Recent Work
Recent Work
PairGap: Group Travel planning made Fun
This case study outlines my team’s design process, moving from an initial concept to research to app creation
Research / Product Design / Mobile App
Passion project turned mobile app, Glide explored how UX strategies could improve the experience of organizing, contributing & solidifying trip details
My Role
Workshop Facilitator | UX Researcher | UX Designer (Team of 3)
Challenge
Identify an opportunity area within a market and design a product to fill that void based on research and best design practices. The goal was to design an MVP that assisted group travelers with planning their next adventure with less stress.
Project Time
2 1/2 weeks
Tools
Figma | Miro | Zoom | Keynote | Google Forms
Methodologies
Screener Survey | User Interviews | Affinity Mapping | User Persona | Journey Mapping | Competitive Feature Analysis | Design Studio | Wireframes | Rapid Prototyping | Usability testing | Iterative design | Competitive Matrix
Key Takeaway
Nothing is made perfect on the first attempt & design thrives from iteration. When you constantly seek ways to improve, you grow as a designer, you mature in your understanding of your users, and you create better products.
Big Picture Problem
When you set out to organize group trips, the goal is to plan a vacation everyone will enjoy! FACT!!
BUT, it can be challenging and stressful to plan the perfect trip that accommodates all the needs of the varying personalities within a group. This challenge is made more difficult when groups struggle to agree on a plan where all voices are heard.
This sparked a need to further understand group travelers planning experiences in order to develop a platform that made collaborating and agreeing on trip details easier.
Dislikes when planning trip details are delayed by group indecision
Wants to ensure all trip mates can contribute when planning & have their voices heard
Utilizes tools that allow easy collaboration & organizing trip details clearly
Depends on the convenience of mobile devices for real-time communication to solidify plans
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Values flexible itineraries which are not so rigid that the group feels tied down
Research Insights
In a genuine effort to empathize with potential users, 9 Users interviews were held with frequent travelers who had experience organizing group trips and could provide different perspectives regarding potential frustrations during the process.
Our Primary Goals:​
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Discover how people were approaching group travel planning & reach a group consensus.
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Uncover any frustrations or tension points user experience during the planning process.
All data amassed from user interviews were sorted via affinity mapping & highlighted key insights that framed the team’s understanding of our user’s design needs.
Say Hey to Blake!!
Those five key insights brought us to Blake, a direct reflection of our target users who love to travel with friends but recognize how hectic the planning process can be.
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Blake's main goal is to ensure tripmates' voices are heard! The trip should encompass everyone’s personal wants and expectations while still being finalized in a timely manner. She needs a collaborative platform that easily organizes information, shares trip details, and ideas, and effectively communicates with her trip mates in real-time.
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Her Emotional Travel Journey
Using a visually detailed journey map, the team followed Blake through the traditional process of planning a group trip from start to finish.
We explored the range of steps Blake completes to accomplish her end goal, allowing the team to visualize additional frustrations, vital steps, and opportunities for improvement within the journey.
(Click to Enlarge)
Key Journey Points
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Idea Spark: Excited to set out on a new adventure with her friends.
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Consideration: Bummed that trip planning is delayed due to friends being noncommittal.
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Actual Planning: Stressed that some tripmates aren’t contributing ideas or voicing their true thoughts on already proposed trip details.
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Trip Taking: Frustrated a tripmate was disappointed in a planned activity since they failed to communicate their expectations ahead of time.
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Post Trip: Despite the bumps along the way, the journey ends satisfied as fun memories were still made.
Identifying the Root
How might we enhance the process of openly collaborating & solidifying trip details to ensure everyone is on the same page?
Having gathered all research & utilizing all key insights as the foundation for design planning, the primary issue & area of focus was identified.
Surveying the Market
To better understand the travel planning landscape, the team completed a competitive matrix to paint a vivid picture of our product’s potential foothold among competitors based on four key areas.
1​. Group: companies specializing in group travel planning
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2. Individual: companies specializing in solo travel planning
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3. Direct: platforms specifically designed to help facilitate trip planning
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4. Indirect: platforms used to plan group trips due to its collaborative feature but not specifically designed for trip planning
Defining Design Vision
Armored with a few conventional design features identified in our competitive & comparative analysis, the team hosted a workshop to develop a & sketch design ideas that blended the conventional with the innovative.
