Travelo
Improving the way we search and plan for travel
Company
Personal Project
Tools
Figma
Role
UX/UI Designer
Timeline
1/2023-3/2023
Background & Motivation
In this digitally-driven world, travel and tourism have undergone a significant transformation. People now rely on smartphones, search engines, and social media to discover activities and destinations. Smartphones have become essential tools for travel planning, offering quick access to vast amounts of data. Search engines enable consumers to easily find points of interest, while social media acts as a source of inspiration for travel destinations. Together, these digital platforms have revolutionized the way people explore and engage with travel experiences.
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Despite the many advantages of the internet, there are also negative factors that can impact travel planning, such as website quality and trustworthiness, questionable consumer-generated content, and the amount of time required for research.
The Problem
When planning a trip, individuals often need to invest a significant amount of time researching their destination. Those who struggle with travel planning may lack knowledge about the place they are visiting, be unfamiliar with the area, or simply be procrastinating. In addition, most travelers prefer to have all their travel information organized in one place, whether it's in a Google doc or on a piece of paper.
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By understanding these user behaviors, there is an opportunity to create a platform that can help users reduce the time it takes to find things to do and efficiently organize their travel information.
My Role
As the sole designer for this project, I was responsible for all aspects of the UX and UI design. This included conducting market research, performing user research, and evaluating the product at every stage of development. Additionally, I oversaw the entire product development process, from sketching initial concepts to creating high-fidelity mockups, prototyping, and implementing the app for user testing.
Solution
Travelo is a travel planning app that creates a space where users can look at anything travel related and conveniently generate a list of things to do wherever you are. This app's objective is to reduce the amount of time required planning so that users are able to enjoy their trip to the fullest.
Goals
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Instead of spending hours of research on where to go and what to do, users can quickly generate a list of activities with a click of a button
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What we aim for:
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Convenience
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Quality searches
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Informative descriptions of activities/destinations
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User Research and Interviews
I began my journey researching about the current ways people plan for travel, what tools they use, and their pain points. As the world is becoming digitally driven, people are turning to social media, search engines, and travel websites to plan for their next point of interest. With this in mind, I began designing a screening survey to identify my target audience to participate in user research, interview, and testing.
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Insights
After screening applications, I scheduled user interviews to dive deeper into the topic of travel planning and here's what I've learned:
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People enjoy traveling because they are able to surround themselves in a new environment and learn about the different cultures and lifestyles other communities do.
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Most individuals prefer to travel in a group because traveling with others is safe, enjoyable, and comfortable.
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When planning, individuals like to have all their information in one place in which they usually use google docs or a sheet of paper to write down places to go, things to see, and logistics.
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Individuals want to have a sense of excitement and spontaneity when traveling since there is a joy in discovering something you have never experienced before.
Personas and Empathy Maps
After conducting my user interviews, I created three personas and two empathy maps based on two distinct characteristics of the target users.
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People in their early 20s (mostly college students)
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People who have a job and a career (usually older in age)
My personas and empathy maps allowed me to understand my potential users' pain points, goals, feelings, and behaviors. Since my target audience will consist of a variety of people, multiple maps/personas allowed me to identify different user types. Understanding my user’s characteristics and behaviors allowed me to design an app that feels relatable and user friendly.
User Stories & Affinity Mapping
After synthesizing the information gathered from user research and user personas, I used affinity mapping to visually organize my thoughts and group information on how potential users would interact with the product. This process helped me to identify patterns and insights that informed the design of the product's features and user stories.
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Based on the insights gathered, I developed a set of user stories that focused on the needs of users who were interested in travel planning. These stories helped to define the minimum viable product (MVP), which included features such as the ability to find attractions, create itineraries, view trips, and manage user accounts.
Competitive Analysis
Based on the insights from user research, I compared 3 well-established competitors (Trip Advisor, Yelp, and Expedia) since they are the most widely used services to plan and to find things to do when individuals are traveling. Completing a heuristic analysis helped me evaluate the usability of a product or services based on a set of design principles. I wanted to understand how users interacted with these products as well as evaluate my competitors to identify the strengths and weaknesses of my own designs.
What I noticed
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Individuals usually use Yelp to find food and discover somewhere new to eat around the area.
