ClanPlans :
A Travel Booking App
The Problem
Design a feature for a travel booking app that allows the users to communicate among themselves so that they can plan and share ideas for the vacation in a much more fun and interactive way.
Why this problem statement?
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From picking the destination to declaring your availability, travel-related users are yearning for a more transparent and collective approach to the group-trip planning process.
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Finding common ground can often be a tricky endeavor.
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When it comes to planning with a group of friends, initially it’s difficult to even convince them for a vacation together. People drop out towards the end as there’s no incentive or a lack of interest in planning the vacation (let’s face it, planning a boring task for some users).
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In the later stages, voila, even if you decide to go for it, it’s difficult to find a common destination (considering budget restraints) and a common availability date/week (considering work commitments).
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Hence, to save time and streamline the “planning a mutual vacation” together process, we chose this problem statement and decided to dive deeper into it!
Who are we solving the problem for?
We are solving this problem for a “group of friends”. These groups can be of varying age groups and inclined towards various travel itinerary interests. For example 18-23-year-olds, male + female group of friends planning a week-long local trekking vacation. Or, 26-28-year-old working people planning a quick weekend getaway.
Team
4 People
(for a hackathon competition)
My Role
Primary research,
empathy mapping,
user flow,
Wireframes,
User interface design
Goal
to design an easy and efficient way to organize trips and reach a consensus on travel-related problems, amongst a group of friends.
Prototype
All Videos
The Solution
1. A Virtual Pact
Hypothesis : People drop out from the group during the planning stage or towards the end as there’s no incentive or a lack of interest in planning the vacation.
Problem : Given the lack of a fun collaborative platform where you can plan stuff together, people tend to loose interest overtime. Also, a lack of prompts while leaving the group and motivation to join back back again, causes users to leave the group easily.
Solution : Create a virtual pact!
Ideating and Wireframing : When an active planner creates a group on the platform, he has to decide a pact applicable to everyone. Once the user joins the group, he has to stay and contribute in the planning to keep the pact together. But, if the user decides to leave the group, the pact will be considered as broken. The user then has to abide by the mutually agreed upon punishment. Also, the user will be prompted by a dramatic leaving the group animation to make him think again about his decision of leaving.
UI Design : When a member joins the group, he is greeted with a person holding another person's animation, which is a cute motivational gif to gear you up for planning your trip. The pact is now applicable to you. If you decide to leave the group, you will be greeted by a dramatic hand leaving animation which will prompt you to not break the pact and leave the group eventually.
2. A Money Tracker
Hypothesis : Travelling with friends requires us to track the money expenditure and plan the budget accordingly.
Problem : While travelling with a group of friends, it is difficult to keep a track of your expenses, especially who is spending how much. This causes confusion post-trip and gives rise to arguments over budget splitting.
Solution : A money tracker to track your expenses!
Ideating and Wireframing : This money tracker helps you to add your group budget at the beginning of your trip and track your expenditure on the basis of : category and group member. Once you add the budget in the tracker, a reverse countdown will begin as you start adding expenses along your trip. You can choose to add the amount, date, category and name of the person spending the money.
UI Design : A money tracker where you can see expense data analysis in the form of graphs. You can choose to view daily, weekly or even a month-long expenditure data, while on your vacation. With an in-built calculator and graphs mechanism, after adding the expenses along the trip, you can forget about the arguments caused due to not maintaining an expense record.
3. In app-messaging Platform
Hypothesis : An active planner needs to know everyone’s availability and interests regarding vacation duration and preferred destinations, to coordinate with others and take a follow up for various bookings.
Problem : Due to a lack of a common platform to share details about destinations and accommodation details, people loose interest after a while and stop contributing in the planning. Screenshots and multiple links are shared across various platforms which makes it difficult for the planner to reach a consensus amongst the group of people.
Solution : An in-app messaging platform with a poll feature!
Ideating and Wireframing : The in-app messaging platform let's users to discuss and plan on the travel booking app itself, with an option of video/audio calling. Polls can be created to speed up the decision making and have fun interaction on the platform.
UI Design : The hamburger menu provides access to a common packing checklist, which is a god sent help for fussy packers who tend to forget things. It also directs you to the money tracker and the common travel itinerary checkpoints list. You can also create fun polls to compare and decide a destination.
4. A Virtual Travel Itinerary with Checkpoints
Hypothesis : People navigating a local area tend to have notes and location details written on various notepads which creates a confusion while figuring out the best route possible, in an unknown place.
Problem : Due to a lack of in-app creation of a checklist, it is difficult to keep a track of your itineraries. While navigating through a local place, it's difficult to keep a track of all your checkpoints, the distances between them and figure out the best route possible. This causes a delay in the trip.
