Wikitravel - Analysis and evaluation

Think aloud evaluation

Since Wikitravel is a good place to start looking for information and also to get a good overview of a place you are traveling to, I asked a peer of mine (a young friend not too unlike backpackers) to try this website. Her task was to find out which sort of bus ticket is the best (cheapest, gives the most freedom) for public transport for a two day stay in the city of Berlin, and the find out where to buy it.

Since being familiar with Wikipedia, as soon as my friend hits the start page of Wikitravel she knows how to get around on the website. She goes straight for the search function and finds Berlin immediately (instead of navigating through Europe -> Germany ->  Berlin). As she gets to the info page she realizes it is in Swedish and contains way more information than she needs. She goes for the search field again to search for busses but realizes that it would search through the entire Wikitravel again (like most web pages with search functions), so she wishes for an internal search for the page but there is none.

She scrolls down and finds a heading saying “Busses” but soon realizes that it only contains information on how to get to Berlin by bus. She soon finds the “Public transport” heading with very little information below it. Therefore she clicks the link she finds in this tiny bit of information to the BVG (Berlin public transport) website in search for more info. Here she finds all the info she needs, compares the ticket prices and finds the option to buy them online. She gets them online in advance rather than buying them on arrival, since the information she got is enough for her to decide straight away.

What my friend didn’t think of was that Wikitravel also has an english version of this page that is significantly more updated and contains a lot more information about the city. Here they have listed every comparison between public transport tickets in advance and served for you. The cons of this method is that you are not offered to buy the tickets online, but it states clearly where they can be bought when in Berlin.

Pros:

• Familiar layout - easy to navigate
• Lots of information - expectations that what you need is there
• Search function is easy to find and finds the right results
• Relatively easy to find what you need

Cons:

• Doesn’t give you the page with the required information
• Doesn’t redirect you to the right page when you don’t find it and doesn’t indicates in any way that the english version has more content
• Can miss some information if you don’t look on other websites (e.g. the function to buy tickets online)

 

State-of-the-art analysis

Wikitravel is like a Wikipedia for travellers. Here you should be able to find all the crucial information on wherever you want to go, no matter what kind of tourist you are. Therefore the content is based on what tourists are looking for. It’s a website by tourists for tourists. Wikitravel also differs from Wikipedia in that it is a bit subjective, giving you warnings on what to look out for and suggestions on what works well and what is fun. It still gives you the freedom to make up your own mind about things, and it differs from TripAdvisor where everything is based entirely on opinions

Wikitravel is aimed to all tourists that will visit or have visited a place they want a good overview of. Every kind would probably find the information they need to make it when they arrive, except for where to stay. In this particular area Wikitravel can tell you where to look or where it is popular for different kinds of tourists to stay, but it doesn’t come close to e.g. TripAdvisor in showing you all the accommodation that is offered, at what price and what people think about it.

If you are familiar with the layout of Wikipedia, which at least the younger generation of tourists are, you will be at home with the navigation on Wikitravel. Its similar color scheme tells you it tries to be just what it is and that you should expect that it will work like Wikipedia.

One trap you might fall into is that you will miss out on information if you think that Wikitravel contains everything there is to know about a destination. If you look at the “Public transport” heading for berlin as example, you will easily miss that certain types of tickets are available for online purchase, or that there are child tickets for some of the services.

Another con is that the non-english pages are a lot less developed than the english ones, and more often than not lack important information, or have no content at all. This creates a difficulty for all non-english speaking tourists who will have to find this information elsewhere (if it even exists). It also tricks english speaking, non-english tourists to visit their own website (when searching for Wikitravel on google in Sweden the swedish website comes up) where information might be scarce, and it doesn’t inform you that there might be more in the english version.

All in all Wikitravel is a very good website, mostly for english speaking tourists, to prepare you for your next trip. No matter who you are or where you are going.