Explore, connect, and make every journey extraordinary with uTravel
UI/UX design, 2 week sprint
Friendly reminder, main points are highlighted for your convenience and user experience.
QUICK SUMMARY
UTRAVEL is your ultimate travel companion, seamlessly blending adventure and convenience. intuitive app offers efficient itinerary planning, personalized recommendations, for your travel experiences. With uTravel, you can effortlessly balance exploration and relax, all while visualizing your travel adventures.
CHALLANGES
My challenge was to interview a user, identify a problem in their travel journey and create a solution for it., And from the interview I found that they have trouble managing time during travel, trying to balance exploring and relaxing. They want to prioritize well-being while planning their itinerary efficiently. Since they're visual, they like to track travel experiences visually and would find reminders and feedback helpful for staying motivated.
To meet these needs, we suggest a travel app that helps plan itineraries and includes visuals, reminders, and performance feedback to make the travel experience better.
ROLE
I took charge of the entire design process for this individual concept project, managing it from start to finish.
METHODS
Business analysis, competitive analysis, comparative analysis, storyboarding, systems mapping, wireframing, prototyping, usability testing
APPROACH
initial interview to pinpoint the user's needs, followed by in-depth comparative analysis research and ideation. moved on to creating prototypes, which were then tested with the user to gather valuable feedback.
Understanding...
USER RESEARCH
- located in Sydney, Australia
- Works at a hospital (super busy).
- Loves traveling and cooking momo (Nepali dish) .
- is outgoing and social.
- Headstrong and Perfectionist.
This is Kiran. 👋
USER INTERVIEW
(conducted through zoom call)
Interview Highlights
- loves solo traveling.
- poor decision making skill.
- Forgets stuff most of the time
- can't Balance Exploration and Relaxation
- Doesn't have efficient Planning Tools
- Loves vlogging (mobile)
STORYBOARD
**Kiran's Adventure with uTravel:**
- Kiran, the Momo Maestro, dreams of a solo trip!
- Bags packed, excitement bubbling for a cultural escapade.
- but, uh-oh, her itinerary is a crazy maze!
- Balancing sightseeing and chill time? Not Kiran's strong suit.
- Stress levels rise as time slips away faster than momo dumplings disappear.
- Enter uTravel, a fellow traveler's secret weapon!
- Kiran downloads the app, hoping for a travel miracle.
- Kiran time-saving superhero.
immediatelly schedules her plannings and Efficient itinerary planning
- all done kiran happy on her trip vlogging
**End of Kiran's uTravel Adventure!**
So, what's the solution?
Kiran needs...
a "TRAVEL COMPANION" app that can act as her GUIDE and FRIEND.
I identified that Kiran needs a reliable companion app to help her with personalized destination recommendation, intuitive planning features, making it easy to organize and customize solo trips. and to-do list for the day to keep balance exploration and downtime, ensuring a well-rounded travel experience. and a Tools to prioritize well-being during solo travels.
to achieve "Kiran happy on her trip vlogging".
Also we decided for the app to be in mobile for easy and quick user accessibility and uses during travels.
COMPETITIVE/ COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
Tripit
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- Organizes your travel plans.
- Creates a comprehensive itinerary
- Shows neighborhood safety scores
Packr
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Tailor-made packing list for each trip.
- 8-day weather forecast. The packing list automatically updates depending on weather and temperature.
- Pack for several travelers, making parents' life so much easier.
Getyourguide
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aggregates fun tours, activities and attraction
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with In-app payment feature
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best price
Microsoft to-do
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Manage multiple lists
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Set reminders
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Keep track of important note
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Organize personal and business
There are already a lot of travel app out there which are pretty good at what they do, so instead of a travelling app I identified that kiran needs a travelling companion app to guide her on her trip. She should be able to get reccomendaions and reminders, plan efficient, pack and be safe and well on her trip/travel.
Starting the design...
SYSTEM MAP
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I did another video session with her explaining the system designs and after receiving user feedback, it became evident that she isn't keen on travel buddies as she loves solo travelling. Also we removed bucket lists. Additionally, she prefers not to engage in extensive future planning but we settled in max 1 week advance planning feature. Also she loves ticking off her to-do list, so we decided to remove activity tracker.
SKETCHES AND PAPER PROTOTYPE TESTING
With all the suggestions and ideas, i combined and sketched them into a paper prototype and after showing them to Kiran as she is our main user i received valuable user feedbacks such as;​
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Users wanted to view hot places on the homepage with ratings.
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Users wanted uncluttered UI.
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User want app to have pink color pallet.
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User doesn't want a whole review page
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User want app to be have a cute welcoming vibe.
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then went back to my partner for further discussions, as she is the main user.
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want pink colour pellet
want recommendation in explore page
Don't need a whole new page for reviews.
want the map to be uncluttered.
Want to see more icons
TAKING IN USER FEEDBACK
From the user feedback, I realised the importance of the homepage and combined the explore, trending places and their ratings all onto one page. Users would open the app, see their the trending areas near the location they added which would significantly help while making plans. User now will be able to open their to-do list within a single tab away. She also asked for check boxes in to-do lists as she loves ticking them.
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Single tap access to different sections
Fill location to see recommended places near them
Recommending trending areas for easier plans
Checkboxes for to-do lists
After i decided to move on with digital wireframing as it would provide a clear, visual representation of the layout and structure of a user interface. Since it also act as a communication tool between designers, developers, and stakeholders and it is also easier to make changes and iterate on design concepts before moving to high-fidelity prototypes
DIGITAL WIREFRAMING
Refining the design...
I decided to continue developing this project after the 2-week design sprint as a personal project with a few more iterations and develop my skills in visual design.
"a TRAVEL COMPANION app that can act as her GUIDE and FRIEND."
Main Features
Homepage
Displays the hot spots around your areas as well as their ratings and details about them. All the tabs are placed at top for easy access to every important section in a tap!
Map and navigation page
Displays the neighborhood score taken from municipality safety department also a quick search section with mostly used searches for faster navigation.
Alert page
The 5 day weather forecast with any alert messages will allows you to always be ready for every situation.
PROTOTYPE
How did your users respond?
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By day's end, the task was to develop an app addressing the primary concerns of my main user. I conducted a follow-up interview with Kiran, presenting the final prototype, and her feedback was affirmative: "This is exactly what I was looking for." The positive response from Kiran, coupled with feedback from other users expressing their intent to use the app, left me highly satisfied with the outcome.
What's next?
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This was my first ever UX project so there's a lot of areas that could be further refined. I'm eager to conduct additional rounds of usability testing to pinpoint potential pain points in the prototype, gauging whether this app genuinely enhances the travel experience for users.
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What did you learn?
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While I conducted interviews and gathered feedback from numerous users for my prototype, I recognized the significance of prioritizing the needs of my primary user, Kiran, and consequently centered my design around their specific requirements.​
What would you have done differently
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I am generally satisfied with how I transformed the idea of a to-do list into a travel app. Nevertheless, as the interviews were conducted remotely via Zoom, I am curious about the potential differences in insights and feedback that could have arisen if the interviews and user testing had taken place in-person. Conducting in-person sessions might have sparked additional ideas and garnered a more dynamic exchange of feedback.