Voyage : A Travel Planning App
Introduction
In the pre-digital age, before a trip, people would often print out all of their reservations, tickets, and itineraries and keep them all in a folder as they travel. The idea for this app started out as trying to create a digital version of that.
Through research, the idea progressed into combining many different aspects of the itinerary planning part of the trip, and trying to solve as many pain points of the travel-planning process as feasible. Research also guided me towards a user group of 18-35 year olds, because the younger generation is newer to the travel market, and have a unique way of planning travel - often turning to social media to find things to do.
Methods and Deliverables
Competitive Audit
Desk Research
Participatory Design
Figma Prototyping
Usability Testing
Style Guide
Annotated Wireframes
Generative Research
This process began with generative research. I conducted a Competitive Audit, did Desk and Secondary Research, and then performed three Participatory Design interviews.
These research methods allowed me to familiarize myself with the problem space, get a sense for the industry standards for comparable apps, and gave me insight into what features and functionality would entice users to download a new travel-planning app. I went into this process with some pre-conceived ideas about what I might end up prototyping, and left with an entirely new perspective, and a whole new list of feature ideas from my participants.
It also helped me develop my user goal statement:
My user group is young people (ages 18-35) traveling either solo or in a group, who want a straightforward and simple way to plan their trips so that they can feel prepared and excited for their travel, as well as more connected and familiar with the area and the locals.
Below is a comprehensive look at each step of the research performed and the results.
Low Fidelity Prototyping
The first iteration of prototyping was about getting feature ideas laid out on each screen, and getting basic prototyped connections in so they could be tested by users. As soon as prototyping began, it was clear the scope had grown beyond my original plan, and that there was a lot of room for going further. The process became about narrowing down what could be achieved in this prototype, and highlighting areas it could be developed further.
Ultimately, the goal was getting it to a testable point to work with users and get further feedback. Below is the first-draft prototype.
Through this prototyping process, I kept users in mind - both from the Participatory Design perspective, but also by utilizing some user stories. One story is a user planning a group trip, and the other a solo trip.
Angela’s friend Katie is having a Bachelorette weekend trip in Nashville, along with 4 other friends. The five of them live in different places, but they still want to coordinate arriving around the same time, staying together, and finding things they’ll all enjoy doing. They use this travel app to share all their travel logistics in one place so they can keep track of each other, and also to find and share ideas in their group, so they can suggest ideas and stay up to date on what has been booked for everyone.
John has been to NYC a few times before, but always loved visiting. He is planning a solo trip to spend a long weekend in New York over Labor Day, and wants to explore and find some new places. He’s got his flights and reserved a stay at hotel in a new borough, but his days are wide open, and he wants to see what’s popular in the new area. He uses this travel app to start seeing what’s in the area, browsing the itineraries of what other people have done, and even finding some itineraries made by locals.
User Feedback
The next step was usability testing on the prototype.
Because this project was condensed in time, and because the prototype was low-fidelity when these feedback test sessions occurred, only two interviews were performed, as each of them had a lot of feedback.
The presentation on the right is a rapid-fire rundown of everything that was changed between drafts of the prototype. All of the feedback and suggestions came from the users.
Both users were previously interviewed for the Participatory Design sessions at the beginning of this project, so they were able to speak to some of the features that they suggested and whether they were on track with what they envisioned.
High Fidelity Prototyping and Style Guide
This step in the process required taking user feedback into account, fixing key issues, and developing out the pages that were lower fidelity.
Taking that user feedback was important in getting the prototype to a higher fidelity. Some of the feedback was easily actionable and had clear fixes - missing back buttons or opportunities for other buttons.
Other pieces of feedback posed more complex challenges - ie, confusion over what the itinerary pages should look like and all of the information they should contain, and a lot of open-ended ideas over what users expected the Account page to contain.
This process was also an opportunity to reshape the app with a more cohesive look, following a style guide (left). It was also changed to a “dark mode” look in order to meet WCAG guidelines, but still retaining some color and not just black-and-white.
Annotated Wireframes
You can click through on the right for annotated explanations for each main feature of the app, or click below to see the full Figma file with annotations:
Going Forwards
It was exciting and rewarding to see this app come together and develop in such a short amount of time. However, as with most projects, there’s always room to do more.
My research participants generated several new feature ideas that can be prototyped and developed, and another round of testing on a higher fidelity prototype would allow for more narrow and specific feedback.
Going forwards, this will likely be a project I return to and continue developing and building out.