TripSling

A social platform for building & sharing
day-by-day travel plans.

OVERVIEW

TripSling is a travel app that allows users to schedule their trips easily and conveniently, by providing useful information and suggesting itineraries for locations all over the world. This community platform encourages explorational travel planning and sharing travel experiences with friends and family.

The driving factor behind this project was to provide a centralized app for collaboratively planning and memorializing trips.

ROLE & DURATION

Lead UX Designer | Atlantic BT

UX/UI Design, Prototyping & Testing

Dec 2019 - Jan 2020

The Problem

Have you ever gone on a trip with friends or family? Building out travel plans and itineraries can be a monumental task and can quickly spiral into an overwhelming situation. What if there was an app that met the complexity of trip planning while maintaining a simple to use experience? What if you could spend less time figuring out what to do on a trip by utilizing the crowd-sourced effort of other travelers? What if it was just easier?

The Users

WHO ARE THEY?

Initially, we kept the focus on one primary user group, families/parents with kids who are planning trips. Currently, they are likely to use multiple tools to plan trips and activities. One for planning (if at all) and one for sharing. Other potential characteristics are: they like to travel frequently, they enjoy planning/documenting trips, and want to share their travels with their friends/family.

HOW DO THEY FEEL?

TripSling aims to increase feelings of connection between users via a shared interest in travel planning and documenting. They should trust that TripSling is a comprehensive source for ready-made trip plans and feel casual ease about planning a trip. We want users to feel excited about the prospect of new experiences in far off lands or right in their own neighborhoods.

Early Feedback

TESTING UI CONCEPTS

This project did not have the budget for full-scale testing, but rather than omitting testing completely, we opted to post some of the UI iterations for feedback from the office. As a result, we gathered valuable qualitative insight into which card designs were visually appealing and easiest to understand.

Messaging & Style

TONE AND VOICE

Messaging is written to be action-oriented and easy to understand. There is no overcomplicated vocabulary or jargon, and the tone is family-friendly, but not juvenile. TripSling speaks to you as your friend would.

LOOK AND FEEL

TripSling's style is simple and clean with a focus on destination photography. It primarily follows the visual conventions of its sister app Viewbuff as the baseline for the look and feel. However, the use of color and white space gives the app a softer, less masculine look than it's predecessor.

"ADD TO PLAN"

Feature: On the trip overview page, users can view information about the trip including duration, activities, photos, reviews, and more. By selecting the "add to plan" button users can add the itinerary to any of their personal trip plans.

Key Features

TRIP TIMELINE

Feature: The timeline feature breaks down activities in a day-by-day view. Users can add individual activities to their trip plan by selecting the "+" icon.

REVIEWING TRIPS

Feature: Trip reviews help users decide if this trip is worth adding to their itinerary.

PHOTOS

Feature: Photography is a key component of TripSling by allowing users to share their memories and collaborate on photo collections with group trips.

App screens (left to right): Explore page, Reviews detail view, Day-by-Day timeline

Project Learnings

1. TESTING DOESN'T HAVE TO BE FANCY

Not every situation necessitates full-scale user testing. It is important to be flexible and resourceful when it comes to procuring user feedback. Use the tools available to you. Sometimes simply polling the people in the office is all you need to validate (or invalidate) an idea.

2. KNOW WHAT MAKES THE PRODUCT SPECIAL

The first launch of a product does not have to have every bell and whistle to be successful. Establishing the key differentiators and developing a set of features to showcase those differentiators helps maintain focus and scope.

3. BALANCE

It is easy to get overly caught up in either visual or functional details and lose sight of the big picture. A successful project balances the two and maintains a dedication to the overall purpose.