TripMate
Travel Itinerary Website
Background
When it comes to planning a group trip, it’s extremely important to have all of your travel details in place. From transportation to the emails telling you the accommodations you booked, this information is vital to your trip!
According to a survey of 19k people by YouGov in late 2022, 67% of consumers were planning a leisure trip in the next 12 months. With travel on the rise, I wanted to look into that trip planning process that involves more than one person.
Goal
The goal of the Tripmate project was to better understand the emotional and logistical challenges of planning group travel. This included identifying the pain points that most negatively affect users’ moods, recognizing existing planning behaviors that work well, and evaluating the tools users currently rely on to coordinate trips. These insights informed design decisions aimed at creating a more enjoyable and efficient group travel planning experience.
Research
Determine the different organization tools used by people to plan a trip.
Learn the timeline users follow when planning a trip.
Understand the point at which stressors start to arise and if it affects their decisions. coordinate trips. These insights informed design decisions aimed at creating a more enjoyable and efficient group travel planning experience.
Objectives
Methodologies
Competitor Analysis
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Strengths
Connected to google maps
Preplanned trip options for various locations that can be edited to fit your trip.
Subscription based model
Weaknesses
Limited to the amount of items you can add to your itinerary
Cannot store travel documents
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Strengths
Able to use offline in their app
Budgeting feature allows you to automatically split expenses
Live updates
Weaknesses
Pay to export itinerary
Rely on user generated content only
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Strengths
Notoriety - extremely well known website that doesn’t need much advertising
Offers end-to-end advice and trip suggestions
WeaknessesDoes not offer booking services beyond hotels and activities
Risk of unreliable content from users; does not allow businesses to post
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Travaa has the potential to take on a more niche market but doesn’t have the same level of user-friendly features that the other two have as well as a lack of user generated content.
Wanderlog is taking on the post-COVID uptick in travel and is catering to the personalization of a traveler’s itinerary as well the collaboration between trip mates.
TripAdvisor is the more well-known platform that has extensive user generated content as well as offerings of travel services.
Interviews
1:1
Video Call/In-Person
15-20
Minutes
26-30
Age Range
Users preferred details being kept in one area but were open to other methods. Mainly using group chats.
Most users lean towards wanting an equal level of participation instead of it all gravitating to one person.
Location usually came first but the reason for choosing specific locations would vary.
Social Media was a common tool used to find travel inspiration.
Key Findings
Define
POV Statements
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I’d like to explore ways to help group travelers to effectively organize their travel itinerary because of the need for all travelers to be aware of what's been planned regarding travel arrangements as well as activity details that have been confirmed/scheduled. This will improve the organization of the schedule as well as effectively communicating the timing of items before and during the trip.
How might we make the process of updating and organizing itinerary information easier?
How might we improve the communication of changes/updates to all travelers regarding activities and travel arrangements?
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I’d like to explore ways to help a group of travelers sharing expenses to collect receipts, split expenses, and manage/settle collective expenses because of confusion or lack of documentation of money being fronted that causes stress for the handler of funds as well as travelers looking to pay their share. This will simplify cost-splitting as well providing a less stressful way of documenting transactions and settling of accounts.
How might we create a process for travelers to collect, document, and share expenses with the group?
How might we help travelers split and manage expenses throughout the trip in order to collect payment?
How might we help the individual handling expenses keep track of who has settled their balance owed to them?
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I’d like to explore ways to help group travel members that are more hands-on planners to facilitate active participation among their fellow travelers when deciding on activities or travel itinerary items because of the want for assistance in the development of a trip as well as the increased satisfaction in activities chosen. This will ensure that everyone’s interests are being taken into account and all members collaborate in the planning of the trip to reduce the mental load that’s placed on one or more people.How might we communicate and facilitate participation among members of a group trip when a decision regarding activities or itinerary items needs to be made?
How might we make tripmates feel that their interests have been taken into account when planning activities?
How might we reduce the mental load of a hands on planner when it comes to choosing activities for a group trip?
Personas
The Hands Off Planner
Jessica | 24 years old | Social Media Manager
Jessica is a “go with the flow” kind of girl that can always be counted on to join in on a fun trip! She’ll always share the latest Instagram spot to find good restaurants but doesn’t want to be responsible for a majority of the decisions. She will jump in to assist if asked but prefers to take a laid back approach to planning. If you give her a task, she always does it to the highest standard but needs to be directed. You can always count on her to be the trip photographer!
