Tripomatic – Experience More Tourist Attractions Without the Planning Hassle

12 thoughts on “Tripomatic – Experience More Tourist Attractions Without the Planning Hassle”

1. Useing Safari and Firefox on Mac 10.6.8

   Please visit https://www.tripomatic.com/ Spend no more than 5-10 seconds on the home page. What do you think the site is about?

   The site is for travel planning, aimed at international travel.

   Go back to the site and try to plan a perfect 3-day trip. Select your favorite European destination (we are working hard on adding more content from other continents too). Choose what to do according to your real interests, make the trip as good as you can. Enjoy your planning.

   Planning was easy and straight forward. The tutorial provided most information needed for planning the trip. The Get Guide link was a bit of a throw off, however. The name suggested that it was a guide for the location you were planning, not a link to the trip you just planned.

   What do you find most frustrating about Tripomatic.com? How can we improve the website?

   During the tutorial, it would be nice to have the ability to drag and move the tutorial window around the screen, so that it does not cover up certain elements of information we may want to view.

   The ‘Get Guide’ option. As mentioned above, the name suggests a ‘guide’ to the area you are visiting, not for the trip you just planned. Maybe change the name of the link to something that more strongly suggests that it is for the trip (ie: View Trip Plan).

   The big, empty ‘My Trip To…..’ box that has nothing in it but takes up most of the screen when you are reviewing your trip summary.

   What do you like about Tripomatic?

   The tutorial was nice, making it easy as a first timer on the site to plan a trip and to view information on tourist sites and hotels. 

   The Your Trip page and how it laid out your trip information for easy viewing. Also the ability to download your trip in PDF or to email it or post if on social media.

   The ‘Search Hotels’ options when selecting a date for the trip.  

   The sites integration with Tele Atlas maps is smooth and quick, and their integration with different information sources, and your utilization of that information, makes it easy to quickly review different sites and locations that may be of interest.

   Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.

   For the most part, I enjoyed the site. One thing that I would like to see, for first time users, is a bit of a stronger indication on the homepage for creating an account and a bit on why you should–such as being able to save your plans, share them, etc. Currently, you only have a ‘Sign In’ option on your homepage.

   Maybe a few links to travel booking sites besides the hotels (hey, if we plan a trip, we need the means of getting there!).

   Site Appearance:
   A border or space between the Map and the bottom of the page while on the Plan Trip page. I kept feeling like I should be scrolling down on my browser to see more of the map, because the map abruptly ended at the bottom of my browser. A small border around the map (that adjusts with it as users expand/shrink their browser window) to let the occasional unwary user like to know that they are seeing the full map on their browser may be nice (also, for appearance sake, i think a small boarder around the map would be nicer, as it looks a bit odd (and annoying to a small minority that may consist only of me) to have the map abruptly end at the bottom and side of your browser).
   
   Overall  a nice site, easy to use, no real flaws that should detract people from using it, though a few things that could improve it. Site works well on both Safari and Firefox.

2. Please visit https://www.tripomatic.com/ Spend no more than 5-10 seconds on the home page. What do you think the site is about?
   I think the website is providing information to help plan a holiday.
   Go back to the site and try to plan a perfect 3-day trip. Select your favorite European destination (we are working hard on adding more content from other continents too). Choose what to do according to your real interests, make the trip as good as you can. Enjoy your planning.
   Planning a trip was quick and easy to do. The tutorial was excellent and showed you exactly how to use the website. There was clear information, images and addresses for the activities. It was easy to add activities, the hotel I was staying in and additional days to my trip. I chose a trip to Berlin, Germany and there were plenty of activity options to choose from. Overall I was impressed with the planning facility, it was quick and easy to use and it was fun and professional.
   What do you find most frustrating about Tripomatic.com? How can we improve the website?
   It wasn’t obvious where you clicked to get the overview of your trip and to print it out. I soon realised it was under the get guide tab. This was a little frustrating, however, once I’d located it I was impressed with the options available, for example, to save as a PDF file. This could be made clearer on the website to make the process smoother and quicker.
   What do you like about Tripomatic?
   I really liked the whole idea of the website, it would help you to make the most of your holiday time. I loved the fun feel to the website. The tutorial was also very helpful in explaining how to use the planning facility.
   Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.
   Overall I was impressed with the website, it is quick and easy to use and the site is both fun and professional. I would recommend it to friends who were planning a trip away. The only thing I was unsure about was where to go when I had finished planning my trip, in order to print it out or save it for later.

