positioning Map (BALDUR) 18 Style Tile (ERNA) 50 Think Aloud TestSWOT Analysis (BALAZS) 19 The Website Mockup (ERNA) 52 - New Website (BALAZS) 91C.R.A.P. Analysis (BALAZS) 20 The Admin Panel Mockup (ERNA) 58 Code Improvements (BALDUR) 92Google Analytics (BALAZS) 23 UI / UX Design (BALAZS) 59 Contact Form (EDUARD) 92Field Research (ERNA) 28 Costumer Journey Map (BALAZS) 62 Email Subject & Body (EDUARD) 92Interview with the client (EDUARD) 28 Plan To Publish Content (BALDUR) 63 Sub-Conclusion (EDUARD) 93Sub-Conclusion (BALDUR) 29 The Video (BALDUR) 65 CONCLUSION (BALDUR) 94INTERPRETATION 30 Sub-Conclusion (ERNA) 67 REFERENCES 95Introduction to EXPERIMENTATION 68 APPENDIX 102Interpretation (BALAZS) 31 Introduction to Google Analytics 102The Target Group (ERNA) 32 Experimentation (EDUARD) 69 Notes from First Meeting With Client 106Personas (ERNA) 32 Test Plan -A/B (BALAZS) 70Moodboards (ERNA) 37 The Testing (ERNA) 72 3

INTRODUCTIONNordic Noir Tours is a Copenhagen based tour company focusing on guiding their customers through famouspaths and locations of scandinavian crime tv series such as ‘The Killing’, ‘The Borgen’ and the ‘Bridge’.Our client is guiding an ‘one person’ company in an area that is a trending topic nowadays. Therefore she has tomanage her content, organise tours and produce advertisements. Any additional materials for her business alsorests on her shoulders.Therefore, this project is aiming to refine the workload on our client with an easy to use Content Management Sys-tem built into a redesigned website solution, with major focus on today’s increasing pressure of responsibility andthe continuous spreading usage of mobile devices.Within this project the group is focusing on ways to improve the client’s customers experience before, during andafter the tours with the help of multimedia solutions. 4

PROBLEMDEFINITION How might we improve Nordic Noir Tours visual identity & gain more tourist attraction? How might we make their style more coherent? How might we attract more people to buy tour tickets? How might we help our client to publish her content? 5

METHOD SCRUM SWOT Analysis SECTION To keep team focused and productive, With SWOT analysis you research your the SCRUM method will be applied. By client’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Oppor-Design Thinking going through sets of well organized tunities and Threats (Kotler, 2013). This sprints, the end product will more likely method will be used to determine Nor-This creative process method helps de- be ready in time. (Scrum Alliance. 2016) dic Noir Tours current situation withinsign meaningful solutions during the the boundaries of our main question soproject and from it we will know what Benchmarking we can decide on what to act on spe-to do if we face a difficult challenge. cifically.It will be used to structure our project Benchmarking will be used to gath-throughout every phase of the Design er data about competitors offers, sur- CRAP AnalysisThinking (designthinkingforeducators. rounding the company. It will help tocom, 2016). understand the actual trending on the CRAP analysis is a design principle that market and help find a unique selling stands for Contrast, Repetition, Align-Desk & Field Research point. (John Reh F. 2017) ment, and Proximity. (Deshdeep, 2016) This method will be used to analyse theTo gather enough information and in- Positioning Map design of the website.spiration to create a good product,there needs to be done research, both Positioning map will be used to know Target Groupwith desk and field research. The re-search will consist of gathering infor- what place the company has on the By defining our target group we will getmation through different articles, web- to know the user and have a clear framesites and books. There will also be done market compared to other competitors for our message and communication.some field research, where people are This will help us stay on the right trackasked specific questions related to the through two specific criteria. This will and keep the communication coherentproject. (MSG. 2017) (entrepreneur.com, 2009). help to know the strengths and weak- nesses of the company and help mak- ing decisions to fill in these weaknesses. (D’Aveni, 2007) 6

Persona Use Case Diagram / Information Architecture DescriptionWe will create personas and with them To help the user find the informationNordic Noir Tours can gain more empa- A use case diagram is a graphic de- and complete tasks as intend, informa-thy with the clients. In this way we can scription of the interactions among the tion architecture is used, by structuring,understand better the client’s behavior elements of a system, used to identify, organizing and labeling content in anand needs (Janice Redish, 2012). clarify, and organize system require- effective way.(UX Booth, 2015) ments.Moodboard Wireframe ScenariosMoodboards are used to unlock cre- Wireframes help to connect the site’sativity (designkit.org). We will use mood- “Scenarios describe the stories and information architecture, it clarifiesboards to create the emotions and context behind why a specific user or ways of displaying a various number offeelings we wish to implement in the user group comes to your site.” (Affairs. information types and it determines in-new website for Nordic Noir Tours. A, 2017). We will use scenarios to deter- tended functionality (Steane, 2014) mine how we can make the user sce-Project Plan nario/ user flow best as possible com- Style Tile bined with the customer journey.A project plan gives you the chance This method is used when moodboardsto think through all the logistics of your Sketching are too vague and mockups are tooproject. This method will give us an over- detailed. In this method you alreadyview. Combined with the risk analysis Sketching will be used to create fast vi- have an idea about the design basedand the group contract it will become sual representations of concepts in a on the gathered research (Landa, 2014).our set of rules for the group (designkit. low-fidelity representation of the be- It is used to visualise the impression andorg, 2017). ginning stage of a concept idea. Doing analyses from the gathered research. it will allow a faster development andSitemapping identification of potential problems at Mockup an early stage of development of con-Sitemapping is the visual process of cepts. (Buick P. 2017) We are going to use this method foroutlining a website’s structure, high-lev- designing the layout of our website inel functionality and navigation scheme. 7 combination with the wireframe struc-(Sharp, 2014) ture and the style tile. (sixrevisions. com, 2016)

