TravMates
At a glance
TravMates facilitates travel enthusiasts in finding travel partners throughout their entire journey. It utilizes innovative interactive features to quickly and accurately establish contact with strangers, while also assisting them in reuniting and planning with former travel companions to explore unknown destinations together and share their collective travel experiences in an engaging community.
Timeline
June to September 2022 (11 weeks)
context
Solo project followed Google UX Course
My Roles & Responsibilities
– Wireframing and prototyping
– Design iteration
– UI and animation design
– Design system
/Problem
Everyone says travel can lead to lifelong friendships, but unreliable companions can ruin your journey drastically.
As a travel lover who has visited almost 20 countries, my travel partners are often close friends. However, I often have to travel alone due to conflicting schedules and varying destination preferences.
Many of my peers still lack trust in finding partners online and have failed to find a one-stop platform to help them manage their relationships with online friends, strangers, potential travel companions, and ex-partners.
/solution
An all-in-one platform to take on finding trustworthy travel companions and fostering not one-off social ties.
Switch modes automatically based on different scenarios
Swipe for travel partners
Ignite the autonomy for next invitation
/Process
How I navigated myself
research
Market Research
Competitor Analysis
User Research
Affinity Mapping
Persona Creation
Journey Mapping
Design
How Might We
Needs and Offering Map
Information Architecture
Low Fidelity
Evaluate
User Testing
Iteration
Final Design
Style Guide
Reflections
01 ·
research
/Market Research
Slow travel, featuring a blend of personal space and vibrant social experiences, is now a dominant trend in the travel market.
Although Covid-19 caused a downturn in the tourism market in 2020, with the overall situation stabilizing, tourism consumption will become an important factor in economic recovery. Below, I mainly summarize four major trends.
For socialization, new research from Exodus Travels confirms that Americans are seeking to make new connections through travel. People aren't just making connections on the road, they are deepening them.
· 75% of Americans said that they have made lifelong friendships when traveling.
· It's important to choose your travel companions carefully. 69% of those surveyed said that who you travel with can make or break the vacation.
/Competitor Analysis
Understanding the differences between travel buddies, couch surfers, and travel partners can help me to scope down.
/User Research
Interviews with 5+ participants shared the struggle of low trust within the travel partners.
Initially, I undertook a quantitative analysis by conducting a survey to obtain potential users' perspectives on travel partnerships and social ties. Subsequently, I conducted semi-structured interviews with three travel enthusiasts.
To obtain a more comprehensive understanding from an observer's viewpoint, I also spoke with youth hostel employees as a secondary audience. I asked interviewees the questions below to understand why and how they choose travel partners and what factors prevent them from doing so.
Based on ethnographic research methods, I synthesized and clustered the information I got from the interview into an affinity map to help me come up with insights and brainstorm design opportunities to help users accomplish the trust leap and find the right travel partner.
/top findings
Building trust presents a multi-dimensional challenge, from institutional to accountability-based.
Based on user research results, I have integrated 9 top findings based on 3 dimensions: how to gain user trust in the concept of social travel, trust in the platform, and trust in the partner.
/defining persona
Distilling the crucial insights into two purpose-driven personas.
To comprehensively encompass user characteristics, I have divided the user groups into 2 representative categories: social enthusiasts, who seek to eliminate social boredom during travel, and female users, who prioritize travel safety and a sense of belonging.
/Journey map
Building partnerships and reconnections occur both before and after the journey.
After gaining an understanding of user characteristics and behavioral motivations, I utilized a journey map to identify the pain points and opportunities for improvement across 3 stages: pre-travel, during travel, and post-travel.
02 ·
design
/How might we
Facilitate travel enthusiasts to find trustworthy travel partners and maintain a strong social tie throughout the trip.
/Needs and offerings
How to satisfy users' needs by analyzing the user experience and recognizing pain points?
