Travel booking app
Design a new travel booking app to be launched on both Android and iOS.
Brief
We are planning to launch a new product for booking travel. We intend to generate revenue based on fees associated with the booking of flights. We want to start by launching a minimum viable product, but considering this is a competitive market to enter, we probably cannot compete solely on price. Instead, we need you to help us add value to the experience so that users may start adopting our platform.
You will be designing a new app to be launched on both Android and iOS. For the sake of this exercise, assume that both apps will be built using a tool like React Native. It’s your job to:
- prototype a key flow of the app
- develop a visual identity to accompany it
- develop the design to be appropriate for both platforms (iOS and Android), highlighting any important design differences between the two platforms
Proto-personas
To help you get started, we have already identified a few proto-personas that represent the market needs we would like to meet.
Sofia
- 26 years old
- Consultant
Sofia recently started working for a big company as a consultant. She occasionally travels within Europe for client meetings, and plans trips to new places 1–2 times per year.
“I love hiking with my family, I’ve been going since I was 5 years old.”
“I bury myself when I read a good book, it’s like living in different adventures.”
- Status: In a relationship
- City: Madrid
- Tech: Android user
- Traits/personality: Ambitious, outgoing, always happy, athletic
Goals
- Find her happiness
- Meet new people, learn different languages, be in different cultures.
- Organize at least two trips abroad per year
Frustrations
- She is always traveling alone and sometimes cannot go to all the places she would like because it’s not safe.
- When in a country she doesn’t speak the language of, any little disturbance at night makes her panic even more (as she cannot even ask for help around).
Matthew
- 34 years old
- Digital Nomad
Matthew has been freelancing and living a digital nomad lifestyle for the past 3 years. Most recently he has been based in Singapore while the pandemic has put a pause on his usual frequent travels. Recently he has started to travel again, and his looking for his next place to set up shop.
- Status: In a relationship
- City: Singapore (but keeps on moving)
- Tech: iOS user
- Traits/personality: Independent, ambitious, confident and outgoing, curious about other cultures.
Goals
- Being able to combine work and travel (fun, visits…)
- End up settling in the dream city after all his moving
- Find cheap itineraries around the city he is in for work to visit and learn about new cultures
Pain points
- Stressed about finances as he doesn’t have a stable source of income.
- The trips he was able to make had to be organized last minute.
- His lack of time to organize trips makes him always end up in crowded tourist attractions, which he does not enjoy.
Alicia
- 28 years old
- International Buyer at Mango
Alicia travels a lot for work purposes, sometimes having to go back and forth to another country in one day. Whenever she has to travel to meet new buyers, she will ask the person in charge to book her tickets and send it to her.
- Status: Single
- City: Barcelona
- Tech: iOS user
- Traits/personality: energetic, ambitious, hard working, sociable and hard in negotiations
Goals
- Being more organized when planning her work trips and during her travels
- Keep track of her schedule
- Find a way to get some rest between all these strips
Pain points
- Having to look for all her bookings in her email or different apps
- Sometimes she books a flight twice because she cannot find the ticket the office sent her
- When she asks the person in charge to book her tickets, she often forgets and Alicia has to buy her own ticket and then pass it as expenses to the company
- Generally tired because she spends a lot of time traveling (airport and stations)
Using these personas as a starting point, it could be a good idea to do a bit of original research to flesh them out in more detail. Our goal will be to provide a product that is useful to all of these personas, but you’ll likely need to make a decision about who will serve as your “primary persona”.
Suggestions
- Make several variations on your design before deciding on a direction. Ask for feedback and input from your colleagues!
- Be careful not to rely too much on components while exploring design concepts. When you get closer to a confident final design, start cleaning up your document with a system of components, styles, and well-named layer groups.
Requirements
- Evaluate your design against heuristics and CRAP principles
- Digitized screens at high fidelity
- Provide evidence for key decisions from discovery and testing
- Show user flow
- Include at least one animation
Presentation
We should get a strong sense of:
- The problem and the user(s)
- Findings from discovery and testing and how these informed your design
- Variations of your design that you explored
- Your design, including a prototype
- How your design meets the business goals
- Next steps