3. Spend no more than 5-10 seconds on the home page. What do you think the site is about?
   Looks like a travel planning site. (I have to mention that it took a little while for the slideshow to load, definitely more than 5-10 seconds.)
    
   Go back to the site and try to plan a perfect 3-day trip.
   Ok, I did.
    
   What do you find most frustrating about Tripomatic.com? How can we improve the website?
   1. I find the map load times to be a little slow.
    
   2. The hotel choices on the map are overwhelming. I don’t even know where to begin. I see that I can sort by star rating as well as by hotels that are “recommended.” But whose star ratings are these, and by what criteria are you “recommending” them? That is, how do I know what your ratings mean and that I can rely on them? Other than that, I have no way to compare all these hotels. When I hover over one, I see an option to “Show Rates” so that I could at least make a price comparison, but when I click on it, nothing happens. If I click on an individual hotel, I’m taken to Booking.com. This doesn’t add any value to my experience at your site because I could just as easily go to Booking.com on my own. I thought the point was for your site to help me plan my trip. What I’d really like to see when I click on a hotel is a page on your site with information about accommodations, amenities, pricing, and so on. I’d also love to see a chart comparing all the hotels in a given city. That would really help me make a decision.
    
   3. I like the concept of the “Must See” list, but I don’t like that I have no idea how to find those destinations on the map. I wish that if I clicked on a destination from the list, it would automatically be highlighted on the map. As it is now, I can’t just add “Must See” destinations to my itinerary because I don’t know how far apart they are without searching them out on the map. I’d also love to be able to click on each “Must See” choice and get a fuller, page-length description. In addition, some destinations on the list repeat several times even when I’ve already selected them, which is confusing.
    
   4. As I’m trying to choose activities on the map, I’m looking for destinations that will be close together so that I can do a number of things at once with minimal travel time. The problem is that I have to zoom in really close just to see what some of those activities are because you “hide” them behind a magnifying glass icon. Once I zoom in to see what the “hidden” activities are, I lose my sense of relation to the rest of the map. So if I’m trying to figure out how far it is from one activity to the other, I now have to zoom back out while trying to keep in mind exactly where the “hidden” activity was. This makes it hard to plan. I would much, much prefer it if I didn’t have to zoom in to see these “hidden” activities. It would be great if every time I hovered over the magnifying glass icon, a list of all the activities at that location would pop up. Then I could decide immediately if any of those things interested me without being forced to zoom in again and again to sort through them all. (I hope that makes sense. It’s hard to explain!)
    
   5. When I’m zoomed in on a “hidden” location, sometimes I realize that I want to see more things than I can fit into one day, so I decide to plan those activities for a different day. The problem is that when I select a different day, the map automatically zooms out. Now I have to find those “hidden” activities all over again! 🙁 I wish the map wasn’t reset when I switch days.
    
   6. I’d really like to be able to click on the individual activities on the map and get a more extensive summary of each one, including visiting hours, admission rates, and a general rating and review. Without that kind of info, I’m going to need a separate travel guide, which would defeat the purpose of your site.
    
   7. I need to see the walking and driving distance between each of these destinations, and it would also be great to see an estimated travel time from location to location.
    
   8. How do I save my itinerary? How do I save the maps with the highlighted routes? How do I print this stuff out? I don’t see that info readily available.
    
   What do you like about Tripomatic?
   1. The whole concept of the site. I like the visual travel planning idea.
    
   2. There’s no registration process to begin using the site. Nice!
    
   3. The interactive travel planning feature with map is very user-friendly. If needed, the tutorial is really simple and easy to follow.
    
   4. The wide selection of activities and the tabs at the top of the activity map for easy sorting by category. You really do cover all your bases here!
    
   5. The wide selection of hotels on the hotel map.
    
   6. The “Tours” and “Must See” lists. Great idea!
    
   7. The highlighted routes between destinations selected on the map. The distance given between each destination for easier planning.
    
