Project Overview

TravelTale Project

TravelTale is a smart trip planning website that uses AI to create efficient itineraries, saving users time. It suggests the best transportation options based on real-time traffic, ensuring smooth and optimized travel experiences.

Timeline

Group of 2

Team

12 Weeks

Role

UX/UI Designer

Tools

Figma, Figjam,Google Form,Microsoft Office,Adobe

Business Goals

• Helping users to travel more efficiently and modifying their itineraries as needed.

• Access most important travel needs in one place: Destinations, Accomodations ,Interesting places to see and maps.

• giving traffic updates and the best travel options based on Google Maps, with the choice to change routes and time

• Allow users to download their itinerary for offline use.

Target Users

• Individuals with tight schedules who want efficient, AI-generated itineraries tailored to their interests, maximizing their travel experience.

• Enthusiastic travelers who seek a community to share itineraries, photos, and videos, connecting with others and inspiring each other through their adventures.s.

We focus our desktop task on busy travelers, offering efficient, AI-generated itineraries based on their interests.

Design Process

Challenges

• Many users prefer relying on other people's recommendations over AI-generated plans.

• Users can't manage their time well when planning, leading to unrealistic plans and leaving them unsatisfied.

• Choosing the best transportation method is often confusing, making it harder to plan efficiently.

Solution

• We gather users' interests and preferences, including who they are traveling with, to create customized itineraries tailored to their needs.

• Our AI helps users create realistic plans based on their available time, ensuring a more satisfying travel experience.

• We provide clear transportation options, with real-time updates, making it easy for users to choose the best and most efficient method for their trip.

Discover

To understand users and problems, the following steps have been taken.

1. Interviews

2. Surveys

3. Competitive analyses

Survey

We surveyed 28 people to identify the challenges and pain points they face when planning trips, and explored how AI can help solve these issues.

60.71% of people say that the most important feature when using a travel planning and sharing app is itinerary planning.

Two key challenges people face when planning and documenting trips are:

1. Offline accessibility (67.9%)

2. Difficulty in finding reliable information(57.1%)

Interview & Affinity Diagram

After the survey, we interviewed 7 participants to gain deeper insights into their pain points, focusing on improving travel scheduling through a powerful AI search engine.

Takeaway

Based on our research, there are several crucial elements that are fundamental to meeting our users' needs:

• Offline accessibility can ensure you're prepared even when you're disconnected from the internet, minimizing travel-related stress.

• Reviews play a crucial role in trip planning, offering valuable insights and helping travelers make informed decisions

Competitive Analysis

By checking out platforms like Tripadvisor and Wanderlog, we can get a feel for how they use AI for trip suggestions and apply those insights to our own recommendation algorithms. Exploring tools like Google Maps and Google Trips will also be super helpful for optimizing routes and commutes, making travel planning smoother.

Above, we outlined the key aspects that influenced our design

Define

Persona

The insights I gained from surveys and interviews helped shape the persona. Sophia's main goal is to find a trustworthy, personalized travel plan for a short-term local travel experience to save time.

Site Map

We created the initial version of the information architecture based on card sorting. However, through user testing and competitive analysis during the design process, the final version underwent multiple iterations.

In the user flow, we aim to show how the user selects a hotel and adds it to their plan to create a personalized itinerary powered by AI.

User Flow

Develop

Design Solution

After analyzing our research data and understanding user needs, we developed solutions to address their concerns and integrated them into our design.

Challenges

Solution

1

Our users struggle with understanding the itinerary process and want a quick, easy way to get theirs.

So, we added a homepage search bar to find top itineraries based on user interests.

2

Travelers have difficulties to choose their interests when they want to plan their trip

Enable users to access interests in the search bar at the same time they can choose their destination,time, and accommodation

3

Timing matters in trip planning, especially for navigating new destinations. Commute time influences where travelers stay and what they do.

Enable users to access interests in the search bar at the same time they can choose their destination,time, and accommodation

Skitches and Wireframes

We created low-fidelity wireframes to plan how each page of the TravelTale website would look for better communication with our team and to map out our ideas. We revised these sketches several times before finalizing the design.

Home Page

Hotel Suggestion

Itinerary Page

Loding Page

Save Trip

Low-Fidelity

Mid-Fidelity

Usability Test (phase 1)

Before Usability testing

Home Page

After Usability testing

"Home Page"

During our initial usability testing, we observed that users found the lengthy process of clicking 'Next' to specify their preferred time, travel companions, and interests frustrating. To address this, we introduced an all-in-one search bar on the homepage, enabling users to set their preferences quickly and effortlessly. This improvement significantly enhanced the user experience and positioned our website ahead of competitors in terms of convenience and efficiency.