Tripmates: Group Travel—Simplified

App
Mobile
Novel Design
An iOS travel app built to minimize group planning pains and maximize fun.

Overview

“I really want to take more trips, but planning is way too complicated” was the sentiment I heard the most when talking to young people about group travel.

It can be especially difficult to coordinate the best times to travel with a group of friends or loved ones. Some trips fall apart before they’ve even been confirmed because it’s so difficult to plan collaboratively!

I designed Tripmates to reduce the barriers to traveling in groups and help travelers get (and stay!) excited about their upcoming destinations.

Project Details

Role

Product Design
UX Research
UI & Branding

Timeline

Jan 2024

Team

Just me! 😙

Tools Used

Figma, Canva, Google Docs, Zoom

The Solution

Tripmates makes planning group trips a breeze. Find dates that work for everyone and coordinate details right in the app. With Tripmates, you and your loved ones can skip the stress and focus on the fun.

Design Process

Discover
Analyze
Ideate
Design
Test

—————

Discover

Competitor Research

Crafting a unique travel app that targets user (and business) needs not otherwise cornered by another product is a challenge. I began by taking a look at the existing app landscape to discover what they do well, and what opportunities exist for a new product.

  • "Goldilocks" opportunity to prioritize features: not too many to overwhelm; enough to make users' tasks easier
  • Niche spaces like bachelor(ette) parties and road trips are covered by comprehensive, existing apps
  • Few features within existing apps intentionally address the stressful aspects of involving groups in trip planning
A gif that scrolls down the homepage of Energy.gov, as captured in April 2024
Examples of competitor apps: Batch, Roadtrippers, Pogo, Wanderlust, Troupe
User Research

To understand the needs and wants of users, and how to reduce their pain points, I conducted 5 interviews within my target demographic:

  • People who travel at least once per year
  • People who travel in groups
  • People that use online travel planning technology

Over 100 insights were added to an Affinity Diagram and Empathy Map from user interviews. By far, the most common responses were that budgeting and scheduling are the most difficult parts of planning a trip with others.

Interview Highlights
“I like having summaries of important info available to me at a glance.”
“Planning starts with estimating a budget and coordinating timing.”
“It’s hard to find a time to go that works for everyone.”
“I like to have a space to share trip experiences with others on the trip.”
“Arriving at the destination makes all the planning worth it.”

—————

Analyze

Despite wanting to travel more, young travelers feel overwhelmed by the amount of time spent planning and coordinating with others.

I observed that the current travel planning app landscape doesn’t address the needs of groups who want to share plans and coordinate budgets together. Travelers need a way to collaboratively plan trips together because coordinating complex schedules and balancing varying budgets makes them take fewer trips together than they’d like.

How might we help groups with differing needs and planning styles collaborate effectively to plan trips??
How might we simplify the planning process to reduce overwhelm and stress, keeping travelers focused on the end-goal?
User Personas

During my interview insight analysis, I realized that two main types of group travel planners exist: "the trip leader" and the "hands-off traveler". Nearly all users I spoke with desired a strong preference to either handle the plans and keep others in the group on track, or to leave the details to trusted tripmates.

I developed personas to represent the two users types I discovered. I knew that appealing to both of these user types was crucial to creating an app that whole social groups would adopt:

Alison, 27
Charismatic
Organized
Optimistic
Social
Adventurous
Needs & Goals
  • Let nothing stand in the way of having a blast
  • Find trip dates that work for everyone
  • Have a stress-free planning experience
Pain Points
  • It's hard to get everone on the same page
  • Everyone's availability and budget varies
  • Keep track of all details in one place
Traits

Tech Savvy: 🟡🟡🟡🟡⚪
Analytical: 🟡🟡🟡⚪⚪
Busy: 🟡🟡🟡🟡⚪
Thrifty: 🟡🟡⚪⚪⚪

Alison is a busy young woman with a large social circle. She needs a way to collaboratively plan group trips because helping her coordinate schedules and budgets will allow her and her loved ones to focus on making and sharing lifelong memories together.

Steph, 25
Bubbly
Scattered
Energetic
Social
Needs & Goals
  • Be told what to book, when, and for how much
  • Have the option to give input on high-level details like date, location, and budget
  • Get updates and reminders to stay on-track and excited
Pain Points
  • It's much better to let someone else handle the details
  • Doesn't want budget constraints to keep her from going
  • Easily see if her budget and availability match with trip invites
Traits

Tech Savvy: 🟡🟡🟡🟡⚪
Analytical: 🟡⚪⚪⚪⚪
Busy: 🟡🟡🟡⚪⚪
Thrifty: 🟡🟡🟡⚪⚪

Steph is a social butterfly on a budget. She needs a way to keep track of her trip invites and details so that she can take advantage of as many opportunities to join in on fun travel experiences.

The Problem(s): Defined

Based on my two user personas, I detailed three main problems I wanted my app to solve. While two of three are focused primarily on the needs of one persona, the benefits would be felt by both.

Problem #1
Reduce overwhelm and anxiety experienced by "trip leader" type users
Problem #2
Help groups plan trips that work for all parties involved
Problem #3
Help "hands-off travelers" see all their details, group communications, and to-dos in one place

—————

Ideate

I took the best ideas from my brainstorming exercises and mapped them onto a feature prioritization matrix. What emerged was a product that allowed users to better control complex travel problems and offer a custom experience to both user types.

