Project Overview
Timeline
Role
Advisors
Tools
This is an independent project for my Capstone project at Maryland Institute College of Art. As the sole designer, my key responsibilities include:
Conducted user research to develop deep understanding of the user's needs, behaviors, and pain points.
Conducted market research to identify service gaps and opportunities.
Created wireframes and high-fidelity prototypes to visualize the product's concept, layout, and user flow.
Conducted usability test to identify usability issues and areas for improvement.
Collaborated with engineering consultants to validate technical feasibility.
Own and manage the project roadmap to ensure on-time delivery.
This project was sparked by my personal experience of arranging an international trip for my aging parents, who reside in China and haven't traveled abroad since 2020. Earlier this year, I invited them to visit me in San Francisco. While my parents were very excited about our upcoming reunion, they have also expressed some concerns. Through our conversations, I learned that they feel easily overwhelmed by tasks require research and decision-making due to aging. I reassured them not to worry and I would handle all the details for them. The relief that spread across their faces was unforgettable, because at that moment, I realized my parents are getting old.
Aging is a natural process, therefore it is easy to overlook how senior adults struggle with information overload during travel planning due due to their lessened thinking, memory, and concentration capabilities. With this project, I want to make travel accessible for individuals of all ages and levels of digital literacy, and empower them to explore the world with confidence and the least amount of friction possible.
Discover the Problem Space
I adopted a comprehensive research strategy to unfold this issue from both the user and business perspectives. Through online surveys and user interviews, I gained firsthand insights into the travelers' preferences, expectations, and frustrations. Through market research, I examined existing solutions, pinpointed their strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for TravoAI to innovate. This dual approach allowed me to gather actionable insights and shape TravoAI to not only meet the needs of my users, but also differentiate itself in today's crowded tech market.
Quantitative data is based on 118 qualified responses from participants over 18 years old, who has planned at least one trip during the past year. Respondents are between 18-44 years old, who typically travel 2 to 4 times each year and engage with a wide range of travel contents across different platforms. Tasks related to logistics and financial commitment, such as booking flights, are more stressful than the more flexible and creative aspects of trip planning, such as deciding daily activities.
There is also a clear indication that digital devices are the predominant tools for trip planning, with a nearly even split between computer and smartphones usage, followed by tablets. This discovery highlights the need for a cross-platform solution that is both mobile-friendly and optimized for large screen devices.
Travel frequency
96% travel 2-4 times per year
2% travel once per year
2% travel 5+ times per year
Traveler type
45% are vacationers
28% are digital nomads
26% are backpackers
Travel group size
50% travel in small groups (2-5)
28% travel alone
22% travel in large groups (6+)
Source of travel content
Online travel agencies (OTAs)
Search engines
Social media
Stress inducing tasks
Securing flights /lodging
Deciding location transportation
Managing budget
Primary planning device
37% desktop/laptop
35% smartphone
25% tablet
To enrich the data gathered from my online survey and bridge the gap in understanding the 45+ age group, I interviewed 5 participants from 28 to 66 years old to gather qualitative insights on their trip planning behaviors and the challenges they face throughout the journey.
— Jonathan, 57
Based on our conversations, several key themes came to light regarding the challenges participants faced while planning their trips.
Starting point
Not every traveler can answer the "Where to?" question
Most participants begin planning their trips without a specific destination in mind, relying heavily on research and inspiration to guide their decisions. However, many major Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) and itinerary planning tools require a predetermined destination to initiate the planning process. As a result, users often turn to third-party resources to explore travel content.
Stress trigger
Travel booking is the most "painful" stage
In the early stages of planning, research is more spread out and relaxed. However, as participants approach the date of booking, they experience a significant increase in both travel content consumption as well as their stress level due to the amount of decision-making involved.
Duration
Scout the internet for hours to build the perfect itinerary
Most participants start trip research 6 to 12 months in advance to secure the best deals on flights, lodging, and activities. On average, they spend over 10 hours on travel content prior to booking a trip and dedicate an additional 2 to 5 hours to creating a detailed itinerary.
Conducting both qualitative and quantitative research allowed me to capture a wide spectrum of insights on the things users value the most when they interact with travel planning products.
Efficiency
Users are overwhelmed by managing travel content across platforms and appreciate a centralized tool that streamlines destination recommendations, route planning, booking, budgeting and more.
Personalization
The diversity in travel styles highlights the importance of integrating personalized travel content, particularly allowing flexible output and granular customization to meet specific user needs.