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Expedia doesn’t allow you to search a specific activity to do
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People mostly use TripAdvisor to find activities to do and not places to eat
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Only TripAdvisor has a “Trips” section where you can view your overall trip in detail (attraction information, food information, date, and shared with who)
Information Architecture
Taking all the insights from my user research and competitive analysis, I started to map out my design ideas onto the blueprint of my app.
Sitemap
After gathering all the necessary information from user research and synthesizing, I began to create a sitemap to keep track of all of the different screen within my app and to help me guide how I design my user flows
User Flows
Flow 1: Sign in/ Sign up
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Scenario 1: First time a user wants to register
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Scenario 2: A user wants to sign in to access the app
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Scenario 3: An existing user accidentally deletes the app and wants to log in with the reset app
Flow 2: Find an attraction
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Scenario 1: User wants to find something to do
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Scenario 2: Existing user wants to search up a specific point of interest
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Scenario 3: Existing user wants to know any live events happening at their current location
Flow 3: Create an itinerary
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Scenario 1: User wants to discover new places to check out/things to do
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Scenario 2: Existing user doesn’t want to spend too much time planning
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Scenario 3: User are unfamiliar with their point of interest
Flow 4: Find somewhere to eat
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Scenario 1: Users are looking for somewhere to eat
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Scenario 2: Existing users want to find a specific location to eat at
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Scenario 3: Users want to look for someplace new that they haven’t tried
Flow 5: Write a review
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Scenario 1: Users want to leave comments about their experience
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Scenario 2: Share likes and dislikes about a place
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Scenario 3: Provide other users with personal information like tips and what to watch out for when traveling to a specific attraction
Sketches
Now on to the exciting part, after gathering all the necessary data from my sitemap and user flows, I began creating iterations and iterations of hand-drawn sketches before diving into wireframes and prototyping.
While sketching, I considered how to design my app to provide users with clear guidance on what they need to do and which interface elements would provide a seamless experience. My sketches allowed me to turn my ideas into something tangible, which could be tested and adjusted before moving on to higher fidelity versions.
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After completing my sketches, I conducted guerilla usability testing with users to quickly gather feedback on my designs. Most participants understood the primary purpose of my app, but I had to clarify some aspects of the interface. Users also questioned if they could edit their itinerary and add specific activities. The feedback highlighted the need to focus on providing personalized elements and clear indicators for users to easily navigate the app.
Wireframes
After receiving feedback on my sketches, I created wireframes in Figma using pre-built wireframe kits. This helped me efficiently build my screens while identifying critical design decisions and layout options to make my app presentable for user testing.
Style Guide
Next, I created a style guide to use as a visual foundation for my app. When designing the app, I wanted to go with a sleek, minimal, and clean design. I wanted my design to support an ease of use and good user experience by using clear colors to distinguish different elements such as title of a screen, iconography, and informative text about a location/attraction. In addition, I implemented recognizable icons and buttons that users can easily identify when interacting with the screen. My overall design provides a very straightforward interaction that is familiar to other products or apps
High-Fidelity
Prototype
I used Figma to create my prototype, as the app has a built-in prototyping feature which saved me time compared to using another software. During prototyping, I focused on envisioning how users would interact with the product and implemented necessary animations to create a seamless experience. After completing the prototypes, I sent links to users to test the app and gather feedback.
Sign-in interaction
Explore page interaction
Create an itinerary interaction
Check Trips interaction
Find somewhere to eat interaction
Write a review interaction
User Testing
For the Travelo Usability Test I interviewed five people that fit into the app’s target demographics based on my personas. Three interviews were conducted in person and two interviews were conducted through call.
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Feedback
Overall users found the app usable and smooth, but mentioned the dark background color(from my first prototype) and suggested a brighter option. They also noted minor issues with UI element spacing and placement. One user suggested adding features to improve the trip planning experience by considering the user perspective. In response, I added an "events happening right now" section for users to quickly find fun activities in their area at the current time.
Reflection
Although this was my first design project, I have identified several areas to improve the overall app and user experience. One issue was focusing too much on the app's look and feel instead of adding features that would improve usability. Additionally, I realized the importance of considering other users' perspectives, which helped me approach my redesign differently after user testing. By applying the user-centered design process, I discovered that travelers enjoy discovering new environments and cultures. Helping them efficiently find surprise and spontaneity during their trip is what keeps the fun in traveling.