Trawell Mobile App- A UI/UX Case Study
A step-by-step breakdown of the process of designing Trawell- a trip planning app.
Why a travel app?
Travelling can be extremely challenging for solo and group travelers due to its array of unexpected challenges.
Let’s understand better using an example-
Bethany is constantly hooked to her computer due to the nature of her work and looks for ways to sneak in trips. 🐣
She is exceptionally good at planning solo trips but has trouble organizing trips for a team due to varied opinions. Her tripmates expect her to map everything out for them assuming she’ll manage the planning, bookings, arrangements, stays, etc. due to her expertise. She accepts reluctantly, causing her tremendous stress and anxiety before and during the trip. Bethany wishes to-
- Get personalized recommendations based on her location, preferences, budget, trends, and discounts helping her make decisions quicker.
- Create and manage multiple travel groups.
- Collaborate and brainstorm ideas.
- Have one single consolidated platform to store all trip-related information.
- Distribute tasks evenly to avoid overburdening anyone.
- Keep everyone on the same page, making sure no information misses out.
- Make the journey fun, safe, and stress-free for everyone.
So what exactly is Trawell?
Trawell is a comprehensive trip planning and management tool that helps individuals and groups easily plan and manage their travels. Users can seamlessly create and manage multiple groups, set budget limits, track tasks, share resources, discuss ideas, and also vote on options.
In addition to group-planning features, Trawell offers a range of resources for travelers where they can access travel guides, itineraries, and recommendations to see and do at their destination.
The app also offers a variety of destination options and allows users to share and invite others to their plans. It is designed to be accessible offline and is linked with Google Maps and Uber.
Overall, Trawell is a valuable tool for anyone looking to streamline the process of planning and managing their travels, with features that address the specific needs and frustrations of travelers.
Disclaimer
Credits to Chethan KVS for this problem statement 😌
If you are a designer, high chances you already know him, but here is his Instagram handle. Do check it out. 🐱👤
Let’s dive right in ⚡
Off the radar 🤧
These are the tries it took to solve this problem statement.
Offering personalized recommendations
The explore tab does an amazing job at suggesting recommendations; changing and adapting according to the user’s taste and current trends (special deals and discounts).
The bookmark feature allows one to save a location for future reference.
Just keep this in mind for now, we’ll see more about this later. 🧠
Creation of multiple travel groups
The app allows users to create and manage multiple groups for different trips or travel plans simultaneously.
The leader creates a plan and invites the teammates to join in.
The members are directly added via contacts.
In case a member doesn’t have the app, an SMS invite for the app download is messaged to them.
Scheduling and managing the trip
Once the trip is created and everyone is onboard, it is time to map out and go through the actual planning process that everyone dreads 💀
After the trip is successfully created, the user has all the tools needed to craft their trip, the way they please.
Let’s walk through all the features and options one by one-
The “Overview” section is a compilation of all the activities planned throughout the journey.
We will learn about the “more” and “expenses” FAB a little later on.
Remember the bookmark feature?
The user needs to choose the activity from the bookmarked section to add a task to a day.
Why?
- This is bad UX, giving scope for the user to get distracted from completing their current task.
- Allowing the user to choose through the search tab can be confusing due to other topics with similar names.
- Also keeping the bookmarked activities just for reference doesn’t make any real sense..? 😕
The “more” FAB allows the user to perform the following actions-
1. Open chat
2. Add a note
3. Add an item to the checklist
Chat feature
One of the main goals of the app was to minimize confusion through timely communication. Providing an inbuilt messaging feature reduces the inconvenience of switching to another app.
The empty state informs the users about the multiple subgroups that can be created within the main group.
Poll feature
A poll is the most effective way to resolve any conflict of ideas.
By clicking on the group title, other features can be accessed.
Role assigning feature
If you can recollect, Bethany had a problem of being overburdened with everybody’s share of work…
The app allows the group leader to assign roles to members. In this way, everybody has something to do and since work is evenly distributed, the quality of work will 📈🙇♀️
Sub-chat feature
Information is easier to find when you know where to look for it.
It is easy to lose important information while sharing resources and views. Users can have organized conversations using multiple sub-groups within the main group (called sub-chats). This gives equal space and attention to every conversation. The chances of missing out on topics, reduce to null. 🥰
The interface is similar to other social media apps, hence is easy to navigate.
Notes feature
Trawell also combines the features of a notes app to add notes on the go, visible to everyone.
Checklist feature
Again pretty straightforward, the app houses a common checklist for the members to add tasks to be done.
Expenses feature
The app also has a built-in expense tracker to keep records and split bills evenly at any convenient time.
The team can set a budget and add all the expenses here. This keeps the team on track, allowing everyone to edit and update the expenditures.
The amounts can be sorted and filtered according to the person, date, and category. (no escaping due settlements 😊)
Emergency assistance is a very useful instrument especially for solo travelers. The helpline provides 24x7 assistance by connecting the user with the nearest police station, ambulance, etc via call.
Real time weather updations help you pack better.
You can also save the trip offline.
Moving on, let’s quickly skim through the remaining screens.👻
Search tab
Performs like any other search tab, but one special thing here is, I’ve utilized the empty state of the tab to double up as the “nearby section”.
The initial plan was to have 5 tabs- explore, search, nearby, plans, and profile.
But later I went on to utilize the empty state of the search tab to create this result.
As shown above, the user can access resources like articles and directories from trusted local guides and the web. This prevents users from exiting the app i.e. improved user retention.
When a particular activity is selected, (restaurant in this case) all the relevant information like location, pricing, rating, and timings are displayed. This allows users to take the first look without leaving the app. For details, they can open it directly on Google Maps. Similarly, they can book a ride to their destination quickly using Uber.
Important landmarks and How to get there are two other useful tools.
The restaurant can be bookmarked (to be added to any day later), saved offline, or shared using the in-app sub-chats.
Finally notifications, cause why not..? 😉
Helps keep the users updated, keeping everyone on the same page and preventing any untimely or miscommunication.
One last thing, metrics to be measured
- Free time for the users as the entire process is smooth, efficient, and rewarding.
- Users feel confident and prepared for taking the trip- so eases anxiety.
- Having one app for all related tasks will gain loyal users over time i.e. user retention.
- The integrated apps will also benefit from the growing user base generating revenue.
And this is it, we have reached the finish line! 🏁
This was a very interesting problem to solve and I thoroughly enjoyed ideating and iterating through it. I hope that this case study will provide valuable insights into the design process and will be of useful to others as well.
Farewell for now and thank you so much for sticking around!😚