Ideating and wireframing : While browsing through different destinations and hotel locations, you can add it to your travel itinerary directly by clicking on the checkpoint icon. A travel itinerary list will be created which can be accessed via the in-app messaging hamburger menu. You can choose to either add/delete more places in the list or even find the best route possible covering all your checkpoints. Save time, explore more places!
UI Design : Navigating in a local area has never been easier, a travel itinerary list can be converted into a route map by selecting your checkpoints, adding your location and destination, and clicking on the View map button. Sit back and relax, the map will sort out the best route possible for you!
5. Explore With A Travel Community
Hypothesis : People are usually not aware of all offerings provided by a tourist destination. They might end up skipping a good unexplored place just because the reviews are not available for the same.
Problem : Unknown locations always mean – no reviews available. How to explore these places on a single platform and add them to your itinerary? How to know the local delicacies and try them out before it’s too late? How can we provide exposure to frequent travelers and engage them with our application?
Solution : Curate an explore tab with a travel community!
Ideating and Wireframing : An explore tab shows curates and shows you the best memories created by people on their travels. It also displays nearby places as recommendations with distance stated below it, this will help the user plan out their itinerary, while not needing to browse through multiple websites on separate platforms.
UI Design : Once you search for a destination or a hotel accommodation, click on the explore button to see people who’ve visited the exact place some time ago. Explore stories posted by travel influencers and add them to your itinerary. Yes, that retro restaurant by the beach you saw on our travel stories, it might just turn out to be the next item on your itinerary!
Wireframes
User Flow
User Interviews
User 1
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Wants to know about exclusive places to visit and not the common ones which are usually crowded.
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Wants a place to share thoughts and memories collected throughout the trip.
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Wants cab booking services integrated in the app itself.
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Wants a voice calling/ video calling feature with the in-app messaging feature.
User 2
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Needs a common checklist for everyone to follow so that it does not cause delay in the trip.
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Needs to streamline the budget planning and money expenditure process.
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Does not like asking people when are they free, needs to know their availability dates beforehand.
User 3
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Show the nearest restaurants and destinations ( along with distance ) along the route decided upon as per the travel itinerary. (A map like treasure hunt maybe?)
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Need in-app messaging and one platform where all the details regarding accommodation, eateries and local attractions can be shared with proper reviews.
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Needs a paying option integrated with the budget tracker itself.
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Prefers a private piggy bank for herself and to track her expenditure.
User 4
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Wants to figure out nearby places to local attractions and the distance between them to plan their itinerary better.
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Wants no miscommunication between hotel managers and himself as far as accommodation bookings are concerned.
Breaking down the process
Empathy Mapping
User Personas
Ideation
The HMW Framework
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How might we make sure that people don’t drop out of the planning process and stay till the booking date?
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How might we help the planner figure out the most recommended places in close proximity to each other for sightseeing on a single day?
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How might we save time by showing users their checkpoints according to their travel itinerary and help them find the best route possible?
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How might we help the group track their collective / personal expenses during the trip in a better way?
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How might we streamline the process of sharing information about accommodation, restaurants, sightseeing with other group members? How might we make the users trust the accommodation details given on the application as far as COVID-19 guidelines are concerned?
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How might we make sure the passive planner benefits from the extensive planning of an active planner?
Pre-planning stage :
People tend to drop out from the plan if they have no incentive to stay there. There lacks a virtual motivation to stay throughout the process.
Planning stage :
Sharing information across sites is a tedious task and people have to take follow up on every single accommodation / destination shared from every person in the group. Communication gap causes people to loose interest overtime.
Post-planning stage :
Managing money and the activities during a vacation is a bit overwhelming for a group of people because they all have limited time for vacation, with budget constraints.
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The Pact feature can be incentivized by the application. The people who complete their pact and upload a memory in the Explore tab can be awarded coins or coupons redeemable on the platform itself.
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The money tracker feature can be further improvised by adding a money splitter option and letting people pay from the app itself. This will reduce the time of manually adding every expense along your trip.
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The checkpoints map can be streamlined by letting people see popular local attractions along their route. This would be a fun element for young travelers who believe in spontaneous plans and don’t usually follow the itinerary.
Future Scope
Conclusion
In the final product , we've introduced various new features which includes a better navigation system and an in app messaging feature for planning the user's itinerary efficiently.
The new features will result in making the users simplify their Itinerary making process graciously. Help them search and share everything on one platform without having to do the hassle of jumping from links to links. Addition of money tracker function will help avoid other unnecessary confusions and mistakes. This will also impact the stakeholders as users will start using the app for more time.
All of us learnt the lesson that " teamwork makes the dream work."