UX / UI Design Testing SEO (Think Aloud & A/B Tesing)This method will help create a user SEO will be applied to the final productfriendly interface and product taking The tests to be performed Think Aloud by structuring all the potential codingthe user point of view in consideration. and A/B Testing will focus on refining the parts futurely created. This will be es-(Nielsen Norman Group, 2017) final product. Doing so will allow a bet- pecially helpful to create a web based ter understanding of user behavior and solution that stays relevant in the searchCustomer Journey Map expectations. (Anon 2017) engines like google and bing. (Google. com 2017)A customer journey map focuses on Design Manualdefining how a potential client would in-teract with a product/service and what The Design Manual provides policies,steps it might take when doing so. Un- procedures, and methods for develop-derstanding it will help shape the prod- ing and documenting the design of im-uct correlating steps taken by the user. provements of a specific company. We(Grocki M 2017) are going to use this method for cre- ating a design manual for Nordic NoirTest Plan ToursThe test plan will focus on defining a CMVstructure and organizing the tests beingperformed. It will also help by defining SEO will be applied to the final productfrom the start elements that are going by structuring all the potential codingto be needed and the attention to de- parts futurely created. This will be es-tails like surroundings. (Howlett, 2014) pecially helpful to create a web based solution that stays relevant in the search engines like google and bing. (Google. com 2017) 8

SCOPE &LIMITATIONS SCOPE We want to improve their visual identity based on their existing identity by making it more concrete. We want to make their Website more coherent to their visual identity as well making it modern and more suitable for their target audience. We want the website on page SEO friendly, to be responsive as well as tablet and mobile ready. We want to integrate Instagram on their website to increase the flow between the website and their social media accounts. We will make a promotional video that will be created with social media in mind, both to promote their new website as well the company itself. With the new website and the promotional video, we want to increase the visitor count to the web- site which hopefully will lead into more booked tours at Nordic Noir Tours. LIMITATIONS We will not make a new logo or rebrand their visual identity. We will not focus on the mass media’s advertising as that is too expensive and the client has a very low budget. 9

ANALYSIS The Five Phases of Design ThinkingDISCOVERY INTERPRETATION IDEATION EXPERIMENTATION EVOLUTION 10

DISCOVERY 11

Introduction to DiscoveryThe discovery phase is purely based on research. It is where the designer ought to do his best to getan intimate understanding of the client’s needs, his values and vision(- Calde, 2008).In order to get into the right mindset and empathetic state that both the client and her customersare in, a sum of research needs to be done. Hover to keep the team organized and productive a setof project management rules and tools are used. Desk research is started with research about Nor-dic Noir Tours and the company’s competitors. The research includes benchmarking, SWOT analysis,positioning map, CRAP analysis as well as general research. Next an interview with the client is doneand online analytics is made regarding her online users.

Project ManagementTo have a good group productivity during the project, somesort of management is required. The team made a decisionon using the SCRUM(Scrum.org, 2017) method and dividing thesprints to be coherent with the phases of the Design Thinkingmethod (En.wikipedia.org, 2017). Before every sprint, the grouphad a meeting to discuss what was needed to be done be-fore going through to the second sprint. When a decision wasmade, the things that were needed to be done were gatheredinto the product backlog. Next the team decided on which tasksthey wanted to work on as the project went along. Before everysprint could be finished, a group meeting was held to review ifsufficient work was done in order to proceed to the next phase.To have an organized overview of what was going on, the toolTrello(Trello.com, 2017) was used. Trello offered a great organi-zation level of productivity and has the advantage that everyteam member can access the data from wherever they are. Togather all files and documents together, google drive was usedand to communicate the team used both facebook and skype. 13

Desk Research (Travis, 2017) Trip Advisor was used to get reviews from the company’s visi- tors from all over the world. It is important to know the visitor’sA desk research was made on Nordic Noir Tours to get a good experience when he goes to one of the company’s tours in or-understanding of the clients values, what they do and what they der to know what they think is good or bad about the tours, thestand for, by collecting data through online and offline medias. atmosphere and the experience. Viewing the reviews was use-Their website gave a lot of information about the company as ful in order to get a feeling for the questions that needed to bewell as their social media pages. By browsing through Nordic asked in the interview to come.Noir Tours website, the meaning behind the company’s name,the company’s history, information about their tours and that Later in the research process, a quantitative researsch wathey produce merchandise were all discovered. Several find- made where information was gathered through Google Ana-ings were made through the company’s social media pages, lytics. There the group could find numerical information aboutfor example, what kind of material they post, the target group the companys target group, how many people check out thethey are appealing to and how many followers they have. companys website, through what type of browser and alotWhen browsing through several Danish and international tour more.websites the group got a good idea of the company’s market-ing strategy and where and how they are advertised.OTHER TOUR WEBSITES 14

