Wander Travel App

Project Description: Wander Travel app is a travel planning app that allows users to find, plan, and book their ideal trip while remaining within budget.

Team Members: Billy Ridore

Tools Used: InVision, Miro, and Figma.

Project Overview

The Problem: Planning a trip can be a stressful and a long process. Especially for those that work long hours and are stuck in the monotony of life. Checking prices for tickets, reservations, and lodging across multiple platforms can be tedious for those on limited time and patience.


The Solution: Wander allows users to search for flights, make reservations, and search for experiences  across various destinations.

Research

I conducted 5 one on one interviews with individuals that often travel. The goal for these interviews was to uncover the reasons as to why they travel, their planning process, and what factors come to play when it comes to travel planning. 
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I found that many users prioritized budgeting and activity planning.

A few key questions that the interviewees were asked are:
           - Why do you travel?
           - How often do you travel?
           - How long does it usually take to plan out your trip? 
           - What factors come to play when you plan your trips?

Some key insights that were derived from the interviews were:
           - I need better and flexible rates.
           - I travel to learn new things.
           - It takes me 3 - 6 months to plan a trip.

Following the user interviews, I would like a moment to introduce Jade Zhang.

User Persona

Jade is a 25-year-old barista that works at a popular boba café in her area.  On her off time, Jade is a freelance artist, with her specialty being people and characters.  Jade enjoys baking and hopes to open a café of her own in the future. Jade’s best friend is her younger sister and enjoys talking to her family whenever she gets the chance.

Jade eats out 3 – 4 times a week. Her favorite apps are Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, and Airbnb. Jade travels from work to her apartment in her white Toyota Corolla. Jade owns an iPhone 12 and it acts as her primary camera when updating her Instagram page. She uses Adobe Lightroom to edit her photos before posting online. She typically spends 30-45 minutes editing her photos

Goals

  • Plan more trips to different cities to try more foods

  • Spend more time with her mother that lives out of state to learn cultural dishes

  • Set aside some money to better budget for future trips.


Pain Points

  • Hard to find local “hole in the wall” spots in advance, cannot find those places until she is in the city.

  • Works long hours and her scheduled workdays vary, often times she cannot buy travel tickets in advance.

Storyboard

1. Jade runs a foodie social media page and notices her engagement is down. She wants to travel to reinvigorate her motivation and try new foodie spots out of state to update her page.

2. Jade’s friend mentions the new travel app, Wander, and jade downloads it. 

4. Jade finds a unique “sushi pizza” restaurant and selects it. After she picks it, she receives nearby lodging spots near the restaurant

3. Jade’s begins to search the app for different cities and nearby restaurants.

5. Jade completes her booking and is feels both happy and relaxed that her once stressful trip planning process is now simplified and complete.

Low-Fidelity Wireframe - Sketches

Onboarding

Activities

Selection

Checkout

User Testing

I complied the paper wireframes above into a lo-fidelity prototype and had a small group of users test it out so that I could gather a bit of insight and make further iterations. Key insights I received from testers are:

​- The signing up process seems easy enough to follow.
- The concept seems "cool"; this is something that I'd use while I travel.
- I don't really get what's going on.
- Straightforward, and gets to the point.

Final Prototype

Following the tests for the low fidelity version, I took the feedback a created a final Hi-Fidelity prototype; bypassing a mid-fidelity prototype due to time constraints at the time. 

With the final version of the prototype complete, I conducted 5 usability tests with new participants. The goal of the usability test was to obtain feedback on the app's interface. I also wanted to observe user's ease of use while navigating the app.

Key Findings that were obtained from the usability tests are

  • "This is really user friendly."

  • "I like the colors of this app."

  • " I would like to see some more navigation arrows, I was confused at times."

Summary

The vision behind wander is helps users find, plan, and book their ideal trip while maintaining their budget.With that being said, I conducted my research to see what is out there and what are some needs and areas of improvement for travelers. 

There are features that are currently included in the wander travel app that I am proud of. Allowing users not only search for affordable flights, but to select stays, dining, and or experiences. Testers found that feature extremely appealing and described the process as very straight forward.
However, with every up, there are downs. I want to improve on the budgeting aspect of wander. While the goal of the app is met in terms of simplifying the planning process, it does lack in the budgeting aspect. I would like to elaborate on budget in the future. Moving forward I will provide more attention to detail and research into my app design. Certain functions and options that are someone standard in other apps would be implemented on wander.
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Research and Design are both important and time consuming. There are no corners to cut; the work and effort shows with every design. I will continue to put in the effort and time in all aspects for future projects