Wandr Travel App
Prototype
Role
User Researcher
UX Designer
UI Designer
Interaction Designer
Duration
4 Weeks
Teammates
Solo
Tools
Figma
Overview
The Problem
Planning a trip involves managing a complex set of tasks that can be time consuming, overwhelming, and often disorganized. Travelers face challenges such as:
Finding reliable information on destinations, transportation, accommodations and activities.
Comparing prices and availability across various platforms.
coordinating itineraries, reservations, and budgets.
Adjusting plans due to changing weather, delays, and availability.
Managing communication and preferences when traveling in groups
The Challenge
How might we develop a mobile application that helps travelers plan out their trips conveniently and efficiently?
Deliverables
Research: User Tests, Competitive Analysis, Initial Research
Define: Empathy Map, User Journey Map
Ideate: Information Architecture, User Flow Charts, Sketches, Site Map
Design: Wireframing, Prototyping, UI Style Guide
Research
Interviews
In order to empathize with how people go about planning trips and the things they take into consideration, I interviewed 4 participants ranging from ages 20 to 32 for no longer than 15 minutes. I asked questions focusing on these main topics:
Travel behavior
Frustrations
Communication
Deal breakers
Feature priorities
Post-trip reflection
Insights
Troubles surrounding making plans with others
Different methods of communication
Troubles finding all relevant information
Hidden information till after booking, things to do
Planners felt it was difficult to balancing planning
Having to use different platforms for scheduling and booking
Persona
KHALANI, 23
Motivations, Goals, & Needs
Full time college student who prefers not to spend too much time on things that can done faster. When on break from school, she likes to spend time with friends and family. She enjoys taking trips and creating lasting memories with the people in her life.
Pain Points
While she enjoys the idea of traveling, Khalani does not enjoy the stress that can go into planning it. Finding accommodations for everyone involved can be stressful, especially when the costs and fees are not plainly stated.
Design
Brainstorming
After reviewing and gaining insight from the user interviews, I moved onto iterating the features I wanted to include in the app. This ranged from creating the intended user-flow, addressing the pain points , and finally creating the information architecture.
Needs:
More streamlined way to include everyone planning to attend the trip
Easier way to find ideas for what to do or see what’s happening at that time of the year.
Accurate budget planning based of hidden fees and potential spending needs
Features to address these needs:
Planning
•Platform Synchronization
•Notifications
•Friend/Family invites
•Inspirations
Account
•Save accommodations
•Filter feed search options by interests
•sync account information across platfoms
Explore
•Find posted itineraries
•See what’s happening all over the world
•Plan trips based on weather conditions
Journey Map
Sketches
INFORMATION ARCHTECTURE
Wireframes
UI Style Guide & Design Systems
SPLASH SCREEN & ONBOARDING
Welcome to Wandr, where your travel planning needs are met with ease! If you have any questions at all during your journey, feel free to contact us as help@wandr.come
Seamless Signup Experience
After a completed onboarding, users can create an account, or log in, using email/username, Facebook, Google, or with Face ID.
Upon entering a new email, users will receive a “success” alert if the email is valid, but will receive an “error” if it isn’t.
To show that users have successfully created their account, users will see a loading interaction followed by a check animation and “success”. I chose this interaction to convey to users that their information set up properly.
Tell us all about your travel interests, and we can provide you with other wanderers to follow for inspiration.
Upon selecting an interests, users can assume that selected options will have a highlighted arrow based off the original state
Home Screen
Menu
See everything pertaining to your personal account (favorites, trending posts, notifications, messages, etc.).
Suggested
Find more wanderers with similar interests that have recently been posted.
Posts
Users can make blog posts and upload photos from the page in a quick view.
-the activated heart icon will let users know they’ve liked a post.
Stories
See what other travelers are doing in real time or post about your own travels.
Explore
For You
Wandr provides travel spot suggestion based off of the users current set interests.
Section includes shows & attractions, activities, and hotel/resort suggestions
Itineraries
The top liked itineraries are shown for inspiration. Provides the details of the trip including the amount of people, costs, length of the trip, activities, reviews, and photos.
Create Your Trip
Users can create trips as well as view previously planned trips.
Screen when using for the first time
Top Arrow: The arrow navigates to the previous page. If users tap it before selecting the active “create trip” button, it will generate a modal window that says “would you like to save your progress first”, with a “yes” or “no” button towards the bottom
this will be interpreted by users as a way to come back and complete their trip planning later.
Date entry: The calendar form will generate an interactive calendar for users to select certain dates. A highlighted date indicates a selected date
the “done” button towards the bottom can be interpreted as an indication that the selected dates will be entered into the form by users.
Conclusion
Final Thoughts
As someone with no prior experience with UX/UI, the project was extremely fun and a great learning experience for me. I learned to be more open to communication with projects. I also had to remind myself often that making the app “pretty” isn’t the most important thing. I have an illustration background so getting into the habit of “research first, design later” was a huge adjustment.
My idea for an app started off as too weak. It was originally an app based off of travel preferences, but I soon learned that that form of app would not go far in terms of research. I also didn’t expect the data gathering process to be as long as it was. I thought at the beginning to just ask a few questions and move on, but that isn’t the case at all.
I now have a better understanding of the testing process and why it is important, as well as comprehending the data in order to apply what’s been learned to the prototyping process.
Going Forward
These are the additional things that I would’ve done with the project if I had more time:
Built out the chat feature within travel groups.
A frame with a detailed look on how users can add posts to the “Home” screen.
A desktop or tablet layout.
A “select language” option at signup.