User-generated content
There is a clear desire for travel contents considered trustworthy, whether through personal connections or social media platforms with rich user-generated contents.
Collaboration
Majority of users travel in groups, therefore it is important to allow collaboration between travel group members.
Ease of use
An intuitive interface is crucial to ensure a positive experience for users across all ages and digital competencies.
By integrating personal narratives and statistical trends, I developed two user personas that capture the distinct travel planning styles and motivations as identified in my research. I positioned these personas within their respective journey maps to provide a holistic view of their experiences, key touchpoints and feelings at each phase of travel planning. This method allowed me to identify the dull moments of their user journeys and discover opportunities for improvement.
Meet Eric
An adventurous young professional looking for travel ideas to inspire his next vacation. Eric is motivated to travel because it is a channel for him to relax and build new experiences with family.
Meet Mary
A retired traveler who needs to plan a trip to a known destination. Her motivation to travel has changed over age and she finds joy in returning to familiar places to retrieve old memories.
I centered my market research around evaluating key competitors' ability to meet user values identified through user research. This method allowed me to know my competitors' strengths and weaknesses, and identify service gaps to foster innovative problem-solving.
Break Down the Problem
The ideation phase was a crucial step in transforming initial concepts into actionable solutions. Starting with a brainstorming session, I further broke down the HWM and generated a diverse range of possible ideas to address the core challenges identified in my research. To systematically evaluate and prioritize these ideas, I employed the Kano Model so I can focus on the most impactful solutions when designing the minimum viable product.
How might we help travelers to automate travel research?
How might we empower travelers and make them feel more confident about traveling?
How might we make collaboration easy between travelers?
To avoid biased design decisions and ensure that TravoAI prioritizes feature that aligns with user needs, I implemented a Kano analysis during the ideation phase. By identifying Basic, Performance, and Delighter features, I was able to strategically focus on those that not only meet basic user expectations but also provide an exceptional experience to differentiate our MVP from its competitors. The following analysis was based on feedback from 5 participants.
Create account
Although an account is not required to use TravoAI, I want to offer interested users a more personalized travel planning experience as well as the option to save their work for future access. This simple 3-step approach not only reduces friction during sign-up but also paves the way for a tailored trip planning journey.
Itinerary Generator
The automation and continuous learning capabilities of AI systems allow users to scale processes efficiently and easily. However, AI is limited in its ability to understand context and predict specific user actions, requiring human intervention for optimal performance. Therefore, the goal of AI should be to enhance experiences, not replace them. With TravoAI, users can further customize AI-generated content to match their preferences and invite collaborators (co-travelers) to create their dream trip together.
Travel Booking
Once travelers have narrowed down their trip options, the next challenge they face is booking accommodations, flights, and activities. TravoAI streamlines this process by analyzing user preferences and travel plans to suggest the most suitable options that align with their itinerary and budget, allowing travelers to shop their upcoming journey with minimal friction. Additionally, users can import reservations booked through other platforms, using TravoAI as a centralized hub for storing and managing all their travel booking confirmations.
Explore Trips
User research revealed that most participants begin planning their vacations without a specific destination in mind, relying heavily on social media and word-of-mouth recommendations to guide their decisions. To address this need, explore trips feature allows travelers to discover trending destinations and easily adopt another user's itinerary to reduce research effort.
Reflection
Thoughtful survey answers are critical for good data
From synthesizing online survey results, I've learned that thoughtfully crafted answers are critical for gathering high-quality data. Specifically, when survey responses cover too broad a range, they can significantly dilute the specificity and usefulness of the data collected. This lack of granularity can obscure vital insights into the respondents' true experiences and opinions. To avoid this, it's crucial to design survey answers that are specific enough to capture detailed and actionable data, ensuring that each response can effectively contribute to a precise analysis.
Next Steps
Improve budgeting feature
Based on user feedback, TravoAI's current budgeting tool effectively tracks spending in three specific categories: flights, lodging, and tickets for activities. However, users have expressed a need for a more comprehensive financial tracking system that covers all aspects of their travel expenses. Moving forward, my focus will be on refining the budgeting tool to enable users to track or log all of their travel-related expenses.
Create custom GPT for travel planning
AI language models like ChatGPT are proficient at creating geographically and thematically cohesive travel plans, but how might we make the human-AI interaction feel more natural and less robotic? To address this challenge, I believe training a custom GPT for TravoAI is essential to enhance conversational capabilities and deliver a more human-like travel planning experience for it's potential users.