I categorized user needs based on their internal and external requirements before and after the journey, and matched them with corresponding offerings to fulfill these needs. By connecting them, we can observe the interconnected complexity between needs and offerings across 4 dimensions.
/information architecture
I began to consider what features I would implement.
Based on the design opportunities identified from the offering map, I proceeded to construct a preliminary information architecture to facilitate the creation of low-fidelity prototypes.
/Low fidelity
Getting initial user feedback from simple prototypes before diving into visual design required a monumental effort.
03 ·
evaluate
/Testing
How did I plan the evaluation structure?
I started with multiple rapid cognitive walkthroughs to quickly pinpoint task completion issues, encouraging 'Think Loud' sessions. convened two professional designers to provide expert feedback on the product. Lastly, I engaged with a backpacker to identify specific usability challenges.
/Iteration
Improving the flow and simplifying the experience.
1/ Swipe for partners without insecurity
Female mode -> female-friendly ecosystem
Female users were concerned about team member reliability. In the first iteration, I introduced a "female mode" where male users had to record a short video introducing their plans. The test results showed that this was unfriendly to male users in the meantime. Consequently, I transformed it into a female-friendly ecosystem in the second iteration.
Itinerary information -> emphasize partnership
Originally, the main images are destination photos. However, to fulfill users' need for companion information while respecting privacy, all users switched to using Memoji videos. They validated audio descriptions significantly increased trust.
Swipe right and left -> add flash chat
For easier communication about interesting plans, users could directly use the "flash chat" feature. Testers emphasized that evaluations from friends were crucial for deciding whether to continue conversations with a particular user.
2/ Co-plan the trip with travel partners
Multi-channel entrance -> plan together first
Before users embark on their trip, I aimed to provide accurate and categorized travel guide information through quick-access areas. After presenting the first iteration, I realized their top concern was trip planning with their partner. As a result, I placed the planning section in the banner with a CTA button for upcoming trips together.
Show the route only -> interactive map
In the first iteration of the planning page, I did not visualize their route on a map. However, user feedback reminded me that map information should not only show brief start and destination points; different types of plans should be categorized for display but avoid overwhelming information.
Gap between plan and inspiration -> collect and use
Users also requested a feature to efficiently plan trips using the travel inspirations they collected on the homepage. As a result, a tab named "Inspiration List" allows users to quickly select and add guides they need for their itinerary.
3/ Trigger a connection between strangers
Interest group -> shared footprints
In the first iteration, I attempted to bring users closer and build trust through interest groups, but testers found it lacking motivation to click. In the second iteration, I designed a module showing both parties' footprints, emphasizing the places we have visited together and the experiences we passed by.
View travel plan -> view and join the team
Testers made me realize that the travel plan section should not only display basic plan information but should primarily focus on how to allow users to apply to join trips with available slots. So, in the first iteration, I added CTA buttons and used different colors to distinguish the status of each trip.
Invite via messages -> shared calendar
The other thing they mentioned is how to check others' availability and extend invitations. I implemented a shared calendar feature that allows users to view the free time of their friends. With this information, users can send travel invitations for the time periods that work for everyone.
/final design
Multiple Iterations later, from wireframes to high-fidelity.
Finding travel partners
Influencer economy & travel community
Organizing a trip & socializing
Planning the trip & supporting offline connections
/style guide
Managing design assets is as crucial as designing them.
/reflection
What I would do differently next time.
Testing the MVP in a real-world scenario
Evaluation in a real travel setting offers a more compelling perspective. Although I tested with a backpacker, his assessments were based on experience rather than real-life situations.
Cross-functional Collaboration
This is my first solo UX/UI project, starting from scratch. I aspire to collaborate with developers when time permits, enabling us to make decisions that demonstrate a deeper understanding of constraints.
Measuring impact with validated metrics
Although this is a hypothetical project, I still eager for the opportunity to conduct quantitative tests based on specific tasks and subsequently analyze the results to reveal underlying data patterns.