Nordic Noir Tour Research They do not give or get any support from any of the tv-series, the Killing, Borgen and the Bridge, and vise versa.Tagline: They have three tour guides; Christine, Amalie and Hannaom Scandinavia with crime SEO / POPULARITY / MARKETINGWhat they do: When Googling “nordic noir” the company’s webpage comesA tour guiding business that specialises in walks in Copenha- number 5 on the listgen and Malmö based on the television series The Killing, Bor-gen and The Bridge. There is another company which has all the nordic noir tv se- ries, which has this url: www.nordicnoir.tvThe meaning of the company’s name: Their tours are advertised on other websites like:It refers to the dark crime fiction genre written from a policepoint of view, also known as Scandinoir or Scandicrime. The - Visitcopenhagen.comlanguage is simple and eschews metaphor, it’s characterfocused, the settings have bleak landscapes, and the mood is - Visitdenmark.comdark and morally complex. - Lonelyplanet.comAbout Nordic Noir Tour & FAQ - Visitsweden.comNNT was founded in spring 2014 by Dieuwertje Visser. - Inspirock.comJuly 2016 it was integrated into Nordic-Insite as one of manytours and services offered by the agency.Manager: Christine Bordin (Founder of Nordic-Insite)Lise Lotte Frederiksen is the original creator of these tours.They are an independent company and are not affiliated withany of the producers of the series. 15

They are talked about in nordicnoir.tv They have a Facebook page and 1338 followers: Merchandise They have bags and t-shirts with their logo on itThe company gets a 5 star, excellent review on TripadvisorThe company gets a 4.8 star review, from another Tourist page 16

Benchmark (Travis, 2017) What are the main colours they are using? What is the feeling of their typography?By looking through Google and Tripadvisor, multiple competi- Are they using a lot of images?tors were found and data was gathered. By looking at their vi- Do they use social media on the website?sual identity and the website, to get a better idea of how Nordic Is it mobile friendly?Noir Tours could improve and hopefully gather more customers. How is the atmosphere?While conducting this research, these questions were asked. On the scale of 1-10, how modern is the design? What is the tone of voice? 17

Positioning Map (D’Aveni, 2017)After gathering data about the competitors, a positioning map The second map was made to see how modern the company’swas created to get a clearer idea of where Nordic Noir Tours current website is and how the atmosphere is from friendly tostand compared to the market. By doing these maps, it will help corporate.figure out what is the right direction to go towards, when help-ing to fix the current problems Nordic Noir Tours are facing.First it was compared against how the price is from low to high,and how unique the concept is.NORDIC NOIR TOURS High Price Date: 2017.11.28P O S I T I O N I N G M A P v 1.0 Name: Balazs Korcsog Purpose: Competition Positioning Map CASTLE TOURS SEGWAY TOURSUnique URBAN ADVENTURES Common VESTERBRO BEER TOUR KAYAK TOURS NORDIC NOIR TOURS HOP ON / HOP OFF TOURS PUB CRAWL CARLSBERG TOUR Low Price 18

SWOT Analysis (Buskbjerg, 2017) STRENGTHS WEAKNESSESStrengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats is a method Unique No Marketingthat helps our group to understand the business behind our cli- Strong Fanbase Small Fanbaseent. This analysis gives an insight on the possible opportunities International Reach Only Internationaland weaknesses that the project and the client herself might Low Expense Copyright Rulesface currently and in the future. Network Low Budget Merchandise Incom Not a concrete visual identitConclusion to the SWOT OPPORTUNITIES THREATSOur analysis highlighted that Nordic Noir Tours is a business builton a niche market. Therefore it has all the possible strengths Trending Low Entry Levelone would expect from a market like this. Local Reach Public appeal Marketing EconomicalIts weaknesses are mainly the business decisions of its owner Great ROIand the way she manages her business. But these weaknesses Improved visual identitycan be seen also as strengths. Because of the low cost struc-ture provides much better Return of Interest for our clients busi-ness.These points as well transition into opportunities when thegroup is talking about marketing and better customer reachthrough social media or any other form of media.Overall our conclusion is that Nordic Noir is in a good businessposition mainly because of its unique market, but its weakness-es and threats can have a negative affect in the long run. 19

