Problem + Context
Planning daily travel itineraries can get chaotic. Travelers need an efficient way to plan their day-to-day itineraries to save time and evade stress while ensuring an enjoyable trip.
Solution
RouteWise helps you generate an optimized itinerary that groups the places you want to visit, allowing users to easily add the most popular sites, receive recommendations based on the user's preferences, and customize and edit itineraries based on user's travel needs
Project Context
Bringing a bootcamp project to life
While the timeline of this case study spans across multiple months, the process was done in two phases.
RouteWise was initiated during a product bootcamp through Co.lab from Oct-Dec 2023 (Phase 1), where my team was brought together to design and develop a project of our own ideation within 7-8 weeks.
Instead of parting ways at the culmination of the program, we decided to continue working as a team in 2024 (Phase 2) to iterate, add features, and improve the product to launch more publicly.
Discovery
Travelers find planning the day-to-day activities of their trips to be time-consuming
In gathering survey data from nearly 30 individuals and conducting in-depth interviews from 6 travelers, I was able to gain insight into how people spend their time planning and organizing their travel activities prior to embarking on a trip.
Sorting these insights and data into an affinity map illuminated that:
62% of users find travel planning time-consuming
48% are afraid of missing out on fun activities
52% find tracking and organizing travel information challenging
48% need help planning the most efficient route
The common thread that connected the majority of the participants' travel planning experiences was the time and effort it took to research, gather, organize, sort, and plan the day-to-day activities of a trip. From the research, we narrowed down the scope of our product to address the following:
How might we provide travelers with an efficient way to plan complex itineraries in order to save them time in planning while ensuring a smooth trip?
Hypothesis
Generating an itinerary that groups places of interest by proximity will reduce the time and stress involved in planning daily travel itineraries
Designing the MVP
Simplifying the itinerary planning process
Prior to designing the user interface, I created a user flow to align the team on how a user would navigate the product's core feature. I prioritized an efficient process that would not only help users navigate and accomplish their planning goal successfully while keeping in mind the team's initial 8-week timeline.
Simplified user flow
Create a trip
Creating an itinerary starts with creating a trip: identifying a trip's location, dates, and naming the trip to give it a touch of personalization. Creating a trip could be initiated from the landing page or user dashboard when signed in.
Pop-up model to name trip
Creating a list of desired places
During user interviews, it was discovered that while about 60% of participants preferred some flexibility to their travel itinerary to accommodate last-minute interests or needs, the prevailing preference was to be in control of the majority of their travel plan. To create an itinerary based on the places or points of interest (POI) the user wants to visit, users would add their desired POIs from a map, similar to the experience of using Google Maps.
In Phase 1, I designed the interface with the map to the left and the list to the right, to call attention to the necessity of using the map to search and add places.
Based on user feedback, I decided to swap layout of the map and the list in subsequent iterations to be more consistent with existing mental models and expectations of maps on desktop screens and for more consistency to the Itinerary page, which is the next step of the user flow.
Phase 1 iteration of the "Adding Places" page
Before - Iteration 1
Left-to-right, top-to-bottom flow
Inconsistent with Itinerary page
Phase 2 iteration of the "Adding Places" page
Before - Iteration 2
Consistent with Itinerary Page layout
Primary user actions in proximity
Consistent with existing map design patterns
Addition of "Suggested Places" list for easy adding of places based on user preferences
After - Iteration 3
Added a 'Top sites' list of popular sites through use of Google API
Provided more details on each place such as hours and star ratings
Expanded the on-ma place card to accommodate for more information
Iteration 3 - "Adding Places" page
Generating and editing the itinerary
One of the key factors I considered when designing the itinerary page was how to present all the required details of a trip and available product features without overwhelming the user interface.
After multiple iterations, I decided to focus on the following elements:
Utilizing a sidebar for easy navigation and to organize product features available for planning individual trips
Conserving a hierarchy of information by ensuring the design and interactions of the itinerary itself are intuitive and easy to use
Usability Testing + Impact
Opportunities to increase the efficiency of searching and place-adding experience
Due to the time constraints of the initial product sprint, I conducted a usability test of the prototype on Figma prior to development, followed by usability testing of the live site with 8 users.
90%
These users cited the organized and intuitive interface, and clean visual design as contributing factors. Users of the live site echoed the feedback of the prototype testers regarding the visual design and the usefulness of the product's core feature.
However, users also unanimously had difficultly in one area:
In using the search bar to type in places to add to the itinerary, users had to wait longer than expected for the search results to load drop-down suggestions. This process added unnecessary time to achieving user goals and made the task feel tedious.
Additionally, 88% of users wanted additional suggestions of a location's most popular places for easy one-click adding, and 75% of users would like more details about points of interest to help them decide what to do.
Iterations
Improving experience and added features with a new API
The insights I collected from usability testing influenced the team's decision to upgrade from using the free Openmap API to Google Maps API. This transition provided opportunities to utilize a greater availability of data to design and implement additional features that would increase the efficiency of the user experience.
Additional information on place cards
To provide users with more information regarding points of interest, I redesigned the on-map place card to include additional business information available through the Google Maps API.
'Before' iteration of the Places card
Before
Place name
Hours
Brief description
'After' iteration of the Places card
After
Place name
Hours
Star rating
Place category
Address
Brief description
Website URL
Phone number
Link to Google Maps
Color-coded location pins to organize the map by day
The API update also allowed us to color-code the trip itinerary and map to to help users distinguish the activities on one day from another, especially on the map. To create a cohesive but distinct palette of pin colors, I selected colors that would not only stand out from the map itself, but also be accessible to individuals with color-impaired vision.
Solution
Generate an efficient itinerary based on location and proximity. Receive recommendations based on your interests.
Explore and add suggested places based on traveler's preferences
Select from a list of categories to receive a list of suggested places catered to your travel needs and interests so you can focus more on the fun and less on the FOMO (fear of missing out).
Generate and edit your proximity-based itinerary
Generate an itinerary that automatically groups the places from your added list together by proximity. Continue to edit and add you your itinerary as you please.
Keep your itinerary optimized!
Adding more activities to your itinerary after it's been created? No problem! RouteWise will help you keep it optimized by suggesting a recommended date to keep your activities for the day in proximity (but you don't have to take the suggestion if you don't want to!)
Learnings
Because we started RouteWise as a bootcamp project, we had significant time and resource constraints for first iteration of our MVP. As the sole designer, I had to keep in mind the technical constraints with respect to time while I worked with the PM to prioritize the core features that would provide users the most value. I learned to balance different design-related needs of the team beyond interaction and interface design, such as designing the logo and other branding and marketing elements.
Working on RouteWise with a cross-functional team has also taught me the value of clear and consistent communication among the team regarding the tasks we prioritize in our individual roles to make sure we are aligned in reaching the same goal.
What's Next
It's just the beginning…
As RouteWise continues to grow into a startup venture, I am looking forward to building a more robust component library and scaling it into a design system as well as get creative with the visual aspects of the brand and marketing strategy.
We're planning to launch for beta testing in 2025…stay tuned!
Other work…
Saving audio clips and transcripts for engaged podcast listeners and learners
A productivity app designed to help teachers maximize their non-instructional time
Helping language learners practice travel-relevant conversations with real-time feedback
