Improving the group trip planning process for college students


01 / OVERVIEW

Role & Team

I worked as the project manager and one of the designers for a team of 4 for eight weeks (2022)

Goal

Increase user satisfaction with the trip planning process through a new product

What I did

UX research, UI/UX design, team conflict resolution, prototyping, user testing, pitching

What I delivered

Customer journey map, sketches, storyboards, prototypes, design system, poster

TL;DR

The trip-planning domain is already saturated with applications trying to help travelers organize their thoughts and make better decisions. Our team conducted extensive research to identify the still unmet needs of our users and how we might make a product that would differentiate us from the market. Completed as a class project for User-Centered Research Evaluation.

Organizing the trip with a hovering toolkit


02 / PROBLEM

Students struggle with planning group trips

Organizing a trip can be a time-consuming and challenging task, especially when traveling with a group. It becomes even more difficult when trying to accommodate everyone's individual preferences and requirements. For college students, who often have limited income and experience with travel planning, the process can seem overwhelming.

“How might we facilitate an organized planning process that can increase group trip satisfaction for college students?”


03 / SOLUTION

Hovering Toolkit

Reducing the clutter on their current application to increase efficiency

Understand Group Dynamics

  • Keep track of individual needs, expectations, and goals

  • Note group priorities

  • Easily access group insights

  • No switching cost

  • Travel groups can seamlessly collate and add resources

  • Centralized location of resources

Easily Organize Research

  • Add resources like quotes, URLs, photos, and reviews under one thread

  • Pin and upvote important threads

  • Keep the clutter off the main planning tool

Keep Track of Conversations

  • No need to scroll up for context

  • Polls, threads, and general comments all in one spot

  • Vote, sort, and group threads as needed

Conduct Smart Research

  • TripTastic catches the small stuff so students can focus on the big picture

  • Streamlines the research process by eliminating redundancy and reducing causes of conflict

Drag & Drop Resource Blocks

  • Integrate with existing tools to facilitate the planning process

  • Keep the main document clean until something is needed.

  • Customize the layout of the block when dropped


04 / RESEARCH

Many factors can cause frustration while planning group trips

When starting a project in an unfamiliar problem domain, it was crucial for all team members to gather as much information as possible from existing sources. Our inquiries revolved around topics such as the stakeholders involved, their needs and desires, and the shortcomings of current approaches.

To begin, we each carried out our own background research through literature reviews and fly-on-the-wall observation of group trip-planning processes and frustrations. Afterward, we collaborated to develop a shared understanding of the problem domain through the "walking the wall" technique.

In what ways can we enable students to easily sort, group, and track different resources?

We found ourselves overwhelmed with the number of possible needs we found from our initial research. In order to narrow our main research question down, the team conducted a reframing activity with abstract laddering.

A few takeaways from our walking the wall activity

the new problem statement found from abstract laddering

Students find interpersonal conflict to be the most difficult to deal with

To explore our new research question, the team conducted directed storytelling, allowing us to vividly recreate the context, process, and feelings of travel planning for a group without directly observing a group go through the whole process. During this process, our main question was what aspects of the process do students find most frustrating and time-consuming?

the team came together for affinity clustering after creating 60 interpretation notes from our interviews


05 / ANALYSIS

Frustrations with trip planning revolve around four main themes

The four themes that emerged from affinity mapping informed the four primary feature flows of our product. These themes were consistently mentioned in all of our interviews, and our users were unable to identify any existing application that addressed all four issues.

Five opportunities to streamline trip planning

To further consolidate our findings, we created some models to better understand the thought processes and feelings of our users. Combining these findings with the themes from affinity diagraming, we were able to identify five design opportunities.

Deriving five product opportunities based on the pain points identified in the empathy and customer journey maps


06 / IDEATION

Exploring the “crazy” ideas

Based on the five opportunities found during the analysis phase, the team quickly generated possible scenarios with the Crazy 8’s activity. Following this, we conducted priority voting to determine the four most intriguing ideas and their corresponding user requirements.

each member posted their crazy 8’s activity and voted on four ideas they found most compelling

Users don’t want a new application

One idea voted from Crazy 8s was assigned to each team member, who created storyboards for speed dating. For each user requirement, we devised three scenarios with varying levels of risk and then assessed the 12 storyboards with 10 students. The results of the speed dating session shaped the direction of our product's features, which we subsequently validated through surveys that challenged our assumptions.

We discovered that students were unwilling to switch to a completely new planning application, even if it was superior. They viewed the need to learn another tool as tedious and just another tab to add to the clutter. They instead wanted ways to deal with the problems of their current tools, such as Google Docs or Notion.

samples of storyboards and survey findings


07 / DESIGN & TESTING

A Google Chrome extension is too limiting

Keeping in mind that users didn’t want a brand new application, the team wanted to create a product that was instead complimentary to whatever platform the user is already using to plan their trips. We initially planned to do this with a Chrome extension, but class critique revealed that the extension made the information feel cluttered, limited, and immobile. I then lead the pivot in direction to a desktop application that would function as a “hovering toolkit”.

going from a Chrome extension to computer application

Finalizing features and creating lo-fi prototypes

After the switch to the desktop application, we finalized our product to be a hovering toolkit with three distinct sections that cover our four flows: smart research, discussion, resources, and travel profiles. We employed our lo-fi prototypes to validate three of the riskiest features of our product. Concerned that students might not be inclined to download a desktop application, we developed a demo and survey to gauge the App Net Promoter Score. Thankfully, it appeared that the benefits of our app exceeded the effort required to download another application. Furthermore, we received favorable feedback for our smart pop-up and drag n' drop features.

wireframes of our four flows

Creating a calm planning experience

In order to create consistency, I created a style guide for the team. Our theme revolved around a blue-purple color to instill a sense of calm and consistency to trip planning, which is often perceived as hectic. 


08 / REFLECTION

Working with the same team throughout the semester was both a rewarding and challenging experience. As the project manager of the group, I learned how to maintain a flexible mindset and to frequently restate goals, tasks, and takeaways to ensure the team was on the same page. One of my proudest moments during this project was facing my fear of confrontation and talking with a team member individually on ensuring their work met group expectations.

I also lead the majority of the design process, where I worked to make sure our designs were aligned with project goals. One of my major takeaways from this project was the importance of preparation, communication, and speaking your mind. Only by doing all three was I able to talk with my group about pivotting ideas from a browser plugin to desktop application.


09 / OTHERS