C.R.A.P. Analysis (Saylordotorg.github.io, 2017)The Contrast, Repetition, Proximity and Alignment graphic de-sign principle was invented by Robin Williams, continuously re-ferred to as the C.R.A.P method laid out foundations of design toits participants. Our group has used this method to conduct ananalysis on Nordic Noir Tours original website to help us with thedesign decisions later on in the development process.Our main focus was on the use of Images, Text and colourthrough the Nordic Noir Tours website.CONTRASTThe shades of black and white colour used on the Nordic NoirTours website provides a hard contrast for the eyes.While having too much white space on the landing page andsub pages can be a good opportunity to create contrast, thishas been used to place dark elements inside with the corre-sponding light colour used as a text colour.This solution is not easy on the eyes as they will often jump be-tween the lines of colours and cause eye straining.The usage of images is confusing for the visitor. The website isusing their Logo in a huge enlarged size, almost as big as a pic-ture in one of their articles on the landing page. This causes thefocus of the eyes to jump between the images.Creating contrast in the text separating different font typeswith preferably Serif and Sans Serif is an opportunity Nordic NoirTours website also misses in their design. 20

REPETITIONThe only visible use on Nordic Noir Tours website of repetition isthe constant use of Colours, the shade of Black and white, witha very few elements highlighted in Blue call to action colour.Every other aspect of repetition is not consistent enough on thewebsite.Their text and font structure and design is varying from sub-page to subpage.ALIGNMENTThe alignment of the paragraphs and titles on Nordic Noir Toursis not consistent. However the group can see some clear pat-terns through the landing page and the first subpage, whenit comes to their Tours and the information they display, thealignment seems to be forgotten.The website is clearly trying to follow a boxed middle alignmentin their design as well as content presentation. While this couldwork well when there is enough information displayed to fill thescreen area, it fails to create visually pleasing layout on most ofthe subpages. 21

PROXIMITYThe Nordic Noir Tours website seems to follow the basic prox-imity rules in their content as placing objects closer together ifthey are relevant to each other.However this usage of proximity is not consistent on the en-tire website. In some cases titles, paragraphs and images wereplaced close together without no clear relation.The website does not make use of the white space, which couldclearly eliminate this problem with their content proximity.CONCLUSION TO CRAP ANALYSISExamining Nordic Noir Tours website has given our team dif-ferent kinds of opportunities to improve and build on while de-signing the new website.The aim is to make the usage of design principles consistentthroughout the whole Nordic Noir design content without ex-ceptions. Secondly, the usage of colours must be pleasing tothe eyes without straining effect. Headline and paragraph textelements should be separated with alignment and differentfont types. The usage of whitespace with images to separatethem from the rest of the content to create contrast is alsosomething that could be improved. 22

Google Analytics (Analytics.google.com, 2017)The team gained access to Nordic Noir Tours google analyt-ics data from their current website. This information proves tobe useful to provide a more customer tailored solution for ourclient. Using our research findings based on google analyticsthe team was able to identify target groups by acquisition anddemographic location.Furthermore this research helped the development with statis-tics on mobile, desktop and tablet devices, operating systemchoices made throughout our process to provide an excellentuser experience on all relevant platforms.AUDIENCE ANALYSISIn this section our team provides insight to the analysis of ouraudience. All statistics gathered from the analytics were pre-sented with data from the past 30 to 90 days history of thewebsite.The website audience is showing a growing tendency in the Based on the purpose of Nordic Noir Tours website an averagepast three months. The amount of unique visitors on the web- of 50%site has been increasing to 245, that is 17.2% more than in the last Bounce rate puts this product into an average category. How-90 days statistic. Closely tied to the amount of unique website ever, Bounce Rate seems to be on a descending trend by 9.2%visitors, sessions are showing an increase in numbers roughly versus the last 90 days which is a good sign because the groupthe same as users versus the last 90 days. wants the customers to engage with our product and learn more about the tours. The average session duration is at 1 minute and 51 seconds per user, which is based on the content and the engagement with the current website of Nordic Noir is an average number. 23

Out of the 245 unique users in the past 90 days 77.6% of them On average every new session visited 2.67 pages on the Nordicwere new and 22.4% are returning visitors. Noir Tours website. Considering the current information architecture of the web- site, 2 to 3 page views is enough to reach the information a potential new customer needs about the tours. However, scattering information on various subpages increas- es the chance for our users to bounce off the website because it might be too time consuming or complicated to perform the task. 24

ACQUISITION OF THE AUDIENCEThe table abow shows in which way Nordic Noir tours acquirestheir website traffic and users.More than 55% of the website traffic comes from Organicsearches which puts this form into the highest source of acqui-sition channel for the website.The other half of the acquisition comes from three differentmain sources: - Direct: 23% - Referral: 15% - Social: 6%(Note: The numbers have been rounded to display averagevalues.)Up on observing the second half of the acquisition channelsour team has identified opportunities to grow the website traf-fic. Only six percent of the acquisition comes from Social Mediasites, however these platforms nowadays are the easiest andcheapest way to grow a business. 25

