Travogroup: Making group travel planning easier
Project type
Group project
Role
Product Designer, UX researcher, Project Manager
I was the PM of this project. I kept everyone on track and led our group meetings. All 5 of us contributed to the research and design of this project.
Methods
Contextual Interview, Speed Dating, Usability Testing, Think Aloud, Survey, Directed Storytelling, Affinity Clustering, Prototyping
Timeline
3 months (2022 Fall)
Tools
Figma, Miro
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
People currently use many different tools while travel planning. Consequently, it can be difficult to keep track of all of the conversations, ideas, and decisions that have been made. For group trips in particular, it becomes especially important to make sure that everyone is in agreement and is involved in planning. We wanted to find out ways in which groups could better plan their travels so that everyone’s ideas could be considered while still making the planning process efficient.
Our solution is a desktop application to organize group travelers' plans in a more efficient and purposeful way. This tool can facilitate voting sessions, arrange finance exchanges, and even organize which members want to attend different events that occur at the same time, something we’ve coined as a “Group Divide”. These specific features that are focused on travel planning make it easier for group members to collaborate and plan the perfect group trip!
PROBLEM
How might we reframe current ways to plan group travel to accommodate for group dynamics and individual wants & needs?
CONTEXTUAL INTERVIEW
METHODS
We interviewed 5 individuals between the ages of 22 and 25 via Zoom. They have all experienced trip planning with groups before (group size larger than 3, not family trips).
We began with directed storytelling and asked some icebreaker questions about their most recent group trip. We then followed up with several questions to dig into more details. We also did a card sorting activity to dive deeper into previous priorities and future directions to improve group travel. We asked them to share their screen and think-aloud while doing this activity to get more insights about their experience and perspective.
Link to our complete research guide
GOALS
Our goals were to understand how people plan for group travels; how they decide to collaborate and organize amongst themselves; and how people navigate possible challenges while planning in groups.
Link to our interview transcripts & notes
KEY EVIDENCE
Unification
“I think that this app that puts all of these
various functionalities (such as polls, planning, payment etc.) under one umbrella would be extremely useful.”
Inclusivity
“We have to make sure everyone’s voice is heard.”
“Budget was probably the hardest thing to compromise on, so we usually just go with the majority preference.”
Organization
“We usually have a group chat with multiple links that are shared; it often gets difficult to track them while we plan the trip.”
Collaboration
“When you have an agreed-upon pre-planned itinerary, there is a much higher chance that the trip ends up being worth it”
SYNTHESIZING
Link to our interpretation notes from the interview
Link to our affinity clustering of our interpretation notes
Other than interpreting our interview notes, we also made an empathy map and a user journey map to further emphasize with group travelers.
Empathy map
User journey map
We then walked the wall to consolidate our research findings to generate insights, user needs and questions.
Link to walk the wall
INSIGHTS
01
Group travel plans experience more constraints when making decisions and finding reservations when group size increases.
02
For trip-planning tools, groups need at least 3 different types of tools: one for communication, one for organization, and one for finances.
03
Groups communicate asynchronously when making complex decisions that involve money and time.
04
Non-negotiables that everyone needs to find a common ground on are money, time, and destination logistics.
USER NEEDS
Users need varying levels of time to consider different aspects of travel planning
Users need a space to voice their opinions to reach group consensus
Users prefer to minimize the amount of tools they use to plan group travel
Users need to balance of activities and tasks that they do together and split up
QUESTIONS
Do users prefer separate tools to plan trips or a tool that combines everything?
How can users voice their opinions with confidence?
How to users reach a consensus when trip planning?
How do groups coordinate task-splitting when there are varying opinions?
SPEED DATING
After the Crazy 8s activity, we came up with 15 storyboards to validate our user needs.
Link to the storyboards
VALIDATED USER NEEDS
Our participants validated the need for an efficient method like polls to quickly make decisions related to travel planning. In particular, they valued anonymity as this would help all group members to state their opinions.
Rather than having to rely on multiple tools, our research findings validated the desire for a unified travel planning tool that combines aspects such as budget, organization, and messaging.
We validated that our participants would like to have a filter feature in their trip planning tools that allow them to view certain categories of information.
SURVEY
We then sent our a survey to reach the following goals. The survey responses further validated our user needs and design opportunities.
GOALS
To understand the planning dynamics and how involved travelers can/want to be with planning
To understand how much effort is invested on asynchronous vs synchronous planning
To understand which travel planning topics face the most constraints
To learn how a group reaches a consensus on non-negotiables, such as budget, accommodations, etc
To learn what people want and need in the tools they use for travel planning
SOLUTION
A desktop application designed to organize group travelers plans in a more efficient and purposeful way. Group travelers will be able to collaborate on wants and needs on their own time. Based on our findings, we understand that users might have certain limitations to things like finances, time constraints, and accommodation/transportation expectations, so our application aims to decrease the amount of conversation conflicts surrounding those conversations.
This tool can facilitate voting sessions, arrange finance exchanges, and even organize which members want to attend different events that occur at the same time, something we’ve coined as a “Group Divide”.
LOW-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
Link to low fidelity prototype
PROTOTYPE TESTING
We sent out a survey to test the usability of our prototype and got 10+ responses. We found that:
Most participants would like to use the app frequently.
Most participants would imagine that most people would learn to use this app very quickly.
Most participants found the various functions in this app were well integrated.
It is very likely that they will recommend this app.
Most participants found this app very clear.
We would also revise the following points based on the feedback:
Clarify language of Finances page (i.e., change “lent” to “paid”)
Improve transparency around where expenses are coming from (i.e., how much total cost was → how much each person owes)
Add feature that allows users to save links, ticketing, and reservation information
Reconsidering if the messaging/collaboration section would be useful
HIGH-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
POSTER
TAKEAWAYS
Always walk the wall. Consolidating previous work helps generate insights and derive solutions.
Parallel prototyping is critical. It helped us compare different design solutions and choose the best one.
Cultivating a positive team dynamic at the start. We established pre-mortem and it helped establish our team structure.
NEXT STEPS
Test the high-fidelity prototype with users.
Reiterate our design based on the user feedback.
Check if every iteration is accessible.