Journey to Castles of Belarus

An interactive application for web and mobile platforms.


OVERVIEW


PROBLEM

Belarus is a beautiful country in the middle of Europe. Not many travelers from the US visit Belarus, in part due to the country's lack of international marketing and advertising campaigns. Belarus has a rich history and offers beautiful sightseeing and architecture, but it doesn't set a goal of attracting visitors from abroad. Creating a flow of international visitors would generate bigger annual revenue that would allow Belarusian historical sites to be well-preserved. Currently, many buildings and monuments decay, don't get restored, and eventually fall into disrepair.


GOAL

To increase interest among the American population in Belarus as a traveling destination.


SOLUTION

I created mock-ups for web and mobile platforms for an application called “Castles of Belarus.” My main focus was Niasvizh, a beautiful city in Belarus with medieval castles, churches, and monuments. It is also famous for delicious Belarusian cuisine. Niasvizh is a perfect place to start learning about Belarus!

According to an international agreement, American citizens can visit Belarus for 30 days without a visa. Traveling time is valuable, so in my application I selected activities that visitors can do within 36 hours in Niasvizh. This is the perfect number of hours to get a taste of the Niasvizh historical culture and then move on to exploring other places.


ROLE

UX/UI designer, researcher, developer (ActionScripts 3.0)


TOOLS

Animate CC, Illustrator, Figma


DURATION

1.5 months

RESEARCH


INTERVIEWS

I interviewed six people prior to the beginning of the project. Among the interviewees were my friends, my previous professors and faculty members, and some people who I met for the first time. All of the participants were US citizens.


Some of the questions included:

  • If you travel abroad, what are the first ten countries you’d like to visit?

  • Have you ever considered visiting Eastern Europe, or Belarus in particular?

  • Are you aware that, with an American passport, you are entitled a 30-day visa-free travel period in Belarus via air travel?

  • Have you heard about Belarusian architecture, such as castles and palaces?

  • Would you be interested in an interactive website that would allow you to learn more about Belarus?


RESULTS

Almost all the interviewees expressed a strong interest in a digital product that would allow them to learn more about Belarus. Only a few of them knew that visa-free travel was possible. Nobody had considered traveling to Belarus before, but some people expressed a strong interest in Belarusian architecture.


CURRENT NIASVIZH CASTLE WEBSITE


I went on the current Niasvizh Castle website to analyze its pros and cons (www.niasvizh.by).


PROS:

  • The website is very informative.

  • It has a section displaying a map of the city (not in English).

  • It has a version for visually impaired people.

  • It has information about some sights other than the castle.


CONS:

  • There is too much text and not enough interaction.

  • There are no details about sights and restaurants outside of the castle area.

  • Some phrases are poorly translated in English.

  • The design isn’t playful. Visiting castles is a wonderful activity for kids, but the site is boring for a young audience.

INSPIRATION


After analyzing the Niasvizh Castle website, I decided that the main feature on my site will be a map that users can interact with. Through research, I found some interesting sites that have this feature:


To make my website look friendly and joyful, I decided to use illustration as a primary medium. Here are the websites I became inspired by:



MOODBOARD

I created this dashboard to feel friendly, authentic, historic, and playful. I used images of Belarusian castles and national costumes as sources for my color palette.


INITIAL SKETCHES

Sketching helps me get my ideas down quickly. This is always a helpful step in my design process.


WIREFRAMES

Then, I created wireframes. This gave me a basic idea of how my product would look on the screen.


SITE MAP

After extensive research about Niasvizh, I came up with ten primary activities my website would recommend for travelers to do within 36 hours in the city.

INTRO

Animated illustrations are a recent UI trend. I created my graphics via Adobe Illustrator and then I animated them in Adobe Animate CC, using the ActionScripts 3.0 programming language.

MAP

Here, the user sees possible activities on a map of Niasvizh. Each activity marked with a number from 1 to 10, which represents the order in which the activities are recommended to be experienced. I have also created an illustration for each activity.


ACTIVITIES

Each activity has a short description, time of operation, address, phone number, and three photographs. Also, the user can get to a website of the destination or check its location on Google Maps.


ABOUT

This is the About Page, where users can read about Belarus and Niasvizh.

MOBILE

I also created a mobile application, where I separated activities between two days. Note that in the mobile application I included three cities instead of one: Niasvizh, Mir, and Kosava. All three towns have a great historical value, so I will also apply them to the website soon.

PROMOTION


I also created these traveling brochures that people can carry in their bags. Ideally, the brochures would be included in tours to the Belarusian castles. They can also be used in advertising campaigns!

OUTCOMES


After I created apps in both web and mobile versions, I reached out to the same people I previously interviewed. I asked them to try the app and then take a survey. I’m happy to say that everybody liked the product a lot! 🥳 The majority of participants were impressed with the animations. They also liked interacting with the website. One of the users said, “It was so joyful!” The last poll question was: “After using this website, are you more likely to visit Belarus now?” 30 out of 32 people selected “Strongly yes!” This means that this project’s goal has been reached!

FURTHER ACTIONS AFTER USER TESTING


  • Develop more cities for the website (the majority of participants said that only one city wasn't enough).

  • Users said they would like to have clearer assignment of activities across the two days on the website. It’s good to have an order for the activities, they said, but it’s not clear enough what activity belongs to what day. However, this is not an issue for the mobile version.

  • Remove About and Contact from the burger menu and locate them on the top navigation bar.

  • In the About section, reduce text and provide a clearer introduction to the project.

  • Redesign the Contact section to allow users to contact the website administrator.

THANK YOU FOR SCROLLING! 🤗