While most of the organic search acquisition comes from goo- DEMOGRAPHIC ANALYSISgle.com, there is a neglectable acquisition from yahoo.com aswell. The group has been investigating the demographics acquisi- tion of the Nordic Noir Tours website users.Nordic Noir Tours has collaboration with the visitdenmark.frwebsite which brings a considerable amount of visitors to the The graph below shows us that almost 60% of the website userssite. are using French language in their operating system.The most interesting opportunity the group has identified from The other 40% consists of English and Danish languages.the chart on the left is that however acquisition from facebooktakes up almost the entire 6% of the social media engagement,instagram falls behind greatly with only 3 visitors in the past 90days.Nordic Noir Tours has an exceptional mailing list of active userssubscribed to their newsletters, however based on the statis-tics gathered from the Google Analytics, they are clearly notutilizing the acquisition of this media channel.AUDIENCE ANALYSIS CONCLUSIONBased on the research above the group has identified the fol-lowing main opportunities in the acquisition of users for NordicNoir Tours website:Information Architecture based on selling pointSocial Media growth to acquire more trafficMailing List advertisementWhile these findings are only based on the last 90 days of us-age of Nordic Noir tours website, it provides our team a clearoversight on how to acquire and retent more users with thepossible opportunities listed above. 26

Out of this 60%, more than 40% of our users actually visiting thewebsite from a French IP address or location. Second highestnext to France is Denmark, followed by Belgium, Sweden andthe UK.These findings are not in line with our clients idea of Nordic NoirTours target groups. Up on conducting a personal interview andmeeting with the client the group has been informed that themain target group of the business are people from the Unit-ed Kingdom, however, the website traffic and analytics clearlyshows the opposite.See Appendix for more detailed Google Analytics research. 27

Field Research Interview with the clientField research requires you to go out on the field and collect A meeting was held with the client in the school where informa-data through interviews and/or observations. tion was acquired in order to meet the client’s expectation andTo collect data, you must use quantitative and/or qualitative to bring the project to a success.research methods. During the meeting the client got to know the group and theIn this case a qualitative research was made through a inter- circumstances of the project, which later evolved into discuss-view with the client, in order to gain understanding of underlying ing the project and getting the relevant information from thereasons, opinions, and motivations, which as well provided tge client.team an insights into the clients main problems. (Wyse, 2017) Furthermore, given the fact that the meeting would offer valu- able information, the group took notes about what was consid- ered relevant to the project, such as: - Business structure - How is the business built. - Target group - Who are the people that the group is going to target. - What Nordic Noir Tours offers - Details about the tours. - Merchandise - Additional products that the client offers. - Website requirements - What the client needs to have in the website. Lastly, in the period after the interview the group has agreed to keep the client updated on the project in order to keep a sense of assurance in the group - client relationship. 28

Sub-ConclusionAfter analyzing the data from the research phase, the client’s needs became clearer. Firstly, it wasdiscovered what the company is and what it wants to be. By looking at its strengths and weakness-es, it’s clear that it needs a good improvement in marketing and the way it displays its visual aspect.Comparing the visual identity with its competitors, it’s clear that Nordic Noir Tours has a great op-portunity where it stands with the concept, but clearly needs to improve and be as unique with thevisual identity as well.After the meeting with the client, it was clear that the company needs a new website. After analyzingthe google analytics and how the website is structured, a good direction comes into view of how thevisual identity can be improved.

INTERPRE TATION30

Introduction to InterpretationIn this section of the design thinking analysis the group is aiming to refine and understand all of theresearch data that has been gathered in the discovery phase. The goal is to implement these re-search findings into the new Nordic Noir Tours website the group is aiming to create.The section contains methods that help the group identify who are the target groups of the client,who is that the group is developing the product for and how the group is going to execute the pro-cess of the project.

The Target Group (Fat Guy Media, 2017) In conclusion of the team’s findings the main target group was discovered to be:A target audience is a specific group of people with sharedcharacteristics who are most likely to be interested in a prod- - Tourists (people not living in Denmark)uct or a service (Fat Guy Media, 2017). “They are the ones whocome to you for a reason and the ones who will keep coming - Most tour participants come from the UKback to you, and bring new people to see what you have tooffer” (SilverEGG Media, 2017). Therefore it is crucial to know the - Website visitors come from France, Denmark, Belgium target audience in order to know which direction the final prod- and The UKuct being made is aiming for.Based on the different research areas and gathered informa- - People that can afford to traveltion from the first phase of the project a primary target groupwas chosen. At the first meeting with the client, based on the - People on the age of 30-60 years oldclient’s words, the team discovered that 90 % of the company’stour participants come from the UK. By looking at TripAdvisor’s - People that are interested in Scandinavian crime seriesreviews the target group became even more defined as wellby browsing through the company’s Instagram images from Personas (“Mo” Goltz, 2017)their tours and reviewing Google Analytics of the company’swebsite. Google Analytics gave as well more precise informa- After the target audience had been defined personas weretion about the website’s visitors, where they come from, how made. When creating something and the target audience ismany they are and how often they visit the website. only numbers and words on a piece of paper it can be hard toBased on the Google Analytics found in the Discovery phase, visualise exactly for whom you are creating your product for.where 40% of visitors IP come from France and only around 5-10% Therefore, personas were created to make the design processfrom the UK, as well the clients words, where she says that 90% easier.of tour participants come from the UK, it indicates that most ofthe tour participants check out Nordic Noir Tours website whenthey are already in Denmark. 32