   8. The home page–simple, attractive, instantly understandable, and accessible.

    
   Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.
   My overall feeling is that you have a very nice concept here, but there could be some improvements in execution. When I’m trying to plan a trip, I have three main goals–to find the activities that interest me most, to figure out how much time I’m going to need for each one, and to pick a hotel that meets my needs. I think your site is only partially helping me with these three goals right now. Yes, you list a wide selection of activities, and that provides me with a great starting point. But I need to find out more about each activity before I decide for sure if I really want to spend part of my day on it. This would require more extensive summaries from your site. And, yes, you display distance between activities and a highlighted map, but this doesn’t give me a sense of how long I’m going to be at each site or how much time it’s going to actually take me to get there. For instance, if something is a mile away, but I have to take a ferry to get there, it’s going to take a lot longer than if I can get a cab. When you read travel guides, a lot of the time they’ll have helpful tidbits like, “Plan to spend the whole day here. It will take hours to walk around and see x, y, and z, but if you can only spend the morning, see x.” That kind of tip is invaluable, and your site lacks that. Finally, as far as hotels go, I need a way to compare rooms, meal plans, and rates quickly and easily, and your site doesn’t really give me that either.
    
   The most important things I can suggest to you are:
   1. Create more extensive summaries of each destination that will appear when the user clicks on it.
    
   2. Allow all destinations to appear in pop-up bubbles when the user hovers over the magnifying glass icon. Don’t “hide” some of these destinations and force the user to zoom in to street level to see them. That makes it too hard to understand the spatial relationships between destinations when you’re planning your day.
    
   3. Create a comparison chart for hotels in each city and a summary page with accommodation and rate info for each individual hotel.
    
   One more thing: As your site expands, it would be great to add user reviews and ratings to activities and hotels. Firsthand experience is always the best!

4. Feedback sought:
   

   Using Windows 7 OS, on a PC, with IE8

    

   Please visit https://www.tripomatic.com/ Spend no more than 5-10 seconds on the home page. What do you think the site is about?

   This appears to be about planning trips.

   Go back to the site and try to plan a perfect 3-day trip. Select your favorite European destination (we are working hard on adding more content from other continents too). Choose what to do according to your real interests, make the trip as good as you can. Enjoy your planning.
   

   Done.

   What do you find most frustrating about Tripomatic.com? How can we improve the website?
   

   I really wish U.S. locations were included! Improve site by adding U.S. destinations.

   The “Report Problems” button is only half visible when I open up the picture thumbnail for a destination.

   Seemed to load slowly when I clicked on a destination.

   There are stars listed under each attraction. Who has rated these sites? Visitors of your site? It would help me to know the credibility of who rating these attractions.

   What do you like about Tripomatic?
   

   Seems to be extensive collection of European locations. Overall, I like this site and I like the high quality of all of the pictures listed on this site.

   Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.
   

   The blue color used on homepage like “Ancient Rome” does not stand out on pictures. You need this color to be a bold white or not put it on the picture. It does not look good, but the smaller white font looks fine. This is my biggest improvement suggestion on your site.

5. 
   Please visit
   
   https://www.tripomatic.com/ Spend no more than 5-10 seconds on the home page. What do you think the site is about?
   This site is about planning trips with a guide to help find things to do.
   
   
   Go back to the site and try to plan a perfect 3-day trip. Select your favorite European destination (we are working hard on adding more content from other continents too). Choose what to do according to your real interests, make the trip as good as you can. Enjoy your planning.
   
    
   Planning a trip was very easy to accomplish. The tutorial was very nice and I really liked the must see list. It was really easy to just add days and see a straight forwards list of what each day consisted of.
   

   What do you find most frustrating about Tripomatic.com? How can we improve the website?
   
