Travel Planning Together
This four-part project, completed primarily in pairs, focused on designing a mobile travel planning app for users preparing to travel in a post-pandemic world. The goal was to help users plan safe and enjoyable trips with confidence and ease.
To achieve this, the project followed the complete UX design process:
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User Research: Identified user needs, behaviors, and pain points related to post-pandemic travel.
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Definition & Ideation: Developed user personas and brainstormed features that support flexible trip planning.
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Lo-Fi Prototyping: Created wireframes to test navigation flow and functionality.
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Prototyping & Testing: Built and tested high-fidelity prototypes to refine usability and overall experience.
The result was a responsive, user-friendly app design that simplifies travel planning while addressing modern travel concerns.
Proto-Persona
We hypothesized that the primary user for this app would be a family-oriented traveler—a married woman with two children who enjoys organizing and planning family trips. This persona helped shape the app’s features and design decisions.
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Our solution was to create a centralized travel planning experience that allows users to research destinations, store ideas, and book accommodations, activities and transportation in one easy-to-use app. The design emphasizes simplicity, flexibility and convenience, helping families plan enjoyable and stress-free trips.
Research Plan
Conducted seven user interviews to uncover pain points in post-pandemic travel planning. Participants represented diverse demographics and travel experiences, providing a broad perspective on user needs and behaviors. Insights from this research informed the development of user personas, problem statements and key design decisions for the travel planning app.
User Persona
After completing user research, we refined our proto-persona and developed a validated user persona. Our findings confirmed that the initial assumptions in our proto-persona closely aligned with the real user’s goals, behaviors and pain points.
Feature Prioritization
After synthesizing research data through an Affinity Diagram and Empathy Map, we identified patterns in user goals, frustrations and behaviors. From these insights, we hypothesized which features would be most important to our persona, Sally, as she planned her family trip—informing the foundation for our design decisions and feature prioritization.
User Flow
Based on research insights and identified feature priorities, we created a user flow illustrating how our persona, Freddie, would book a family dog-sledding experience. The flow mapped key steps from discovery to reservation and was iterated after user testing to improve clarity, usability and overall user experience.
Low-Fi Wireframe
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After finalizing the user flow, we created low-fidelity wireframes to visualize the app’s layout, navigation, and key interactions. These early designs focused on functionality and user flow rather than visual style, allowing us to quickly test and validate core features—such as trip planning, booking, and itinerary management. Feedback from user testing informed several iterations, improving the app’s structure, flow, and overall usability before moving into high-fidelity prototyping.
Digital Wireframe
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After creating the low-fidelity prototype, I developed a high-fidelity digital prototype to bring the design to life. This version incorporated refined visuals, brand elements, and realistic interactions to simulate the final user experience. The goal was to test usability, visual hierarchy, and task flow in a realistic environment. User feedback gathered during testing led to several design refinements—enhancing clarity, accessibility, and consistency across screens, and ensuring the app delivered an intuitive, engaging travel planning experience.
Usability Tests
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Conducted four usability tests using the digital wireframes to evaluate task flow, clarity and overall user experience. After analyzing feedback, I applied key insights to iterate and refine the design, resulting in a final high-fidelity prototype that improved usability, navigation and visual consistency.
Conclusion
Research revealed that busy families with children want a single, easy-to-use platform to research and book travel, activities, and experiences. Travelers value simplicity, readability, and clear navigation when planning their trips.
Throughout the design process, I learned how quickly new ideas can emerge once a concept starts to take shape. Iterating in real time helped me refine the app’s flow and prioritize features that best support an efficient, family-focused travel experience.
