Journey Sync
Explore More, Spend Wisely
Project Overview
People are cautious of their spending for travel and what their money is going towards. 70% of our survey participants create a budget for their travel and 78% of them make an itinerary. Our users are using several different apps and methods to plan their travel, which can cause them to go over budget or diverge from their itinerary.
The Impact:
Travelers will now be able to keep a closer eye on their budget and have their itinerary in the same location.
The Problem:
Design a travel app that allows the user to plan their total budget, allocate where their money is going, and plan their itinerary all in one place.
The Solution:
Kelly Humphrey (Team Lead)
Michelle Swanner
UX Designers:
Tools:
Figma/Figjam, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Forms., Trello, Excel, Powerpoint.
Timeline
Empathize
We received survey results for 27 travelers and interviewed 5 potential users.
70%
of users make some kind of budget while traveling
while only
62%
of users stick to the budget
78%
of users make an itinerary
while
83%
of users stick to an itinerary
Affinity Diagram
User Persona
Analyze
After sorting throguh our data we gathered we were then able to start analyzing the information. This allowed us to gain more insight on the users and find the main key points that users need to have when budgeting and planning for a vacation.
Users need a place to store their budget and itineray so that they are in once space.
Users need to have a way to keep a closer eye on their budget.
Travelers tend to overspend once arriving at their destination due to not having a quick and easy space to keep tabs on their budget.
Users would benefit from having the amount deduct automatically from their budget as things are entered into the itinerary
Priority Matrix
Define
Adults in their early 30’s, like Nicky, who are looking to budget and plan an itinerary for travel, need an app that has both of these features, because these tend to be in different places, this can cause users to go over budget unexpectedly.
User Insight:
Many travelers have difficulty effectively managing their expenses and plan their itineraries while on trips. This leads to overspending, being disorganized and missing out on opportunities. Existing methods lack the ability to do both budgeting and itinerary planning. As a result, there is a need for a user-friendly app that combines budget management and itinerary planning to help travelers maximize their experiences while staying within their desired budget.
Problem Statement:
People who are looking to create a budget while traveling are more likely to stay within that budget if they have both their budget and itinerary all within one app.
Hypothesis:
Ideate
Competitor Analysis Findings:
Navigation bars at the bottom for optimal space
Allows you to keep track of spending and balances together
Saving goals within the app
Easy add process
Easy to use interfaces
Storyboarding:
The Drawing Board:
During this stage we each took the time to draw out a flow for our vision of the app. During this process we realized we had a very similar vision!
Task Flow:
After drawing we then were able to flesh out a true task flow.
Wire-Frames:
After coming up with a task flow and talking over our drawings we were able to collectively create our wireframes which allowed us to conduct user testing.
Prototyping
After preforming some user testing we learned:
95% of users were able to complete the task flow.
Our itinerary was not an itinerary and was a list.
20% of users were unsure if homepage words were clickable.
40% of users had trouble reading certain font.
We also realized out “itinerary” was more of a list and not itinerary.
This information allowed us to make some adjustments and then add create a style guide.
Style guide
Clickable Prototype
Final Thoughts
Throughout the creation of this app we quickly learned that this issue was a pain point for many travelers. Our app will be able to keep traveler’s itinerary and budget in one location while ensuring they are able to stay within their budget without the uncertainty of how much they are truly spending.
Key takeaways:
Users feel that they have control over how planned out their trip was and were able to keep better track of their itinerary
Users feel much more confident of their budget and how much was remaining as they added things to their itinerary.
Users felt they would be able to relax better on vacation due to this app
Further Development
Also a savings app that users would get a debit card to ensure they only spend from their travel budget
Users would get options for pre-planned vacation options to select
Have a selection of vacations and rough estimate cost so that users had an idea of the amoutn to budget for certain trips
Social Aspect: trips planned within the app could be shared with friends/family