I designed the Travellist app in 30 days.
During a 30 day @planaway challenge I took myself through the entire design process from finding a problem to research design and testing. I chose to create a travel planner app.
What it taught me:
Perseverance
The power of user testing
Applying design process to a real problem
How to design an app
CREATIVE DIRECTION
BRAND IDENTITY
UX/UI APP DESIGN
As per my research when it comes to planning trips people tend to use up to 5-10 different apps.
This means the plans are scattered around, and saved in emails, apple wallet, and under the profile in the different apps.
People either rely on the stored information and their ability to search for things quickly, or use Notes/spreadsheets to be on top of all their plans. These manual solutions work, but require more time.
This is when a trip planner app comes in handy. Existing apps are trying to do too much at the same time, and might seem busy and complicated, or they look pretty, but don’t do enough for their target audience.
These days a very important factor is the budget, so this is something I wanted to pay attention to.
In terms of who might experience this problem, we are looking at the following demographics:
people who like to travel and interested in many things
people with busy lifestyle
people who want to save money but want to enjoy life at the same time
I used the Lean UX Canvas to help with the discovery process at the start.
To really understand our user, I took one persona type and stepped through what a day in their life might look like from morning to bedtime. I mapped their feelings, tasks, thoughts, pain-points and opportunities to help with identifying what the deeper problems might be.
My hypothesis was that this persona might benefit from being able to organise their travel plans without having to think about it too much as they are busy, an easily tailor their plans according to their budget.
HYPOTHESIS
To organise and budget trips more effectively as an avid, conscious traveller, I need to summarise things I booked on different apps, while keeping track of my budget.
Key User Journeys
I then mapped out key user journeys that our persona would experience on our product. It answers why and how users will use the experience and most important enabled me to stay focused on the user throughout our design process
Looking at competitors
I did an online research to determine what the most popular travel organiser apps are.
After establishing that, I looked into the different features each of these app offer. What I recognised that the user journeys we are looking at only could be completed if we use several apps at the same. In some cases, it is also too complicated to add plans, so the user journey is not smooth enough. Most of the apps I looked at are very text heavy, corporate style apps. By looking at them I wouldn’t be motivated to add my plans or track my expenses.
Planning is not about perfectionism, it is about efficiency. If something looks too complicated then it is not feasible to be used on an every day basis.
Ideation
I used a number of different techniques to come up with solutions for the persona, from How Might We’s to Crazy 8s.
Narrowing down
I narrowed it down to the 3 top ideas. These ideas would appeal to the target audience the most, and would serve them the best at the same time.
Easily add items to categories and via this to daily itineraries
Daily itinerary created based on things added, checklist for trip planning
Budget control: set budget for each trips and add expenses or debts
Making user flows
I then created user flows for each of the key user journeys, stress testing that our ideas worked with the users core goals and individual tasks
Testing and iteration
I tested the wireframe prototype on 2 possible users.
Developing Brand
Brand mission: To help people get more organised and budget conscious when travelling, so they can have a peace of mind and enjoy their travels.
Strategy: By adding different bookings to categories, easy itineraries can be created while taking control of expenses and setting travel budgets.
Brand concept: “Are you on the llist?”
Possible other tagline: “Travel planning never looked so easy.”
Design Kit
The product