Rosie Adams PERSONALITY31 years old Fun, Humorous, Sarcastic, Won-Student derer, Dreamer, Artie, Book-lover,Manchester, Silly, Flirty, Daredevil, Adventure-United Kingdom ousEmily comes from Manchester. INTERESTSShe lives with her roomate , asshe is studying arts at the Uni- Read Books, Watch old moviesvercity. She is kind, funny and as well as crime and Scifi mov-has a sarcastic humour. She ies, Travel, Drink Good Coffee,loves to travel and experience Photographynew things, as well as she loveshaving a nice cup of coffee while TECHNOLOGICAL SKILLSreading a good crime-misterybook. She uses Instagram to Internet & ITshare her adventures and ev-eryday life, as well following oth- Softwareers and discovering new find-ings. Applications Social Media 33

Jens Larsen PERSONALITY44 years old Hard Worker, Sarcastic, Funny,Construction worker Adventurous, Hard on the out-Copenhagen, side but soft on the inside, Kind,Denmark Caring, ResponsibleJens comes from Copenhagen. INTERESTSHe is a manager at a big con-struction company located in Photography, Go to the zoo withCopenhagen. In his freetime he his kids, Spending a good nightloves to take photos of the na- in with his family, Put-Golfingture, spend time with his familyand friends, and watch a good TECHNOLOGICAL SKILLSaction movie or follow one ofhis favourite crime tv-shows. He Internet & ITuses Facebook to read and fol-low news articles, for work, as Softwarewell to connect with his friends. Applications Social Media 34

Marie Dubois PERSONALITY65 years old Artistic, Kind, Funny, Resourceful,Houswife & artist Caring, Responsible, Adventur-Brussel, ous, Passionate, CleverBelgium INTERESTSMarie Dubois is born and raisedin Brussel, Belgium. She resent- Watching Action and Crimi-ly got her Pension after having nal series, baking and cooking,owned her own keramik gallery crossword pussels, Travel, Kera-for 28 years. She lives with her mik, Handcraft creation, spend-husband and both of them love ing time with her familyto travel. In her freetime sheloves to bake and cook, as well TECHNOLOGICAL SKILLSplaying crosswords pussel andwatching action and criminal tv Internet & ITshows. Software Applications Social Media 35

Paul Aurand PERSONALITY53 years old Humorous, Passionet, Book nerd,College Professor Calm, Loving, Kind, Caring.Paris,France INTERESTSJens is divorced and lives in Par- Books, Stand-up comedies, Cof-is, where he is a college profes- fee, Classical, Indie and Jazz mu-sor at a public school. He is an sic, Watch movies and Tv-series,English teacher but teaches as Travel, Spend time with friendswell few classes in cinematog-raphy as it is one of his passions. TECHNOLOGICAL SKILLSHe loves to spend his freetime inreading books, going to stand up Internet & ITcomedies and have a nice timewith friends at his favourite coffe Softwarehouse. Applications Social Media 36

Moodboards (Creative Bloq, 2017)“Mood boards allow you to collaborate easily with your clientsand reduce wasted design time.” (Creative Bloq, 2017) A moodboard was created before the first meeting with the client. Inthat way the team was able to ask the client questions abouthow she wanted the atmosphere and the overall design for thenew website to be, as well if the current moodboard was goingin the right direction towards what she had in mind.The team got a head start of the client needs and desires forthe upcoming product. After that meeting and some severalgood keywords from the client the team was able to createanother moodboard in the right direction.Mysterious Not Too TrendyCrime Foggy Black & White Scandinavian Book FeelingWhite Space SimpleAs mood boards are a “collection of assets and patterns thateventually evolve into a style guide”, the baseline for the styletile and the overall design for Nordic Noir Tours was set andgave the project members a head start into the design think-ing process. 37

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Content Audit (Sizemore, 2017) Pinterest (Pinterest, 2017)Based on the research finding as the group decided to remake To get a better idea of how the website could be created, athe clients the website, one of the first things conducted was a number of inspiration was collected. Both from the competi-Content Audit on the original Nordic Noir Tours Website. tors and other relevant content. All of the data was stored in a pinterest board so the whole team could participate and take a look at the data anywhere. Check out pinterest board for webstie inspiration HERE Check out Pinterest Board for card inspiration HEREThis audit was helpful for the development process to gain in-sight on what kind of content had to be kept, what needed tobe replaced or perhaps updated. It is also a great source forlater in Search Engine Optimisation where unnecessary urlswere filtered out in order to build a Sitemap.There are various different programs and softwares availableto conduct a content audit, but because the given length of theclients website is short, a decision was made to do it manuallyin an excel spreadsheet. 39

