Timeline
12 weeks
2023
Special thanks to:
Anna Stapor
Stephanie Pekala
Brook Kennedy
Dr. Yoon Choi
VT Industrial Design Advisory Board
How might design promote collaboration & engagement among people traveling together?
Traveling in a group can be extremely stressful since often times one person is held responsible to coordinate and plan everything while making sure everyone agrees with the given options.
Being the only planner puts immense stress & pressure on the individual and is unfair to those who did not take part.
Pain points
lack of collaboration among group members
use of multiple platforms to plan travel details
accommodate everyone’s preferences & interests
Goals
create a system that promotes group engagement
allow users to plan & store everything on one platform
help the user create an efficient & inclusive schedule
Design process
Research
user interviews & surveys
affinity map
competition analysis
Analysis
empathy map
user personas
information architecture
Ideation
user flow
lo-fi sketches
wireframes
UI Design
color palette
typography
iconography
User research
Interviews and surveys were sent to participants to collect qualitative and quantitative data. These are some of the key questions that were included. Participants varied in backgrounds such as:
age: 18 - 55
gender: all
occupation: student - full-time job
Competition analysis
Research was conducted to find what was missing in the current market for travel planning apps. According to the users’ needs, a list of essential features was made and compared to today’s popular apps.
Affinity map
After receiving the participants’ responses, their answers were grouped together based on similarity. These groups led to the creation of the different categories shown below, thus building the list of essential features and functions.
User personas
Based on the research and data, two personas were created in order to represent the main types of users that can use the app.
Lauren Hamilton
The planner
Lauren loves to travel and finds herself traveling at least three times per year. She likes seeing the world and discovering the fashion and lifestyles of different countries. Typically, she organizes trips herself so she doesn’t miss any important details and assures that she has a good time.
Lauren and her friends want to go on a two-week trip together to Singapore in a few months. While Lauren loves planning, her friends don’t know what they want to do and don’t make the effort to help her which stresses her out.
About
25 years old
fashion & lifestyle influencer
lives in New York City, NY
Goals
discover new experiences
ensure everyone enjoys everything planned
take beautiful photos for social media
Frustrations
planning takes time
having to figure out what everyone would be interested in
creating an efficient itinerary
Cameron Garcia
The Lenient
Cameron enjoys traveling but only travels once or twice per year. He likes going on trips with his friends and exploring the rich cultures and foods all over the world. Typically, he just goes along with what everyone else wants to do on trips.
Cameron and his friends want to go on another trip together soon but don’t have a preference for where. While Cameron is more laid back, his friends usually have different opinions and preferences which makes planning difficult. Often he is the one who comes up with a solution.
About
41 years old
chef & restaurant owner
lives in Pittsburgh, PA
Goals
find the right destination to relax & have fun
explore and try new cuisine
organize all expenses to revisit later
Frustrations
accommodating everyone’s preferences & interests
having to use multiple platforms
expectations vs. reality
“I find it annoying when I’m doing most of the planning, but nobody has a preference for what they want to do except for me.”
“It would be nice to have all the information that I need in one space instead of having to use multiple apps.”
User flow
A user flow map was created to figure out the app layout and what the overall user experience would look like step-by-step.
Lo - fi sketches
WeGo is designed for group trips with friends or family. It contains new interactive and collaborative features to promote group engagement so that everyone has the opportunity to voice their thoughts and opinions. By providing users an all-inclusive platform to explore, save, and share, this guarantees that travelers will be less stressed out and be able to enjoy their trips even more.
Explore
users can explore different options for stays, destinations, things to do, and restaurants based on location or by popularity.
Favorites
users can save their favorite finds and then also move their desired choices to a specific trip to share with the rest of the group.
Create a trip
users can create a trip “folder” based on the information that is already known.
the trips feature acts as a folder where travelers can store all their information such as places-of-interest and transportation details, expenses, and even vote on where to stay & trip dates.
Invitation
once someone creates a trip and invites other people, invitations appear on their trip page waiting to be accepted or declined.
To-do tasks
once travelers join the trip folder, WeGo automatically detects what actions need to be performed and notifies each individual
Suggest dates
travelers and planners can suggest dates for a trip if it was not entered in the initial trip creation process.
Vote on dates
travelers and planners vote on which dates they prefer and can see who voted for what and any comments that people made.
Finalize dates
once people have voted, only the planner can finalize the trip dates so that it makes it official for the whole group.
Itinerary
users can create an itinerary based on common places of interest by specific days and times.
auto-suggest: if having difficulty creating itinerary, WeGo can automatically create an efficient itinerary based on location of places of interest.
Things to do
all travelers can add their personal places of interest and share it with the rest of the group to see and gauge their opinions. others can “heart” what they like and see how many likes each place received.
google maps: travelers can also see on google maps where their favorites are located
Suggest stays
travelers and planners can suggest stays for a trip if it was not entered in the initial trip creation process.
Vote on stays
travelers and planners vote on which stays they prefer and can see who voted for what and any comments that people made.
Finalize stays
once people have voted, only the planner can finalize the trip stay so that it makes it official for the whole group.
Transportation
travelers can add and share their transportation details such as flights with the rest of the group.