    
   Even though the navigation was really simple to use I found the map itself to be a little overwhelming visually. I would like to have have seen the activites that I chose only from the tabs that I pressed such as sight, museum and etc. When it came to the miles section under each destination I was a little confused as to what the “/” mark was. I could clearly understand the walk and cat but not the other. When I clicked on the tour tab I couldn’t see how to get off of the page, I wound just hitting the refresh button to get off of it. The must see list is the same way, I didn’t see how to get off the page. I think that because your map is so busy I would remove the tour and must see list to another section. I like that I can see the days I add and the map side by side but it is frustrting to look at. I got a little overrun from the actvites that I picked from the the actitives that I could pick from. I would have like to have had a way to narrow it down based on certain areas. Say for instance I wanted to see activites around Soho in a 50 mile radius from all sides, something the like. That way you could really customize your trip to a certain region. I would also consider moving the days added to the bottom on the page instead of having them next to each other. This will allow for more space for the map and to allow for yours days to possibly be seen side by side and all at one time. When I hit the “select” button to pick a hotel the loading circle went on to long I lost motivation to just sit their and wait. It seemed much easier to just hit the hotel tab button at the top of the screen and select whatever star rating your wanted. Again as to not overwhelm the map I would only show those hotels that fall under the star rating chose and a little marker signifying the activity chosen by the user so that they could see the proxcimity. I also don’t see the point of showing hotels that are way off the mark of where I pick actitives. I’m sure no one would stay a huge distance from they plan on sight seeing. Also when certain destinations are selected the tours and must see list cover them up making it impossible to see without moving the map. Okay I finally sat and waited for the hotel select page to load and I was a little confused. I was fine with the location and the dates but the next step was a little confusing. I’m sure that I might not be familiar with the area when planning a trip so just to see a list of hotel name was frustrating. I liked that I could pick the days not knowing where was located in proximity to where I was wanted to sight see made it hard to use. I much rather hit the search key and allow booking.com com narrow it down for me or just book it right from the map itself.
   
   
   What do you like about Tripomatic?
   
   
   I really like that I easily navigate adding or deleting actvities on my day list. The tutorial was very nice and I really liked the must see list. The pictures that I was able to see were very nice and the description was very helpful. I like that I could see the route in which my activites were on the map and that I could see how long it would take either walking and or driving. I like that your added a rating system and that I could switch activites around to make the route more tailored to myself. I was a little turned off when I got to the guide page until I scrolled down and saw this nice and neat “brochure” of the things that I picked. I must say it was broken down beautifully, with maps, miles, contact info and nice pictures. I really like that you attached links to each location giving the user more of an abilty to see what they were actually visiting. I really like that you add official websites.
   
   Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.
   
   I think that the get guide on the homepage is a little misleading. I instantly good a guide to help me plan a trip not just a well structed print out of something I had essentially put together myself. I would liked to have a login in account to track info just in case I was planning a trip well into the further. Once our put something together and mistakingly navigate to another site what happens to the info. Ohhh. I see that you have a sign in under the get guide but I find placing there to be a little off. A free optional login would suit your sigght very well. Visually your site is very lovely. I think that the homepage could be a little more narrow as to allow the user not to have to slide the screen over just to see everything. I think making the picture just a touch smaller would not take away from it at all.

6. Thank you, very useful feedback and some great ideas too.

7. Thank you for the feedback and the suggestions, interesting.

8. Please visit https://www.tripomatic.com/ Spend no more than 5-10 seconds on the home page. What do you think the site is about?

   Being able to plan a trip to a European country, using the internet, this website specifically, as a one-stop shop for the trip.

   Go back to the site and try to plan a perfect 3-day trip. Select your favorite European destination (we are working hard on adding more content from other continents too). Choose what to do according to your real interests, make the trip as good as you can. Enjoy your planning.

   I planned my trip going to Slovakia as it’s where my husband’s family comes from.  Unfortunately, there was only one city choice for Slovakia, but that’s ok…I could always rent a car and drive, or take a train to a different city.

   What do you find most frustrating about Tripomatic.com? How can we improve the website?

   1) When clicking on the pop out of the attraction (which I loved), I didn’t like how any links to that attraction would bring me to that site using the current tab.  I would prefer that it opened up a different tab in the browser so that I wouldn’t have to go back to the planning page.
   2) how the map would zoom in and out while I was just trying to scroll.  Probably just my problem, though.
   3) the add custom activity popout could be confusing for people, unless they know what activity they are going to do for sure.
   4) the “feedback” tab on the side of the page over the map.  Slightly weird place to put this…Not where I would have looked for it.  I would make a separate button section at the bottom of the webpage where you could have the “feedback” button as well as buttons for “testimonials”, your blog, etc, like you do on the homepage.
   5) the white frame around photos doesn’t stand out, nor does it make the photo eye catching.

