Re-designing “Travel Buddy” a social Travel app for Indian Travelers
An App redesign case study for home screen and Onboarding flow.
This project was undertaken as an assignment for Cohort 8 with 10k Designers and concerning a time scale of a month I tried to solve two problems from the app. So the case study is about 2 projects
Introduction:-
We are all fond of traveling and stepping out the native gates whenever we get a chance—being part of the growing young travel community in India where there are now a lot of solo travelers and people ready to connect to others who digitally have started to become normal. Travel Buddy is one such social travel app made for travelers who are looking for other companions to travel with. The platform mainly allows 4 things to happen:
- Find travel itineraries on the platform posted by hosts🔎
- Be a host and post your travel itineraries so people can join in🧙♀️
- Find travel itineraries hosted by travel influencers and join them🙋♀️
- Make your travel groups as you connect with fellow travelers🤘
a) Designing the Onboarding flow:- The onboarding flow of the current app is bland and makes it uninteresting for the users as they are being welcomed. The flow does not drop any clue about the app for the user, so after one gets on the home screen he/she feels overwhelmed😟
b)Second designing the Event/ Experience screen for the app:- The home and main pages of the app are very similar. One has a lot of actions to do while the other is just to present info. The overall UI is cluttered with multiple buttons performing the same actions. Overall the app is complicated and clustered for a user to take action🤯
And my assignment was to fix it, so let's get started
Aim
1. Aim of part one (Designing an Onboarding Flow)
Design a flow that defines the features of the app
Design a flow that brings the user to the platform with minimal friction
2. Aim of part two (Designing a new home/experiences section)
Design a Home page for the app showcasing travel events.
Enhance UX, making it easy for users to understand the pattern of the app.
Enhance UI and make it visually fresh and more interactive & attractive.
So, What are the limitations of the current design?
Research🧐:-
Problems Identification
1. User Review
2. Design Audit👨✈️: Parent App problems Break Down for Onboarding screens
Parent App problems break down for the Home &Experiences section
Taking Overall Qualitative Notes to Summarise the Design Audit ✍
Now that we have examined all the limitations we could collect from users, identify ourselves, and assume some on user behavior probability and design theories, we have a strong idea of what's wrong.
So, How can we improvise🙇♂️?
Ideation 👁
Let us get into the traveler's Shoe
The travel requirement shall be more specific depending on what type of traveler is boarding on the app but we can identify the common aspects of a traveler for all types. Then we would standardize them as parameters and then re-structure the IA.
Restructuring Information Architecture🤔
After a lot of brainstorming, I decided to first label the experience/ product as an “Event” and divide it into 4 types.
1. Meet up (8 hrs) 2. Day Trip(1D) 3. Short Trip (2D/1N) 4. Tour (3D >)
Then have Niche Event categories segregated by
1. Activity 2. Influencers 3. Destinations that are further scalable
Then have made up categories so users can have easy access to
1. Trending event 2. Popular destination etc etc
Getting Started with UX
With restructured IA, I started with sketching wireframes to get an idea of what elements should be on the screen and how should the flow be.
- For the Onboarding flow, I Designed a normal UX, after going through 100 onboarding flows on the internet.
- For the home screen, I clubbed the Hero and Experiences section into one Event section so now there is only one search bar on the app fro events.
I needed to ensure my UX was also based on the UI elements so I tried a lot of combined variations till I reached a definitive state of design.
Building UI
The home & Experiences are on the same page now and the cards that describe actions on the app are shifted to the onboarding flow.
Some Final iterations for the Event Page (Final Design to extreme right)
Showcasing Final UI Elements
Design Time
Firstly, check out the new onboarding flow for the App
Aim check for Onboarding flow 🤹♀️
The flow Indicates what one can do on the app ✔
The flow has minimal friction ✔ As one can go through the slides or skip
Better social icons with familiar colors to generate trust✔
Presenting New Home/ Event Screen fornTravel Buddy App
Now that all the IA and Home section designs were ready I went along a few steps more and designed how the category and filter search would look for the App
Also, the My Bucket section where the liked and booked events are stored and displayed
Aim check for Part 2 / Event Page🤹♀️
Enhanced UX for better functionality and user understanding👨🔧
Cleaner UI, un-cluttered Nav Bars, Attention catchy event cards, and descriptive copywriting lead to a higher probability of easing user decisions 🧠
A visually fresh color palette parallelly maintains brand colors, a higher probability of interaction, and user attention hold🤳
For the Figma file click here:- Travel Buddy
Thanks for your read I hope you enjoyed the process and had a new perspective on different designs. Keep Creating 🤙