This workshop helped determine goals we wanted our product to accomplish, pinpointed the features that would reach those goals, and how it met user needs.
Product Goal
Product Feature
Need Met
HOW?
WHY?
Allows active information sharing & provides direct access to the source in which the trip idea was found!
Create a centralized platform to share trip ideas within a group
Trip board with an external link attachment function
HOW?
WHY?
Promotes the importance of reaching a consensus while empowering users to have a personal opinion
Help all tripmates have their voices heard
Voting system on all presented trip ideas
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HOW?
Option to create a flexible itinerary
WHY?
Gives tripmates the ability to choose how rigid a schedule they want to follow
Itinerary page & "Itinerary Add" button
HOW?
Allow users to communicate in real-time
WHY?
Tripmates can now have all the same trip conversations internally where details are finalized
Easy Access Message Chat
Design
Fortfied with an end to end flow implementing the features just highlighted, mid fidenlty wireframes were generated and tested to gauge how well the solution remedied user frustrations.
Testing Insights
5/5Users
successfully created a new trip, invited a trip mate, and logged their flight information
All users deemed the process easy & intuitive
struggled to notice the carousel indicator and realize the swipe function between the boards
5/5Users
Design
Recommendation
-----
move the carousel indicator to the top
of the design to increase
its visibility
were unable to locate the itinerary page after successfully adding an Airbnb to their itinerary
2/5Users
Design
Recommendation
-----
move itinerary button
to the main navigation
bar (a main
point of user contact)
Be Sure To Hover
Key Enhancements
Realizing design imperfections following the usability testing of mid-fidelity wireframes, important design upgrades were made to correct those usability issues.
Homescreen
Fused the 'Home' screen & 'My Trips' screen to create an updated home screen for Hi-fidelity mockups.
Wanted users to have easy access to their trips as soon as possible with fewer clicks.
Navigating Trip Boards
Testing uncovered that the swipe feature between boards was not intuitive to users.
As a result, a pop-up tutorial for first-time users was added & the carousel indicator was moved to the top of the design and made bigger.
Substituted the voting feature​ for a user icon to indicate who contributed which trip option/idea.
It's less likely that users will vote before viewing the pinned option expanded card. Additionally, wanted to reduce the possibility of mistakenly voting.
Voting Feature
Itinerary Button
The placement of the itinerary button was not where users expected it to be.
As a result, the button was moved to a centralized location within the main navigation to increase visibility.
Testing Insights
were unable to locate
the itinerary button
despite it being in the main navigation bar
1/5Users
Design
Recommendation
-----
maintain the itinerary button’s location,
but incorporate a more conventional icon
Come on...Hover Again
More Cases
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PairGap
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The Door
accessed the accommodations board without hesitating
to access the swipe
function between boards
5/5Users
“I remembered the pop up at the beginning telling me to swipe. So, when I got to the board, it was pretty simple”
Again
5/5Users
successfully started a new trip with a trip mate, & added their flight information
“Creating a new trip was really easy. Didn’t really have to think much, I just kind of knew what I had to do”
Glide was born out of inspiration drawn from a paper airplane & the feeling of travel, airiness, & imagination that came with it. Our product is designed to generate a smooth and effortless experience when planning trips.
The team wanted the visual aesthetic to complement that experience while communicating the current season through color tones.
Aesthetic Explained
What's Next
1. Integrate a ranking system, based on trip mates’ votes, for all pinned trip options on the board.
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2. Incorporate an animation for user tutorial, demonstrating the swipe function between travel boards.
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3. Build out Explore page to provide users, like Blake, valuable recommendations from locals and other travelers.
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4. Introduce a budget feature to allow users to input their maximum budget and keep track of their expenses as they confirm their trip plans.
Takeaways
Great products are born out of great design teams being able to communicate. Glide exists due to great ideas being molded into one and my team's ability to openly communicate & compromise with one another.
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Another big take away lies within the power of iteration. Many of the presented designs for Glide came from the team interacting and improving it based on user feedback. Nothing is made perfect on the first attempt. When you constantly seek ways to improve, you grow as a designer, you mature in your understanding of your users, and you create better products.
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