   What do you like about Tripomatic?

   1)  the quick tutorial at the beginning.  While some things are kind of obvious to anyone who has used the computer for things like maps and the zoom bar, it’s helpful to have the other info to make planning easier.
   2) LOVE the pop outs of the places to visit when you click on it to get a bit more information about the attraction and see the picture in a bigger size.
   3)  I really liked how the different days were categorized by color.  It helped to see on the map the colored squares and be able to associate that with specific day.
   4) the approximate walking times between attractions.  It’s nice to know about how far things are and if it’s worthwhile to drive or just as easy to walk.
   5) the way you could move the order of visiting the attractions.  Nice for planning purposes.
   6) the “menu” button on each activity that you’ve added to your day.  I like being able to move the order of activities, or delete the activity
   7) a separate map of the hotels (while keeping the day’s activity outline on the map) so you could see where various hotels are in relationship to the attractions you want to visit.
   8 ) REALLY liked the maps in the PDF guide download.  Full page with the days sites numbered. Clear and easy to follow.
   9)  The little blub at the end of the guide telling a bit about the country/city I’m visiting.  It’s nice to have a little background.
   10) The “Must See” button is nice.  I clicked it after I planned my trip (oops).  It only listed one more item that Tripomatic thought I needed to see, and it suggested a day.  How it suggested I visit it on day one, instead of one of the other days, I’m not sure unless it had to do with me only putting 2 places for day one and about 7 for day two and 3 for day 3.
    

   Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.

   The idea of having a “tours” button is nice.  I didn’t have that option in Slovakia, but I can imagine that in places such as Paris or London, it would be helpful.
   The “Get Guide” was slightly different than what I was assuming it to be.  But it works.  It’s nice to see all the attractions numbered along with links, and walking distances.  I appreciated being able to download it as a PDF, for saving it to my computer.
   I visited your blog using the link.  Nice, clean page.  Good pictures, clean font.  Very nice and simple, not overwhelming.
   Overall, I found the site easy to use, pleasant to look at, not distracting, etc.  It is very much like it’s name implies:  an automatic trip machine…just punch in the buttons, and voila! Here’s a planned trip for you.  If I were planning a European trip any time soon, I would defiantly use this site.  You might even want to do a “Tripomatic USA” partner site.  Lots of us, especially with the current economy, would use it as we keep a bit closer to home.

9. Please visit https://www.tripomatic.com/ Spend no more than 5-10 seconds on the home page. What do you think the site is about?
   Several items stood out when I first accessed Tripomatic.com: There was too much white space on the site. I absolutely loved the different pictures of Europe that came on the screen: Paris, Rome. It made me want to buy my ticket right away! The Colors on the main page were inviting. Instructions were easy and very clear.  I really like the name of this site: Tripomatic.com
   Go back to the site and try to plan a perfect 3-day trip. Select your favorite European destination (we are working hard on adding more content from other continents too). Choose what to do according to your real interests, make the trip as good as you can. Enjoy your planning.
    The planning process was so fun I wanted to add about a couple of more days: I chose a destination (I liked the map of the world in the background). I loved the ratings of the different hotels and liked that it was linked to Priceline. I loved the real-time pictures, (especially the rotating pictures) of the hotels and the additional custom activity places and pictures. What was helpful for people not familiar to the county is the map and distance between locations (even distance on foot).
   What do you find most frustrating about Tripomatic.com? How can we improve the website?
   After planning my trip, I did not know what to select to close out my trip package. After a while, I selected “Get Guide” and was able to access my trip summary. Easy navigation, however, some links to different locations seemed slow.
   What do you like about Tripomatic?
   I really enjoyed looking at this sight. Loved the pictures, the details of each location (maps and colored lines on the map of the distance between locations), the ratings and short summary of each location.
    
   Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.
   Is there a link or phone number to vacation planner who can assist the customer with adding or deleting a custom activity? Overall I had a great time and enjoyed planning my perfect 3-day trip.

10. Lostness has been awarded.

11. greatfeedback4u has been awarded.

12. Latasha has been awardedd.

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