A native iOS app designed to facilitate collaboration between group travelers when planning new experiences together.
Glide
The Opportunity
Overview
Timeframe:
2 weeks
Team Size:
3
My Role:
UX Researcher
UX Designer
UI Designer
Challenge: Identify an opportunity space in the current market and design a product that improved the collaborative process of planning trips & itineraries for group travelers. The user struggles today because their time is valuable and it is difficult for groups to agree on a plan while feeling all voices are heard.
For the creation of our MVP product, my team & I built out screens to address
the following functions:
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Sign-up & Onboarding
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My Trips Dashboard
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Create New Trip
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Categorized Trip Boards
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Voting System Feature
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Internal Chat Feature
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Itinerary Page
Tools:
Figma
Miro
Keynote
Google Suite
Methodologies:
Agile | Screener Survey | User Interviews | Affinity Mapping | Research Synthesis | Persona Development | Journey Map | Competitive Landscape Analysis | Design Studio | Wireframe & Mockup Creation | Specification Documentation | Rapid Prototyping
The Opportunity
Traveling with a group of friends can be an incredible experience that creates unforgettable memories and strengthens relationships.
But what does it take to get to that point? What kind of effort has to be made in order to create these amazing memories?
Understanding the User
To uncover how we could help improve the trip planning experience, our team reached out to 9 candidates from an initial screener survey who qualified as experienced group travelers that play an active role in the trip planning process for our user interviews.
Four key insights we gathered were that our users:
Prefer travel itineraries that offer a loose structure
Want to ensure that all voices are heard during the planning process
Use tools that allow them to easily share and collaborate with trip mates
Value trip logistics being solidified in advance and dislike encountering unnecessary setbacks
Armed with a deeper grasp of our users’ needs and behaviors, we transformed these insights into our primary persona.
Say Hello To Blake!
Blake is a Client Success Manager from New York City.
Come Memorial Day weekend, she’ll be traveling to Tulum, Mexico with a group of her friends. Blake wants to ensure everyone has a memorable experience, but there are a range of personalities going on the trip. She feels a sense of responsibility for the trip to be successful so everyone has a wonderful time.
Let’s go on a journey and see what the planning process currently looks like for Blake!
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( Click Images to Enlarge )
Consideration:
1. Blake hits a roadblock when her friends are not committing to the trip. This delays the planning process.
Actual Planning:
2. She asks her friends for their input but they aren’t contributing ideas, which makes solidifying and booking plans even harder!
3. She hits a low point in her emotional journey when having to reach out once more to her trip mates to sort out travel finances and logistics.
Trip Taking:
4. Blake encounters a disagreement between her friends when new expectations are revealed. She's trying so hard to balance everyone’s wants on this trip and can’t when things aren’t communicated ahead of time.
Blake's Need
Blake and her friends need a centralized platform to effectively plan a group trip together and create a flexible itinerary to follow. Their time is valuable and it is difficult for groups to agree on a plan while feeling all voices are heard.
How might we enhance the process of collaborating & solidifying trip details to ensure everyone is on the same page?
Developing A Solution
To help us identify an opportunity space that would give us a competitive advantage, we built a competitive landscape matrix to further realize the market our solution was trying to break into.
This research helped the team to determine our goals, what we wanted our product to accomplish, and to pinpoint features that would help us reach those goals.
Product Goal
A centralized platform for group travelers to share trip ideas with one another
Solution
A way to link and share external sites with trip ideas or options
Allow all trip mates to have their voices heard when solidifying trip details
Implement voting system on all trip ideas & options
Provide the option to create a flexible itinerary
An itinerary page & an 'Add to Itinerary' feature
Allow users to communicate with each other in real time regarding trip details
An easy access messaging chat feature
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
Introducing Glide
Are You Ready to Glide Into Your Next Adventure?
Hi-Fidelity Mockups
Sign In Page
Home Screen / User Dashboard
Create New Trip Form
On Boarding Pop-Up
Accommodations Card (Expanded)
Pack Your Bags!
Creating an Aesthetic
Inspired by the light, airiness of a paper airplane in flight, the team decided on a color palette of warm peaches, corals, and blues to communicate the feeling of ease and imagination in our product. We chose a sans-serif font, Avenir, to give Glide a clean and stylish touch that embodied a contemporary aesthetic.
A style guide and specification document was created to ensure brand consistency.
User Testing & Refinement
Two rounds of usability testing were conducted on our mid and high-fidelity prototypes with 5 users. The following results document the changes made to our final designs based on feedback from initial testing.
Task:
Create a new trip, add your trip mate, and log your flight.
Results:
5/5 users were successful and found the process intuitive.
Final Design Decision:
Fused home page & My Trips wireframes to create an updated home screen.
Task:
Go to your accommodations page & vote on the first item.
Results:
5/5 users were successful. However, all 5 users were unsure to swipe in order to gain access their trip boards.
Final Design Decision:
Created an onboarding screen for new users and moved the the swipe carousel from the bottom to the top of the board for increased visibility.
Task:
Add the AirBnb to your itinerary. Access the itinerary to confirm it was added.
Results:
2/5 users were unable to locate the itinerary page.
Final Design Decision:
Moved the itinerary icon into the navigation bar so users could have centralized access to their itineraries
1st Design
Final Design
1st Design
Final Design
1st Design
Final Design
Next Steps
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Integrate a ranking system so trip options with the most votes appear highest on each trip board
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Integrate Google & Facebook APIs for sign-in to add ease of use & easy syncing between channels
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Build out the Explore page to include local guides and suggestions to get users inspired for their upcoming trips
Reflections & Takeaways
Traveling with a group, whether it be friends, family, or even strangers can be a rewarding experience that often allows us to see the world through new eyes. Through working on this project and building a product from scratch with my incredible team, I feel as if we’ve gone on our own journey in discovering the “hows” and “whys” users travel together and what it takes to be on the same page when stepping into the unknown with one another.
I look forward to building on what I’ve learned through the UX process and through my teammates on this project as we glide into our next UX adventure!