End-to-end mobile app design for solo travelers
Travelparty is a mobile app designed with solo travelers in mind. As solo traveling increases in popularity, Travelparty is the platform where solo travelers can connect with others by joining or planning hangouts in the place they are traveling to.
Design an end-to-end mobile application
UX Researcher
UX Designer
UI Designer
Figma
8 weeks
(Mar - Apr 2023)
Solo traveling can be daunting as you explore and get around in a new city by yourself.
Design an app where solo travelers can meet other travelers or locals in their travel destination
In order to identify any problems, I had to do research on solo travelers and what was out on the market to help this demographic. First, I chose to do market research to see if helping solo travelers was a marketable idea. Second, I did competitive analysis to see what was already out in the market. Third, I conducted user interviews to understand the needs and pain points of solo travelers.
I conducted competitive research to gain insights into the features and solutions designed by competitors. There were several apps and websites made for solo travelers, but some of these apps no longer exist or only function as a website. So it was easy to identify four direct and indirect competitors to look at.
After analyzing each competitor, I had a better understanding of what features to offer and what could give the mobile app the upper hand in the market.
Travello is probably the closest app out in the market to the idea I had. It is a social platform for travel lovers. You can share pics and videos, match with other users who have the same travel dates as you, and book tours and activties on the app. However, this app is kind of all over the place and users have to directly reach out to other users rather than having an organic way of meeting others.
Gaffl focused on the problem of finding travel buddies to share costs and experiences with. So if you saw someone with a travel plan that you wanted to join, you could message them. The problem with this is that you may not necessarily want to travel with someone an entire trip, and you may not necessarily need to share travel costs with someone else. So this isn't necessarily solo traveling since you'll be partnering up with someone the entire trip.
Hostelworld was a really great competitor to look at because they had features they were soon bringing to their app that would be great on solo travel apps. However, this one was very specific to users that book hostels, which may not be the accommodation preference of some solo travelers.
Couchsurfing was also another great app to look at, but a big disadvantage about this app was that you had to pay in order to see anything on the app. So this app probably deters a lot of frugal users like me.
To prepare for interviews, I put together an interview guide with open-ended questions. I got to interview five people who had gone on solo travels before. I put everything said by each interviewee onto post its to find some themes.
Some key findings I discovered from the interviews:
How might we make it easy and organic for solo travelers to connect with others on their solo trip?
There are many different kinds of solo travelers, but I created two personas to refer to throughout this project based on the user interviews I conducted. One persona embodies solo travelers who seek to do what locals do and may be a little more shy in meeting others. The second persona is of a solo traveler who goes with the flow as they travel and truly enjoys the company of many.
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I made a sitemap to organize how each page would be laid out on the app. This was updated after the usability testing because I realized it was important to add a feature where users can explore what they can do in a city and then easily turn it into a hangout within the app.
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I mapped out the user flow to know exactly what users would go through as they go through the app. I had to update this user flow after a round of usability tests to include the explore page, where users can view different things to do in a city.
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There are many things I have to design for the app, but I focused on these three flows for this project.
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I sketched out each page for each flow because these flows have a lot of steps required. I made sure to think about what information the user needs to input when planning a hangout. Also, I paid particular attention to what information a user would need to see during onboarding and when joining a hangout.
Using Figma, I translated my first sketches into mid-fidelity wireframes. I made the mid-fidelity wireframes without heavily considering the UI but focusing more on the contents of each page. I made sure to get feedback on the mid-fidelity wireframes from design peers to see if the flow made sense before moving onto hi-fidelity wireframes.
In order to build out the hi-fidelity wireframes, I needed to design the brand. I brainstormed some names and sketched logo ideas. However, I noticed my ideas were all over the place, so I did another brainstorm session based on four brand values (playful, modern, simple, approachable). Travelparty became the app name, and the logo follows the simple and approachable values that may last through app changes and growth.
After branding, I worked on the UI component library to help me stay organized. I updated this as I made changes to the UI.
I created a fully-functional, high-fidelity prototype on Figma. I recruited five participants for the test who have all gone solo traveling before. After doing one round of usability tests, I organized what changes needed to be made immediately and what could be changed later on.
40% of participants said that the flow for setting up your profile and planning a hangout were too long although the flows were straightforward. So I shortened each flow by removing some steps. Setting up your profile went from 5 steps to 2 steps. Adding a profile picture, creating a username, and adding a trip was removed, and now users can just edit their profile once they reach the profile page and are more invested in the app. Planning a hangout went from 8 steps to 6 steps. Selecting hangout photos and adding a description was removed from the flow, and now users can edit photos and add a description at the review page right before posting a hangout.
This is understandable because location is personal information. So instead of having to put in trip information, users can now just search hangouts in any city by typing it in the search bar.
So now users will receive a notification saying that they have joined the hangout, and instead of automatically being shown the hangout chatroom, users can click on the tertiary link to go to the hangout group chat or see it later in their messages.
Also, save hangout and share hangout buttons were added so users do not have to join a hangout right away when they see one.
Note some UI Changes:
The date was not easily seen before, so it was moved off the photo area to below the photo.
After doing usability tests, I realized when users plan a hangout, it would come from research the user has done outside of the app. To make the app a more delightful experience for travelers, users should be able to explore the different things they can do in a city within the app, which led to creating the explore page.
The previous explore button was a page to view all the media content posted by other users, but now that stuff will go under the posts page.
Notifications will now go under the messages page.
Users can quickly make an account and edit their profile
to their liking.
Meet others who want to do the same activity as you
when you travel.
Go from solo adventures to adventures with new
friends.