User Flow (Bowers, 2017) USER FLOW Noric Noir Tours Date: 2017.11.28 R O A D M A P v 1.0 Name: Balazs KorcsogThe development process has con- CONVERSE ACQUIRE Purpose: User Flow Mappingtinued with a user flow diagram. The LANDINGoriginal model is based on the Nor- CONTACT PAGE SELLdic Noir Tours Google Analytics UserFlow report. TOURS PAGE BOOK ABOUT PAGEIn this user flow diagram the big- START LANDING PAGEgest online user journey, the organ- FAQ PAGEic search, is represented. This type ORGANIC SEARCH RECOMMENDATIONS PAGE THE KILLING CONTACT PAGE BOOK EMAIL TO CLIENT SET DATE FOR TOUR ATTENDof traffic is very important for Nordic THE BRIDGENoir Tours website, because rank-ing high in organic search results BORGENin most cases implies great SearchEngine Optimization. The first column NEW USER START LANDING PAGE TOURS PAGE THE KILLING CONTACT PAGE BOOK EMAIL TO CLIENT SET DATE FOR TOUR ATTENDshows an user flow where the user THE BRIDGEcomes from organic search resultsand implies a symbolic user flow BORGENthrough the website. RETURNING USER START LANDING PAGE FAQ CONTACT PAGE BOOK EMAIL TO CLIENT SET DATE FOR TOUR ATTENDThe second and third column are ABOUT USsegments of typical visitors on the RECOMM.Nordic Noir Tours Website: New andReturning Visitors.Each column has red line indicationson specific pain points, where it ismost likely to lose the session of thevisitor or potential customer. Thesepain points are mainly based on thegoogle analytics user flow report. 40

Project Plan (HARNED, 2017) Nordic Noir Tours Project PlanThe group created a project plan that was shared with the cli- Project objectives:ent in order to have a mutual agreement and understandingof what would be happening on the group’s side and what the The scope of this project is to create a multimedia solution for Nordic Noir Tours that benefitsclient would receive as deliverables. the company and gives them value.The project plan consists of: Deliverable: Project objectives • Brand identity (What the group is aiming to do with this project) • Design Manual • Website Deliverables • Social media advertising Video (What the group will deliver) Success Criteria Success Criteria (A list of items that would make the project a success) • A website that meets the user’s needs. • Gain statistics of website traffic. Project organization • Increased traffic, both on social media and the website. (A list of roles in the project) • A defined brand identity. • User friendly administrative dashboard. Responsibility matrix (A list of responsibilities for each group member) Project organizationThe project plan helped in having a high-level picture of what Product owner: Erna Guðrún Gunnarsdóttirthe group aims to achieve and what is needed in order to do Project manager: Eduard Carmocanuso. Also, it played an important role at the creation time for dis- Project participants:tributing roles in the group but more importantly it helped todetermine the task splitting further down in the project. • Eduard Carmocanu • Baldur Arge Sveinsson • Balázs Korcsog • Erna Guðrún Gunnarsdóttir Responsibility matrix Eduard Carmocanu: Project management Baldur Arge Sveinsson: Interaction Balazs Korcsog: Visualization Erna Guðrún Gunnarsdóttir: Communication 41

Sub-ConclusionThis section helped the group to identify main target groups of the client with the help of the Per-sonas method. The group has planned and implemented a project plan that helps the group tonarrow down the deliverables of the project. With the help of the Content Audit and the User Flowmethod the group was able to gather and conclude on data from the original Nordic Noir Websitethat can be useful later on in the development process.Additionally further research has been made to gather inspiration of current website trends of tourwebsites on pinterest.

IDEATION 43

Introduction to IdeationAfter having interpreted the informations gathered in the discovery phase by defining the compa-ny’s’ target audience, making a moodboard, a content audit for the client’s current website and agood project plan, the next step was to come up with ideas. Early in the design thinking (The Interac-tion Design Foundation. (2017) process the team got a good understanding of the client’s needs andwishes, as it was clear that Nordic Noir Tour was in need of a new improved website.Therefore, the main purpose of the ideation phase was to come up with ideas on how to improvethe website, which parts of it needed most improvements, how to publish it, how to make their visualidentity coherent and how the team could help Nordic Noir Tour to market themselves in order togain more visitor attraction.In order to get a better understanding of the user needs and what should be included on the web-site, the next steps in the ideation phase would be to create a sitemap (Sharp, E. (2014) and a usecase diagram (www.uml-diagrams.org (2017) for the new website, a style tile to form the design forthe website and eventually create a mockup of the website.

Site Map (Slickplan, 2017) The site map has benefited the group by offering a higher level understanding of what should be on website and how it shouldThe sitemap is a visual representation of the website pages and be structured in order to offer a logical flow.their content. Below you can see the sitemap for the website. 45

