8 week program - Travel Palette

Background

I joined a bootcamp/program hosted by Co.Lab to had 8-weeks to ideate, design, build an launch a working product. Introducing TravelPalette, a brainchild born in the midst of ideation, design sprints, and late-night coding. I took on the role of a Product Designer to address the common pain point faced by travelersā€”organizing scattered inspirations into cohesive, personalized itineraries. The TravelPalette project aimed to revolutionize the travel planning experience by centralizing and organizing travel inspirations seamlessly. We created a unique tool that empowers modern travelers to effortlessly transform their travel inspirations into unforgettable experiences.

SUMMARY

  • Role: Product Designer on a team of 4

  • Role Duration: 8 week program (Co.Lab)

  • Process: Ideation, Rapid Design Iterations, Build, Launch

  • Tools: Figma, Notion, Google Workspace, Slack

PROCESS BREAKDOWN

USER RESEARCH

We sent out a survey and gathered 60+ replies to analyze some key findings:

  • Travel Inspirations: All of our respondents acknowledged the importance of travel inspirations in sparking their desire to travel. However, 32% of respondents don't save these inspirations, possibly due to the lack of an effective method for saving, organizing, and using these inspirations.

  • Planning Challenges: 55% reported challenges with organizing their inspirations in a useful way, highlighting the need for a centralized travel planning tool.

  • Recall Efficiency: While many travelers face challenges in recalling saved inspirations, it's worth noting that 25% rarely forget their saved inspirations, and 18.33% never forget. This suggests that a segment of travelers might have established methods or don't heavily rely on saved inspirations during planning.

  • Desired Solution: A significant 74.5% expressed a desire for a solution that provides suggestions based on their inspirations, while 70% want the ability to create itineraries directly from these inspirations.

1. IDEATION

MARKET RESEARCH

The travel planning market is vast, with numerous tools focusing on various stages of the travel process. However, a significant gap exists in the initial stages ā€“ the ideation and inspiration phase. Most tools kick in at the booking stage, leaving travelers to juggle multiple platforms for their inspirations. This gap presents a unique opportunity for Palette to step in and offer a solution that caters to the early stages of travel planning.

  • Market Size & Growth: The global travel planning tools market is expected to grow by 4.42% from 2023 to 2027, resulting in a market volume of US$1016.00 billion in 2027 [Source: Statista]. Additionally, a recent post by Bloomberg Pursuits on Instagram highlighted that by 2033, travel is set to become a $15.5 trillion industry, accounting for more than 11.6% of the global economy. This represents a 50% increase from its value in 2019 [Source: Bloomberg Pursuits on Instagram].

  • Competitive Landscape: While TripAdvisor, Kayak, and Expedia are dominant players in the travel planning market, their strength lies in bookings and leveraging their vast internal databases for travel inspirations. However, this often results in a generic travel planning experience for users. In contrast, Palette's strength is its ability to centralize user-sourced inspirations from diverse platforms, offering a truly personalized planning experience.

So what?

怰ļø

So what? 怰ļø

With this crucial data, we clarified the challenge and goal to focus on -

Challenge: Many travelers struggle to organize and transform scattered travel inspirations into seamless, personalized itineraries. This challenge leads to inefficiencies in the travel planning process, impacting the overall travel experience.

Goal:
Empower travelers to effortlessly transform their travel inspirations into personalized, unforgettable experiences.

2. Design, Rapid Prototype, Iterate, Repeat

mvp (8 weeks) key features:

  • Save Inspirations: Users can easily input and save their travel inspirations, whether it's a link, note, or image, creating a digital vault of ideas for their future trips.

  • Tagging and Categorization: TravelPalette offers a user-friendly manual tagging system, allowing travelers to categorize their saved inspirations with personalized tags. This system provides a flexible and customizable approach to organization.

  • Search Functionality: A straightforward search feature empowers users to quickly find specific inspirations within their collection. Whether searching by tags or keywords, the tool ensures easy access to the right information.

  • Basic Itinerary Creation: TravelPalette simplifies itinerary creation with a drag-and-drop interface. Users can effortlessly arrange their saved inspirations into a basic calendar or list format, providing a visual representation of their travel plans.

Low Fidelity Design

Landing Page

Landing Page

HIGH Fidelity Design

Saved Trips

USer flow

Saved Trips

Profile

Saved Inspirations

3. mvp launch

final demo video

4. Reflection Time!

The user testing phase unveiled a spectrum of perspectives on our high-fidelity prototype, ranging from glowing praise to constructive criticism. This divergence underscored the importance of embracing diverse user needs in the context of travel planning. To address this, further research was conducted, leading to thoughtful design iterations that significantly improved usability, highlighted by the introduction of a left-hand navigation bar.

Embracing project management tools like Notion was pivotal, enabling us to meet weekly deadlines and maintain positive momentum throughout the Co.Lab program.

Iā€™m grateful for the hands-on experiences and the challenges of real-world constraints, such as remote collaboration and varying time zones, this journey has been an invaluable learning experience.

Personal reflection

Thanks for reading it to the end!

The journey with TravelPalette continues! Currently, our focus is on refining the roadmap and preparing for MVP 2.0.

Key elements include:

  • Iterative Design: Addressing alpha testing feedback, refining UI aesthetics, and preparing for beta testing to further enhance design and functionality.

  • Streamlined Travel Planning: Introducing features like itinerary templates for easy organization, map integration for spatial planning, and collaborative planning for group trips.

  • Mobile Optimization: Transitioning towards a more responsive mobile website to cater to users on the move.

  • Monetization & Direct Booking: Exploring the integration of direct booking capabilities to offer users a comprehensive solution and create revenue streams through affiliate marketing and partnerships with travel agencies. The journey is just getting started!

Next steps / opportunities

Getting a cool certificate at the end was a nice pat in the back too :)