Yourway

Fatigue-free travel at your fingertips.

A Travel App Design Story

Duration 4 Weeks

Scope Individual Project

Role User Experience Designer

Tools

Overview

Post pandemic, candid conversations revealed that people were experiencing new kinds of stress related to travel. Empathetic user research combined with design brainstorming led to the creation of 'Yourway' a mobile app puts curated, budget based trip bundles at the fingertip of the users.

Problem

Right now, travel plans have to be made over different platforms and there is no one place that offers customised itineraries based on the traveler's preferred budget.

Solution

A product that could ease the anxiety of travel planning and expenditure, by offering travel plans based on the users' needs will greatly alleviate decision fatigue and make traveling pleasurable.

Design Process

User Research

Getting to know my users through qualitative and quantitative analysis and Persona creation

Ideation & Definition

User Insight, Problem Statement, Empathy Map and User Journey

Prototyping & Testing

Paper sketching, Wireframing and Prototyping backed by Usability Testing

Design

Incorporating user feedback at each stage followed by Style and UI Design

In order to gain quantitative and qualitative insights, User Interviews and User Surveys were conducted. Interested users were interviewed via Zoom. The main objectives were to understand,

Perception of users towards, especially after the Pandemic

Their major concerns/priorities when they think about planning a trip?

How have they been planning travel so far and which apps / websites have they been relying on? Pros and Cons of those.

User Research

“I need to know the average cost of all the activities, bookings, food, commute etc. in one place. Extremely important to not exceed budget, but also enjoy thoroughly.” - Sweta, 21

Surveys

21 responses

Interviews

Ages 20 to 40

67% people feared risks due to COVID

52% were concerned about the inflated costs

30% were hassled by travel planning

“It is important to not overspend and wish to have a resource through which I could track inflation and all the bookings (flight, hotel, local transport) in the same place. Additionally would like it if my time spent on these things is also trackable.”

- Abhi, 33

Q : What are some factors that are holding you back while making travel plans?

Let's meet..

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Mayu Moha

"I would love to go on as many journeys and make as many memories as possible, in this is lifetime!

Just too tired of planning everything".

About

Mayu is a hardworking and compassionate guy with a taste for the finer things in life. He works as a System Analyst and keeps himself recharged through travel and adventure. As much as he is tech savvy, Mayu likes to go off the grid and get as much screen-free time as possible, soaking in the sights, smells, sounds and scenes around him. Being faced with too many choices often cause him stress.

Goals

Interesting itineraries based on his budget and interests
Quality time with his partner
Explore new places and cultures
One stop shop for all travel needs

Challenges

Being overwhelmed by the need to use multiple apps/websites for travel planning
Decision fatigue
Overshooting budgets and dipping into his savings especially after a slow year

28 years

Bachelor's Degree, Information Technology

System Analyst

San Bruno, CA

In a relationship

Internet

Softwares

Mobile Apps

Social Media

Empathy Map

Says

I want custom made trips based on my budget and preferences

Thinks

Should I check and compare multiple sites/apps now?

Feels

The urge to travel conflicting with associated planning stress

Looks for simple options which would suit him and his partner

Does

Once the User Persona becomes a part of the process, creating an empathy map that spotlights their thoughts, emotions, and feelings becomes a essential step. This bridges the gap between a concept and the real world.

Storyboard

A storyboard is a window into a day in the life of our user persona. It makes the persona even more relatable and realistic.

Competitor Analysis

Competitor Analysis was done with 2 direct and 2 indirect competitors :

Expedia
Tripadvisor
Truebill
YNAB

The pros, cons and other observations were recorded with annotated screenshots, competitor analysis feature matrix, and tabulated in-depth analysis. A SWOT analysis was also done to compare Yourway with these apps.

Expedia

Tripadvisor

Truebill

YNAB

Weaknesses

Customer Reviews

Overwhelming amount of content. Chat feature not intuitive. Budget based itineries not available.

Recent updates have made they app less effective. There is no restaurant info with timings and offline usability while traveling.

" Hard to use. Not Intuitive. Assistant not very helpful. Very disppointing." -Pamela (11/30/2021)

"It's super slow and the categories/rules dont even work. I am frustrated."

-Arman (12/1/2021)

User Flow

Creating a flow or pathway that users would take based on their preferences is a key step in the process. It acts as the bridge between the research and design.

Paper Sketches and Lo-fi wireframes

Guerilla Test and Analysis

User Demographic

Profession

Duration

Test subject

21-40 years

Varied

20-30 minutes

lo-fi prototype

Positives

Navigation

Visuals

Reconsider

Onboarding is simple

Explore options were good

‘My Trips’ term is misleading

Collection page icon confusing

Skip option not clear

No confirmation after saving

Rephrase skip?

Change collection icons?

Nice app name

Couldn’t find budgeting

Let’s go button not clear

Renaming
navigation

Style Tile

After gaining feedback on the functionality of the lo-fi prototype, creating a guide for the look and feel of the app was the natural next step. A soft & inviting color palette was chosen with base and accent colors. Keeping readability and aesthetics in mind a typeface that had multiple weights was picked.