A travel app concept
Plotter
Role
Student, Pratt Institute UX/UI Mobile Design Certificate Program
User Research, UX/UI Design
Summer 2020
For this project, I was asked to come up with an idea for a mobile app that will help adventure travelers during their travel planning process.
Overview
Adventure travelers were defined with the following criteria:
Single or recently married
No kids
Limited disposable income
Travel for more than a week at a time
Occasionally in groups
Research
First, I conducted user research to learn more about the current process adventure travelers undergo when planning and coordinating travel, both solo and within groups. This research helped me better understand common pain points of the travel planning process and identify unmet needs that could be addressed via a mobile app. I conducted 10 remote user interviews with travelers ages 27 - 34 who had taken a non-business trip within the past 12 months and met the aforementioned criteria.
I recorded each interview and analyzed users' responses to create an aggregate empathy map.
Looking over the map and transcripts, some key themes emerged:
1.
2.
People already have an itinerary making tool that meets their needs.
People love Google Docs. Seven out of 10 users said they use Google Docs/Sheets to plan their trips and build their itineraries.
Why?
Shareable, customizable, collaborative, real-time edits, accessible from variety of devices, but most importantly, everyone can access it without having to download an app.
People don’t have trouble finding things to do and see in a given city.
This is actually the most exciting part of planning.
People don’t rely on one resource exclusively for recommendations and reviews. They use a mix of traditional travel resources such as TripAdvisor, Lonely Planet, and the city’s tourism channels, along with niche resources such as travel blogs and Instagram.
Above all, the most valued recommendations are those from family, friends and colleagues.
3.
What people do struggle with is accurately budgeting their time.
People tend to be over ambitious in their planning.
In nearly every interview, people said some version of I underestimated how long everything would take/how tired I would be and overestimated how much I’d be able to fit in each day.
Using these insights, I developed a persona:
I then created a customer journey map to illustrate the user's current travel planning process, the emotions felt along the way, and what tools they currently use. This helped me identify areas of frustration and unmet needs that could potentially be addressed via a mobile app.
The Opportunity
Looking over the journey map, it became clear that while users generally enjoyed the trip planning process, particularly researching and choosing what to do and see, they spent a significant amount of time and energy figuring out how to schedule their day to day itinerary. Furthermore, they often overestimated how much time and energy they would have each day, and were left disappointed when they didn't get to do everything they had hoped to.
This key learning lead to an app concept that would center on pairing users with a local guide to help them organize the logistics of their trip.
The user would take the lead on flights, accomodations, and identifying key to do’s, while the guide would organize their day to day itinerary in a way that makes most sense, logistically. The guide would also provide local transportation recommendations and suggest a few additional to do’s that would fit seamlessly into the itinerary.
Design
I created a site map to help determine the app's key functionalities. While the app has the potential to grow into something much larger and more comprehensive of the entire travel experience, I focused on creating an MVP that addresses the core user's immediate travel itinerary needs.
Next, I created wireframes of the app's main screens and wireflows of the app's core functions.
Expanding on those wireframes, I created high fidelity mockups of each screen. A selection of key screens is included below.
First, an animated welcome screen greets the user, followed by a brief onboarding highlighting the app's key functionalities. Users can then log in by creating an account or via Google.
The home screen prompts users to create a new trip, then guides them through the process step by step. User interviews showed that people generally liked to confirm their trip basics including their destination, dates, flights, and accommodations before they moved on to choosing specific activities they wanted to do. Users have the option to save their progress and return at a later time to complete the process as needed.
Retrospective
This project reiterated the importance of research, specifically user interviews. When I was first given the prompt to design a travel app, I was intimidated by the task of making something that would be original and legitimately helpful. At first it felt like my research was only confirming that fear, which challenged me to think outside the box and listen to their feedback in a different way.
This concept did not reach the development process since it was created for a class project. However, if I were to continue the process my next steps would include:
Build out wireframes and high fidelity mockups of additional app screens
Explore additional features that could add value to the app without creating clutter or redundancy
Conduct usability testing and update the concept according the user feedback