Overview
Deciding what plans are the best ones when traveling with friends can be difficult. Wanderly sets out to make the itinerary planning phase of travel a more streamlined and collaborative experience for today’s traveler.
Hats Worn
Research
Ideation
Wireframing
Prototyping
User Testing
Visual Design
Opportunity
When planning a trip, people spend a lot of time researching the perfect check list of things to do while they are traveling. However, apps and websites are flooded with misguiding reviews. How do we connect users to reviews they trust?
Platform
iOS
Solution
Sitting down to plan a trip isn’t easy. Sometimes all you want is a real life recommendation from friends or family to get you started or narrow down your choices. Based on user research, we aimed to create a product that would eliminate the fluff and create customized recommendations that would make planning your next trip a fun experience. You may not realize you’ve already selected your next destination.
Where To?
Have the app help decide where to start when you have nowhere to go by providing randomized content based on what’s trending.
Connect
Connect with your friends and find out what they really loved when they traveled last. And their friends, too. Browse through profiles to see who users interact with the most.
Plan
Build your perfect trip based on curated recommendations by the people you trust. By reviewing content, help us customize what you see so we can show you more of what you love.
Collections
Browse and like with ease as you research your next vacation. You can see your favorites in one place, laid out in collections, with a quick view of how many of your friends have reviewed. Here you can see the sort feature.
The Process
User Research
To get to know my target audience, I conducted interviews with people that fit the following:
Limited Disposable Income: Does not have a lot of extra cash
Travels in Groups: Typically travels with others to minimize cost
Young Professionals: Travelers in the age range of 24-35
Adventurous: Takes at least one leisure trip per year
Competitive Analysis
Based on user interviews, I took a look at three apps that were comparable to what I was trying to accomplish. These were Trip Advisor, Google Trips and Hit List.
Affinity Mapping
Based on answers to questions regarding travel experience, how they typically plan an itinerary, and experience with technology, I gathered my findings into an affinity diagram to highlight insights into my users.
Persona
Journey Map
Based on Jane’s wants, needs and feelings I created a journey map to pin point what she was experiencing at each point in her journey. This created a clearer way to recognize areas of opportunities.
Design Process
Task Flows
The main feature of Wanderly is to highlight reviews of friends into one streamlined place. From here, collections are made based on what you favorite.
Sketching & Wireframing
Based on this concept, I started to flush out some low fidelity wireframes and sketches to get ideas down on paper. Below are some of the basics of what this looked like.
Future Features
Share functionality
Ability to collaborate on an itinerary with friends you connect with
Use machine learning to generate more personalized itineraries to show up in your collections
Lessons Learned
When planning a trip, people are inundated with information online. They aren’t sure what reviews and content are trust worthy, and it leaves users frustrated. My goal in designing Wanderly was to create a solution for those travelers who want a personal recommendation by someone they know, and a place to share this information with the people they are traveling with. With Wanderly, personal testimony brings comfort to planning.