The Problem

Travel Planning Frustrations

Travel planning is often begins as a messy, non-linear process, involving dozens of different sites (eg. YouTube, blogs, links from friends, Google) for inspiration and information before transitioning into creating an organized itinerary. 

I asked myself several prompts that helped guide me in my research to better understanding the user, their journey and their painpoints.

Looking at Google

Google provides many different useful services when considering the different stages of a traveller's journey, but falls short when assisting users during the planning stages of their journey.

Expanding on the “Planning” Stage

I delved deeper into the stages that Google identified, and further defined two mini-stages within the bigger “Planning” moment - Initial and Final.

The initial planning phase is where ideas get brought up, thrown around, and dismissed. This occurs at the very beginning, where each individual participating in the trip has an idea and opinion of what they would like to do, potentially lasting several months depending on the individual / party.

The final planning phase takes information from the initial phase, and finalizing a plan for the trip, including planning areas to visit, dismissing destinations and activities,or even bringing up new ideas that may have been missed previously.

Final Design

Google Trips - My Itinerary

Google Trips - My Itinerary links the two phases of planning into one streamlined ecosystem, providing users that research destination landmarks through a variety of mediums (Google Search, links from friends, Youtube) with a platform that not only saves information searched for a later date, but also facilitates the creation to eventually create the perfect itinerary.

Thinking of Entry Points

I looked at the different ways users could come into use that app, and illustrated two ways below: from the browser of choice, and within Google Trips itself.

Adding Destinations

Adding research into your itinerary should be as seamless and intuitive as possible, not only from outside sources, but also from within the existing app.

A Personalized Suggestions Feed

With personalized suggestion feeds generated by A.I playing a large part in improving the overall experience of planning ones trip. By catering to each persons needs differently depending on their current progress, the suggestions page promotes positivity and helpfulness, as opposed to having users sort through hundreds of options that they may not be interested in.

Different Views and Facilitating Customization

By providing an over-arching view of their day, travellers are able to better plan and visualize the most efficient way to travel. Looking at Google Drive's interaction to intuitively move and delete files, I decided to mimic that specific experience, while highlighting what I believe to be the primary action - shifting destinations to another date - in red.

Design process

Initial Findings

During my initial research, asking peers and family members on how they plan for trips, responses varied from planning the day before, looking at youtube videos, or sending links to friends on WhatsApp.

Designing For My Audience

With so many personalities there are bound to be differences in the approach of planning a trip. I have categorized the two ends of the spectrum encompassing a traveller: the spontaneous and the meticulous traveller.

Wireframing

Drawing out wireframes allowed me to gain a better understanding of iterating towards utilizing the design elements from existing Google products, and visualize the UI design workflow.

Designing For Google and Other Inspirations

The overall design language and empathy were inspired from not only Google Trips, but also other Google applications, and was the primary drivers in determining colour palette, copywriting, and interactive elements.

I also looked at project management platforms such as Trello and Asana, as well as existing travel planners in Inspirock and TripHobo for insight into information hierarchy and layout.

Reflections

Going on vacation can often by nerve-wracking, with lots of money on the line should something go wrong. As a result, I looked into my own experience, the troubles I personally have faced, worked my way from there. Overall, this project helped my grow as a user experience designer because it not only helped me identify core problems in my own understanding of user experience, but also improve my workflow and efficiency.

There were many routes I could have taken when tackling this issue, and feedback regarding my designs consisted of inquiries such as, "How would multiple users interact with the same itinerary?" As a result, if I were to take on this project again, more user testing would be key in improvements, not only for the final design and its features, but perhaps it would result a different idea all together.