Way of staying “in the know” when it comes to group decisions
Inspiration that will help her think of activities/locations for the trip
Easy way to split expenses so they know how much they owe
Needs & Goals
Doesn’t feel comfortable taking the lead when it comes to planning but will always weigh in during the conversation
Stress from having to coordinate logistical aspects and would like to be given parameters
Pain Points
The Hands On Planner
Allie loves exploring new cultures and seeing what the world has to offer. Is always seeking unique experiences that make any trip worthwhile. Allie doesn’t mind putting in the time and research required to be fully prepared for any trip but can feel like the outcome of the trip for everyone in the group weighs on her ability to deliver. She wants to maximize her time on vacation as well making it a memorable experience.
Allie | 22 years old | Data Analyst
Ability to keep all of her links that assisted with her extensive research in one place to reference.
Customizable calendar so she can plan out her itinerary.
Keep track of expenses so that it’s easily split out costs and stay on budget.
Needs & Goals
Overwhelmed with decision fatigue as the more Hands-On planner of the group and having to coordinate/communicate every detail
Finds it difficult to keep track of everything that people have suggested
Pain Points
Bit of Both Planner
Austin prefers his vacation to have a balance of structure with some room to be spontaneous! He wants to uncover hidden gems but doesn’t want to be overwhelmed with intensive planning. This results in Austin taking a “passenger seat” to the planning where he gives input but isn’t the drive. Austin values comfort, adventure, and food that is worthy of a photo. He loves to explore cities in a variety of ways whether it includes a guided tour or wandering the streets and chatting it up with the locals.
Austin | 31 years old | Marketing
Needs & Goals
Likes booking travel, accomm., and activities in advance but would like to have room for spontaneous decisions or relaxation.
Tool to lock in the details to refer back to later.
Prefers other people to take the lead but volunteers to help with certain items
Loves traveling but gets information overload that causes too much stress in planning
Dislikes searching through email for confirmations or details that were planned ahead of time
Doesn’t want to miss out on the latest adventure they saw on Instagram.
Pain Points
Ideate
Using HMW questions, I worked through brainstorming sessions using a timer and writing down as many solutions as possible.
Then, I worked to narrow down the list with my mentor through a feature roadmap. When prioritizing feature ideas, I considered project time constraints and focused on solutions that would be most important to the user.
Logo Process
Sketches
Digital Draft
Final Logo
I went with the paper airplane theme in the end to keep within the spirit of exploring but also to add a bit of fun to the design. I spoke to several people about what they think of when given the summary of the website and the value words and several obvious items came to mind for them. Luggage, tickets, planes, cars, etc. I ended up going with a plane theme as it was the first thing that everyone mentioned when asked.
I believe that exploring should be fun and I hope to keep an element of fun by turning the plane into a paper airplane.
Disclaimer: I am not an artist so I tried my best with the sketches. Please don’t judge me.
Design
I have two shades of blues as my primary and secondary colors to foster a sense of reliability in the product they are using. Planning trips with multiple people or alone can be stressful so I chose these colors to visually calm while also encouraging the journey.
Color Palette
I chose the Poppins font for it's clean and modern design. It's readable for desktop and mobile formats and displays well on the color swatches below.
Type
I went with rounded icons that had no fill as it aesthetically fit with the design best and matched the logo design.
Icon Set
Mid Fidelity Wireframes
High Fidelity Wireframes
Incorporating group critique and user feedback, I iterated on the designs to elevate them to a higher fidelity prototype suitable for testing purposes.
Usability Testing
The objective of this usability test is to evaluate the user experience within Tripmates interface in relation to several key tasks that include adding activities and the sending/creations of polls to other users. My goal is to gather feedback and assess any possible usability issues that could inhibit the completion of tasks.
80% of users are able to complete the task with minimal to no obstacles.
Error rate is 2 or less per task for each user.
Time to complete tasks is <5 minutes
Success Metric
Add an activity to user itinerary
Create and send a poll to fellow trip mates
User Tasks
“I feel like this would be really useful and it seems really straightforward. I think it should have an area where you can record your hotel/flight information but that’s about it.”
“It looks great the colors are easy to distinguish.”
“I couldn’t tell if I had to delete all the subsequent options if I wanted to remove a previously stated option.”
Final Prototypes
My Conclusion
As my first major design project, this experience taught me more than I anticipated! This project was a large undertaking as it was to design for desktop and mobile devices.
My biggest challenge was finding solutions that would translate from mobile to desktop seamlessly. I primarily focused on the iterations for mobile since most of the users communicated that they were heavy phone users when planning travel. Having an accessible desktop version is important but the focus was to optimize the mobile version.
From the user feedback at the end, I know this design could be taken further into the real world and would look forward to future designs.