Use Case Diagram (www.tutorialspoint.com, 2017)In order to understand our users better and acquire a grasp on On the left side, is the visual representation of the involved partsthe functional requirements of the website, the group has cre- and on the right side you can find a detailed description of whatated a UML use case diagram as seen below. benefits could the actor acquire and what scenarios would he go through.USE CASE DIAGRAM USE CASE DESCRIPTION Edit state of ADMIN Admin edits existing tour information publish Admin creates a new tour BENEFITS/ BUSINESS GOALS Create new Tour BENEFITS/ BUSINESS GOALS - Keeps everything up to date - The visitors get the correct information MANAGE Delete tour - Improves diversity - Keeps the visitor happy WEBSITE - Improves reaction to the market needs - Improves the customers experience on the website Edit existing tour - The owner can expand the business information - The company provides more tours SCENARIOS - The visitor has more tours to choose from and is therefore more likely to make a Edit text purchase Basic Flow - Improves conversion rate Admin logs in to his admin panel for the website. Enters the admin panel. Clicks onADMIN Change - Makes the company more money an existing tour and opens it. Updates the tour information. Clicks on save. Saves cover image changes. Clicks on publish. Successfully publishes the new updated information for SCENARIOS the tour on the website. Change thumbnail image Basic Flow Alternative Flow Admin logs in to his admin panel for the website. Enters the admin panel. Creates a Admin doesn’t update information for the existing tours. BROWSE Read web- new tour. CLicks save. Publishes the new tour to the website. WEBSITE site Content Exeptional Flow Alternative Flow Admin logs in to his admin panel for the website. Enters the admin panel. Clicks on View Tour View Insta- Admin doesn’t create a new tour. an existing tour and opens it. Updates the tour information with wrong informations prices gram images and doesn’t notice it. Keeps it like that. Customer becomes unhappy having received Exeptional Flow the wrong information about the tours. View Admin logs in to his admin panel for the website. Enters the admin panel. Creates a Tours new tour but fails to publish it because he constantly gets an error. Visitor books a tour via email Check out VISITOR BENEFITS/ BUSINESS GOALS Social Media Visitor checks out social media -The visitor knows for sure that his email was sent because it was via email insteadVISITOR BOOK via redirect of contact form. As contact forms can sometimes make the customer unsure if it TICKETS link to email BENEFITS/ BUSINESS GOALS was sent or not. - Booking a tour via email can be more personal and welcoming. CONTACT View Contact - Visitor gets additional information about the tours via TripAdvisor - When booking a tour via email, the costumer has more space to ask additional information on - Visitor can read reviews on the tours via TripAdvisor questions regarding the tours if he wishes to do so. website - The visitor can browse through images taken on tours via Instagram - It’s simple and people are use to it. - The visitor can follow the company before and after tours Send email Find the compa- -The visitor can easily see if there are new tours added via Facebook posts and Twit- SCENARIOS via redirect ny’s location on ter link to email Google Maps on - Improves the costumer relationship between the company and its visitors Basic Flow the website - The visitor can take part in the company’s events/happenings and easily commu- The visitor goes to the company’s website. Clicks on Tours. Picks a tour of his choice, nicate via social media fx. The Killing. Gets a popup window with information about the tour and prices. Reads the content. Clicks on “Book A Tour”. Gets redirected to his email. Writes a email SCENARIOS to the company that he wants to book a tour. Asks all the questions he needs regarding the tour itself. Clicks on “send mail”. Visitor successfully books a tour via Basic Flow email. Visitor sees that his email was sent. The visitor goes to the company’s website and checks out all social media in the top navigation bar. Instagram images, facebook posts and videos, tweets from Twitter Alternative Flow and good reviews on TripAdvisor push the visitors interest even further to book a tour The visitor goes to the the company’s webpage. Clicks on “contact” page. Finds the with Nordic Noir Tours. The visitor books a tour and starts to follow the company’s company’s email. Clicks on it. Gets redirected to his email. Asks his questions and social media. books a tour. Alternative Flow Exeptional Flow The visitor is on one of the social media pages already. Finds Nordic Noir Tours there A) The visitor books a tour via email but the email doesnt get sent and goes to draft by himself because a friend told him about the company. Visitor views it there. box instead. The booking never gets sent to Nordic Noir Tour. Instead of going to the company’s website to get redirected there to their social media pages. B) The visitor successfully books a tour via email. Gets a reply from Nordic Noir Tours but never sees it because it went to junk mail. Exeptional Flow The visitor goes to the company’s website and checks out the company’s social C) The visitor doesn’t have an email account. media. Finds the images on Instagram uninteresting as well reads only the bad reviews about the company on TripAdvisor and therefore decides not to book a tour with Nordic Noir Tours. 46

Sketching (Buick , 2017)The sketches for the website and its functionality were inspiredby several other websites that were found when doing researchon the company’s competitors, in other words by Benchmark-ing and making a positioning map.By doing so the group got a good idea on how the clients web-site could be. Most of the other websites however had moreof today’s trendy web designs or were outdated. As the clientwanted to have a simple website, that is easy to use, the firstsketches were based on usability and with user experience inmind. 47

Wireframing (Lim, 2017)Wireframe is a visual guide to represent the framework of awebsite.By making a wireframe it allowed us to define the informationhierarchy of the design that was to be made for the website.Wireframes can make it easier to plan the layout according tohow you want the user to process the information. Therefore,after sketching the first ideas for the website, a wireframe wasmade for the website and Admin Panel. The wireframe was cre-ated in Adobe XD (experience design) and Sketch. 48

WIREFRAME FOR ADMIN PANEL 49

Style Tile (Staff, 2017)The design starts to take form when creating a style tile. Thestyle tile is the step between a moodboard and the mockupand is based on research and testing. It defines the designchoices and the tone of voice for the product to be made, withguidelines for the colour palette, typography, icons and graph-ical interactive elements such as buttons. It also includes key-words and imagery to set the right mood. 50