Trip&Treat
An app designed to help plan travel and consolidate all trip information in one place.
Project prompt – Build an end to end mobile app
Project type – UX/UI, independent
My role – UX, UI, research, branding
Timeline – 4 weeks
We travel to learn. We travel to unlearn.
Wanderlust, the love of a different culture, a desire to just leave it all behind. The reasons people love to travel are endless.
Although, fundamentally nothing about travel has changed, yet everything has. The way we review and make travel decisions has changed dramatically.
Trip&Treat seeks to provide a solution for travel organization and offer a platform that consolidates all your trip related information.
Research
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​ Explore how technological advancements have transformed the way people plan and experience travel.
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Gain insights into the attitudes and behaviors of frequent travelers when planning their trips.
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Understand user preferences—whether they enjoy trip planning or prefer a more automated approach.
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Identify common methods and tools travelers use to organize and manage trip-related information.
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Assess competitors by analyzing their focus, key features, similarities, and unique differentiators.
We travel to learn. We travel to unlearn.
Wanderlust, the love of a different culture, a desire to just leave it all behind. The reasons people love to travel are endless.
Although, fundamentally nothing about travel has changed, yet everything has. The way we review and make travel decisions has changed dramatically.
Trip&Treat seeks to provide a solution for travel organization and offer a platform that consolidates all your trip related information.
Methodologies
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Survey
I conducted an online survey using Google Forms and distributed this via email. This survey would help me gain a better understanding of people’s travel habits, understand frustration and pain points with regards to trip planning and how involved they were as trip planners.
I received 19 responses with the majority of participants being female between the ages of 40 to 45. The participants for my survey were specifically selected for their love of travel and displeasure at planning.
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I conducted a competitive analysis looking at four travel apps that provided 'experiences'. The goal was to better understand the ways each strategically positions itself in the market and use that information to identify how Trip&Treat may best differentiate itself from the competition. I compared more high-level aspects of each before looking more closely at how trip planning could be integrated into the app.
Competitive analysis
Survey Key Findings
Define
Project Goals
1. Create an intuitive system for searching, exploring, and consolidating travel information from various apps
2. Integrate a feature that addresses the current issue of scattered information
3. Incorporate features that make travel planning and editing easy for users
4. Develop a cohesive brand for Trip&Treat that is well represented throughout the user
Feature Roadmap
After doing a deep dive studying features offered in competitor apps and coming to some decisions around what Trip&Treat can offer, and equally important what it cannot, I created a feature roadmap to help prioritize features that could be developed first. I determined that Trip&Treat would focus on building an intuitive and robust importing system that would make searching, exploring, reviewing and reserving accommodations, activities and restaurants one click away.
Of utmost priority would be the 'Itinerary' or planning tool for users to add and edit trip details and experiences. Once the search, browse and product details features are in, the “nice to have” and “surprising and delightful” sections would be a simple integration.
Site Map
With a more refined understanding of what my users needed, next in order was the Sitemap for a visual representation of the information space to navigate the app more intuitively. Based on the project goals, I designed focussing on 2 main actions: Search and Browse. Users can explore location options, read reviews and make reservations for : accommodations, suggested activities in the chosen location and restaurants in the area.
User Flow
I created a user flow to study the traveler's journey (on the app) more closely. Once on the home page, I charted out the directions that the user would navigate to: Search for a destination in order to 'Start an Itinerary' or Browse destinations and 'Create an Itinerary'. Mapping out this journey helps bring clarity to the user experience and identify oversights, also serving as a reference for developing wireframes in the design process.
Persona
Through my survey, I learned that my participants were essentially planning vacations for their families or to travel with friends (multiple families), hence it made most sense to build a family persona keeping in mind the interests as a unit.
Design
Armored with a few conventional design features identified in our competitive & comparative analysis, I then worked on sketching design ideas that blended the conventional with the innovative.
With an advanced search feature that would enable the traveler to search by destination and dates, the app would need to be versatile with a consistent yet minimalistic approach.
To evoke feelings of happiness and joy associated with travel, I went with a bold color choice of a vivid red presenting a modern freshness that brings energy to the user experience and compliments travel well – Trip&Treat aims to create an experience that puts your mind at ease for that's what a vacation should do!
Sketching
Low Fidelity Wireframes
Design Decisions
Key Screens
Travel planning simplified
Search, plan, book and save travel information, all in one place.
Travel planning couldn’t get easier or more enjoyable.
Organizing and Accessibility
I originally intended for the search results to be an endless scroll with user able to move up or down and switch between hotels, activities and food but realized that it defeats the purpose of simplifying travel search
vs
Starting small
With influencers promoting exotic travel to distant locales, we often forget the carbon foot print of our travel. Promoting local trips within app users' areas would not only help local businesses but also reduce carbon emissions caused by air/ car travel.
Usability Test
Objectives
A usability test was conducted and completed by 5 people to determine the learnability of the app and performance of its most distinguishing feature : Itinerary.
Takeaways
All participants used the search functionality first.
Users appreciated the simplicity of the interface design and ability to source all information from one place.
Two users made positive observations of the branding and logo.
Design improvements
In response to both good and bad reactions to branding, I leaned in further to be more cohesive and consistent through the pages incorporating the brand color a bit more than I would have preferred.
Changed the display of 'Hotel', 'Activities' and 'Food' as buttons versus my original idea of showing in tabs.
Project Reflection
Trip&Treat benefitted tremendously from extensive research which provided an essential foundation for design strategy in creating an optimal app for the users. The competitive analysis and 1:1 interviews provided an understanding of what people are looking for and how my app could stand apart in the current market.
With further time and iteration I’d enjoy digging deeper into the interaction design– seeking out ways for the app to diverge in terms of design and what it offers and converge in terms of simplicity and app learnability.
With everyone cooped indoors for a while and itching to travel, the feedback in terms of additional features was overwhelming. It could turn into a life time project and maybe it will!