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A travel planning app that helps users stay organized and stress-free while planning a trip. Vagari wants to allow users to spend more time enjoying travelling.
PROBLEM
People are faced with overwhelming frustrations surrounding their budget, flight details, and the overall organizational structure that comes along with the task of planning a trip.
SOLUTION
Vagari is a travel planning app that helps users streamline their plans with reliable checklists, budgeting systems, group sharing options and more in order to keep the user moving forward with comfort and ease.
The Design Process
Define + Empathize
Research + Analyze
Design + Testing
Iterations + Prototype
DEFINE + EMPATHIZE
The distress caused by a world-wide pandemic made people feel as though traveling would be near impossible. Although it seems we have reached a plateau with the pandemic, it is apparent that planning a trip is now more of an overwhelming task.
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The goal of Vagari is to help streamline the user’s individual travel plans in order to grant them more time to enjoy the bulk of their trip. I started with a simple proto-persona to get to know our user.
Five user interviews were planned and conducted within a span of two days in order to obtain a range of qualitative data. The goal was to obtain information centered around how people go about planning for their trips and the hardships that they tend to face.
Two interviewees had similar responses; however, one focused on planning ahead for the “just-in-case” situations while the other focused on budgeting.
Here were there responses:
Just In Case
“It’s important for me to put extra time in the front and back-end of trips so that I can have a little more time to be extra prepared for those “just-in-case” situations.”
- June (age 38)
Budget-Minded
“Looking on things like Groupon and finding hotels with the best deals is really helpful with expenses and staying in budget.”
- Jasmine (age 41)
RESEARCH + ANALYZE
After completing the five interviews, it was discovered that the major pain points were caused by the expensive nature of travel in modern society. Having to keep track of pertinent details in planning while trying to plan around the schedules and needs of others were some additional frustrations felt.
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In an effort to continue analyzing the research that was started, I created an affinity diagram in order to better organize the data gathered so far. I, then, created a user persona and insight in order to have even more of a solid foundation.
*click image to zoom
Jennifer, who is a career-driven Content Strategist based in Denver, needs help creating a dependable checklist and budget for an upcoming trip because she feels overwhelmed from work and finds it difficult to stay organized while making travel plans.
Competitor Analysis
Now that I have a solid user, I know who she is, why she is, and where she works. At this point, I wanted to shift the focus slightly more on potential app competitors and what they're about.
Tripadvisor
Wanderlog
Bill Splitting Option
AI Itinerary Feature
Offline Access
Custom Planning Tool
Hopper
Southwest
Price Freezing Option
Car Rental Options
Live Chat Support
In-App Lyft Connection
I was also able to experience the onboarding process for the two direct competitors that I analyzed. Both are travel planning/booking apps that portray different processes for onboarding users.
*click images to zoom
Value Proposition
In order to visualize potential features for the Vagari app, a value proposition canvas diagram was created. Once this was completed, I was able to circle back to focusing on our user and create her journey through storyboard design.
Value Proposition Statement
Vagari is a travel planning app that helps users streamline their plans with reliable checklists, budgeting systems, group sharing options and more in order to keep the user moving forward with comfort and ease.
Jennifer needs a break from work. She agrees to join her 3 good friends for a Girls’ Trip to Miami Beach for a 4-day vacation!
Jennifer is pretty stressed out because she’s not good with making travel plans, especially in a group. Just the thought of needing to plan is overwhelming.
After work, Jennifer meets her three friends at a local cafe so they can all start brainstorming ideas for their upcoming trip. Jennifer expresses her planning and budget concerns.
One of her friends recommends the Vagari app to help Jennifer with planning. The friend mentions to the girls how Vagari can even help them connect, share, and plan ideas together.
Jennifer downloads Vagari and is blown away by how easy it is to get started. She loves that she can get help creating her budget privately while sharing ideas publicly with her friends.
Jennifer is able calm her nerves knowing she can now rely on Vagari to help her through this planning process. “Now we can focus on the fun parts”, Jennifer exclaims, “...like FOOD!”
DESIGN + TESTING
Finding A Flow
With the completion of our main research and analysis, I was able to hone in on our user’s main goals and prioritize specific features.
Low-Fidelity
Wireframe Sketches
Mid-Fidelity
Digital Wireframes
ITERATIONS + PROTOTYPE
Preparing for iterations to come, I chose the method of conducting a Guerrilla User Test to determine how efficiently users were able to navigate and interact with the Vagari prototype.
By having random participants testing this prototype, I was able to gather a range of feedback on its functionality and effectiveness. The results of the test were able to provide a better scope of what would need improvements, what should be kept as is, and what areas of the app can be removed if applicable.
I organized the results gathered from the user testing into categories as well as a 2X2 Matrix.
In utilizing both of these methods, I was able to clearly see what parts of the app worked well, what could use more iteration, and the overall user thoughts on navigation through onboarding on the travel planning app.
After the necessary testing was concluded and feedback was taken into account, I was able to reach a final high-fidelity design and prototype for Vagari.
FINAL THOUGHTS
There is so much more that goes into creating just one mobile app than I initially thought. With this being my first user experience case study, it remains one of my proudest works because I learned so much. The mistakes made along the way were the most important part of the experience so that I know what to avoid in the future and how to continue to grow as a designer.
Make Way for Failures
Mistakes definitely happened along the way. This was, indeed, a journey, so trying to perfect every little aspect of the project would just take up valuable time. Learning a whole new realm of design was half the battle so I really had to remember to give myself grace. Mistakes make for even better iteration so I’m learning to embrace it!
The Limit Does Not Exist for User Research
There are so many moving parts to user research. At times, it felt like creating all the diagrams, maps, and graphs took time away when, really, it helped to gather valuable data to aid more in a solid end-result. The research is what led me to the answers that I couldn’t have landed on on my own. If not for the research, there would be more time spent on cleaning up mistakes than anything else.
Pay Attention to Detail but also The Big Picture
Remembering the “WHY” is an important aspect of this case study. While I wanted to focus so much on the minute details, I really had to keep in mind the main objective in order to stay focused on the reason why I am creating this app and who my users are.