Finding the best time to travel with loved ones and coordinating budgetary & activity details emerged as two primary functionalities to explore.

Problem #1

Reduce overwhelm and anxiety experienced by "trip leader" type users

Possible Solutions
Assign users as "leaders" and allow them to access related features
Users can participate in polls, chat, share details & memories within the app
Save (and share) travel plans, maps, itineraries, and budget in one place
Problem #2

Help groups plan trips that work for all parties involved

Possible Solutions
Show the best dates for a trip based on invited users' availability
Get suggestions for different lodging, flight, and event options based on users' budgets
Send and receive updates and notifications, including to specific party members
Problem #3

Help "hands-off travelers" see all their details, group communications, and to-dos in one place

Possible Solutions
Display short summaries of details categorized for easy access and reduced overwhelm
Receive invites to trips my friends have created & see if my schedule and budget align with them
Opt in or out of individual trip activities based on my budget
Value Proposition

Tripmates makes planning group trips a breeze. Save money, find dates that work for everyone, and book events & services in one place. With Tripmates, you and your loved ones can skip the stress and focus on the fun.

—————

Design

User Flow & Wireframes

Throughout this process, I referenced my user research and feature ideation brainstorming before moving on to wireframing. I also built a more complex user flow that builds out screens that would appear in transition between these main pages and steps.

Visual Identity

To differentiate Tripmates from competitor apps and to help users stay 'grounded' during the planning process, I decided on a calming, earthy color scheme.

The name 'Tripmates' came from a desire to spotlight the collaborative nature of this travel planning app. I wanted to make it immediately clear how the app can help travelers and appeal directly to those who take trips with groups of loved ones.

The logo and tagline lockup help reinforce the user's end goal: make memories abroad (or more locally!) with friends and family. The airplane and dot mark can also be used stand-alone for an app icon or within smaller spaces inside the app itself.

Design Decisions
Design Solution #1
Plan and Join Trips

Users can create new trips and invite their friends to join, or view public trips that friends have created.

During the creation of a new trip, users can choose to invite tripmates immediately, or skip ahead and continue adding details to the trip. Dates can be chosen or left blank during the trip creation flow and set later after tripmates have been invited.

Trips can be joined through the app by viewing public trips planned by friends, or invites can be sent and accepted manually by selected users after inputting phone or email addresses.

...
Plan a Trip flow
...
Edit Trip screen
Design Solution #2
Tripmate Availability Checker & Date Chooser

One of the top struggles for both types of users—trip leaders and hands-off travelers—was the back-and-forth that needs to happen to choose dates that work for the most (or all) travelers. I solved for this by allowing users to input their availability into Tripmates, either manually marking off weeks they are unavailable, or connecting their Google/Apple/.ics calendar to their account.

Users can then see the best dates for a trip with invited tripmates, either by selecting the trip length in number of days and searching for the best dates within all tripmates' schedules, or selecting set dates and seeing who is available during that time.

During the planning process, individual trip pages display users who have confirmed, declined, and those who have not responded to confirm yet. The trip leader(s) are also marked with a small crown symbol.

...
Invite Tripmates flow
...
Edit Availability flow
Design Solution #3
Joining Trips—By browsing or invite

During my research, I found that it was most likely for trip plans to begin through in-person or text message/chat, which nearly all users reported worked well for them. With this in mind, I wanted to encourage users to create a trip at this crucial point: when plans are being seriously considered but details are not yet fleshed out.

After a trip is created, it can be made public (to Tripmates friends) or private (viewable by invitees only). Public trips display a short preview to users, with details like the date, location, tags, and confirmed tripmates. A user can request to join public trips created by their Tripmates friends.

...
Join a Trip flow
...
Trip Screen with Tripmates' RSVPs

—————

Test

I conducted tests with 4 users, giving them a short list of tasks, including:

I analyzed and organized my notes from the guerrilla testing recordings, mapping them by frequency of responses. The most common issues revolved around creating a new trip, or not knowing where to find buttons.

High Frequency
Users didn't understand if they had to invite tripmates immediately when creating a new trip
Landing on a newly created trip page looked too similar to the user's dashboard
Mid Frequency
Log in buttons dominated the screen after splash. Users had to search to find how to log in
Users weren't always sure where to go to find a trip--only saw trips they'd already joined on the dashboard
Low Frequency
Liked the calm colors
Users noticed that you can add a trip in two different ways from the main dashboard
The "x" button to close modals was a little small
Wasn't sure where to click to confirm final trip dates after finding the best dates for all participants

Final Thoughts

In my next design projects, I look forward to learning more insights from user testing and to challenge myself to test more frequently between iterations of my designs. The Design Thinking process is incredibly helpful in challenging personal biases we might have when designing products, such as what functionalities users find most exciting or helpful, and how they want to interact with an app or website.

Overall, I’m very proud of the work I did developing the Tripmates product and app design, and can’t wait to create more!

What I'd do next: I'd like to further refine the features relating to budgeting next, as it was one of the top reasons users stated they find group trip planning difficult. If I had more time, I'd conduct surveys throughout the research process to get more quantitative data from a greater variety of potential users.

Resources

Photos from Unsplash

Icons in Prototypes from Iconify

Wireframe Phone Frames from @designerarvid

Fonts from Google Fonts

iOS Resources from iOS 17 Design Library