Tripday

Role 

end -to-end UX/UI Designer

Timeline/Deliverable

16 weeks/Web based prototype

Project Type

Student Project

What we found

Pain points:

• Sites are untrustworthy: 

• Pricing isn’t always transparent

• Reviews often appear overly enthusiastic

• People feel marketed to

• Scattered information:

  • Tickets and reservations saved in a variety of ways (i.e. Wallet, email, within the hosted site app)

  • When coordinating with people (i.e. texts, emails, Google Docs/Sheets, photos of emails)

  Activities selected:

• Is this activity too touristy/too expensive/too crowded/too far?

• Am I missing out on something else?

• Is everyone enjoying themselves?

Opportunities

• Having a single location for all confirmations, tickets, and reservations that is shareable.

• Audio tours for a variety of travels that enrich people’s experience.

• Virtual travel agent that is trustworthy and can suggest an itinerary that is customizable.

Defining the User and the Problem

Knowing there are many problems in the traveling digital space, I needed to assess what the priorities were. Based on users’ desire for a simplified way to plan their trips, I created this POV statement: 

“I’d like to explore ways to help people build a customizable travel itinerary because a well organized trip can help minimize decision making and frustrations during a trip.”

The Users

Personas are created to empathize with users and avoid designing for ourselves.

Storyboards

Storyboards were created to help visualize the problem and how it might be solved.

Creative Exercises

I also worked through a series of exercises to generate a wide variety of ideas just to see what would happen. To see those ideas, click here.

Information Architecture

To get my mind wrapped around some of the features that might be in the new travel product, I created a sitemap for the product to define the scope and prioritize the necessary features. Seeing the full layout of the site helped to determine user and task flows as a basis for the site development and usability testing.

Design

After looking at several other travel sites, I created a mood board to help define the look and feel of the site. I wanted the palette to be bright and cheerful, and the general aesthetic to be clean and be approachable. I developed two color options along with two typeface options to review with other colleagues. The color palette selected included a blue color that helped strengthen the product’s core values. 

UI kit and branding

This helped to create the UI Kit for the product, although it continued to get tweaked as the pages developed.

Several iterations of the name, the branding, logos were created for review with colleague’s input. The final logo allowed for clarity at a variety of screen sizes. The name Tripday evokes a sense of adventure and a carefree spirit.

Wireframes

Mid-fidelity wireframes helped to visualize the final layout and establish the language for each portion of the site. 

The product was not developed on mobile in order to optimize the search experience along with the user testing experience later on.

Usability Testing

High fidelity wireframes helped the design move into usability testing.

Google Meet with participants at 60 minute durations. 

How success was measured: 

• Participants can move through the tasks without frustration. 

• Expectations for how a tool responds is in line with their user experience with other products in the past.

Results:

• 100% of people were able to complete the tasks with minimal frustrations

• 80% of people appreciated the minimal and clean aesthetics

• 100% of people said they would be interested in using a product like this for their planning

Analyzing and Prioritizing

Next, an “at-a-glance” chart was created to summarize the comments from the usability testing. Although many feature could be improved on, below are a some iterations determined to improve the experience of these two flows.

In addition to these changes, one of the repeat confusions in the testing was in regards to the filters page. It was not clear to some testers that whether every parameter had to have input or if some could be skipped. I looked at two versions for the filter page for the next usability test if occurs.

If there was to be another usability test with live users, I predict the overlays will test well due to several users saying that they like when the site walks them through the process and there is a sense of being heard when each process has been checked off.

Reflection

I generally kept the design for this project to be simple so I could focus on other areas of the UXUI. If I were to do another prototype for testing, I would include the mobile version.

My assumption is that when beginning to set up filtering for a new trip, most people would be in front of a laptop or a PC. But when a user is out of the house, maybe at brunch with friends or chatting with co-workers at the pantry, they would want to access an app to make a quick search or add. Users also noted that they would like an app to send them notifications during their trips that would alert them of an upcoming event, maybe bring up their reservations, etc.

I began questioning whether travelers need a tool like this because I personally find travel planning to be frustrating. After speaking to others, I know there is much improvement to be made in everyone’s experiences.