The Problem

Vacations are for relaxation, so why do we feel stressed about planning for it?

In fact, 74% of travelers find the most stressful aspect of travel to be figuring out the details including: transportation factors, time management, sorting out plans during the trip, and being in an unfamiliar location (GoodThink 2013). So how can we make planning travel itineraries less stressful for users so that they can maximize their enjoyment while traveling?

How might we help users build their ideal travel itineraries in an easier, more efficient way in hopes of reducing their travel-related stresses?

Final Designs Preview

Introducing your new smart travel agent: Google Travel Planner

Combine Google Maps and Google Docs into one system users know & love

Travel time is automatically calculated to simplify daily time management

Invite other users to collaborate on your itinerary together in real time

Why Design?

Losing sleep over travel anxiety? My Personal Experiences

Earlier this year, I had booked my plane tickets to travel to Japan this summer. For the next couple months, I was saving recommendations of places to go and things to eat I was seeing on my social media apps. But when it came to putting everything down on a written itinerary: I. Was. Overwhelmed. Why?

It was ironic that I was already stressed just trying to make something that’s supposed to reduce my travel-related stresses! I was certain that a better solution must exist (or I will just have to create it! *wink wink*), so I turned to research to find out if others were experiencing the same pain points as me.

User Research & Interviews

Users want to easily plan travel itineraries in order to minimize travel-related stresses during their trip

I interviewed 8 individuals who have traveled recently or plan to travel within the next 3 months. I wanted to understand how users usually make their travel itineraries and the decision-making behind each item they plan.

Afterwards, I grouped my observations from my interviewees into an affinity map, looked for major patterns, and analyzed the following main insights:

Secondary Research

Main Insights from User Research

“Wait, I’m not the only one who thinks this, right?”

After my first round of user interviews, I noticed that all interviewees stated they preferred using Google Docs and Google Maps for writing their travel itineraries. To confirm if these preferences are also reflected among larger populations, I looked for secondary research:

What does Google Travel currently look like? What are competitors doing?

From my research, I noticed an overwhelming preference for a combined use of Google Docs and Google Maps when planning travel itineraries, rather than other applications specifically built for making travel itineraries. In fact, Google has its own application intended for travel planning: “Google Travel”. Why does nobody seem to use or know of it? To answer this I conducted a competitive analysis on Google Travel as well as other currently available itinerary planner websites.

Google products are already incredibly popular, but what is Google Travel missing?

Drafting & Ideating Solutions

Intersecting Google Docs, Maps, and Travel to build solutions

Considering that:

  • Using models familiar to users minimize learning curves when switching to new applications (i.e. Jakob’s Law)

  • Majority of users already use Google Docs and Google Maps for itinerary-writing and other day-to-day use

  • Competitors don’t have access to the same advanced functionalities of Google Maps and Google Docs

I decided combining features from Docs and Maps into one application alongside designing new features would most effectively optimize Google Travel so that users can easily build their ideal travel itineraries. Here, the idea for re-imagining Google Travel began.

Design Goals

Re-imagining a more effective and attractive Google Travel

Next, I looked for connections between the insights from my user research and the aspects the current Google Travel website is missing. Finding these connection points, I could visualize what Google Travel needs to have in its redesign to most effectively solve pain points associated with travel planning. So, I created 3 major design goals that align with those redesign proposals:

I used these design goals to frame my brainstorming about what form(s) my design solution might take. These goals also provided a basis for design & content requirements that would need to be considered when creating wireframes of my solutions.

Wireframes

Balancing familiar features and original solutions

To truly “re-imagine” Google Travel, I drew my paper wireframes to loosely resemble Google Travel’s current UI designs while including my own original designs for new features and functionalities:

Iterations with User Testing

There’s always room for more iterations!

I created Lo-fi and Hi-fi prototypes based on my paper wireframes and conducted 3 rounds of user testing to gather feedback for design reiteration. The most major design changes included:

1. Restructured Notes page to offer more free-typing space

“My friends and I usually like to type whatever and list random ideas first. Is there a place we all could just write out our thoughts?”

2. Added travel time estimates between each itinerary item to clearly inform users

“Making sure I pick places close to each other helps, but I feel like I’ll still be worried about how long it takes to get from one place to the next.”

Problem: Looking at the map alone isn’t enough to help users determine the most time & distance efficient schedule

Problem: Fixed card structure discouraged users from freely brainstorming and saving places for later

Solution: Free-text-entry structure more effectively signals page can be used for any note-taking or brainstorming needs

Solution: Travel time estimates better informs users & more digestible way to communicate distances between locations

3. Switched onboarding from one-time tutorial to shorter tool-tips

“The pop-up tutorial feels like an information dump, I usually forget all those instructions 5 minutes later anyways.”

Problem: Pop-up tutorial overwhelms users with excessive and long instructions who are using a new website for the first time

Solution: Tool-tips introduces only relevant instructions matching the user’s pace as they explore new features

Final Designs & Solution Overview

Introducing your new smart travel agent: Google Travel Planner

2. Faster and easier travel planning from one convenient application

  • View both itinerary document and map on one screen

  • Itinerary places automatically pinned to your Google Maps for easy navigation on the go

  • Travel time is automatically calculated to simplify daily time management

1. Familiar interfaces and functionalities users know & love

  • Combine Google Maps and Google Docs into one system for travel planning

  • Access the familiar Google Maps search engine to find places to go

  • Quickly add and remove places on your itinerary with the click of a button

3. More collaboration with your friends; Less stress for you

  • Invite other users to collaborate on your itinerary together in real time

  • Add comments to itinerary items for everyone to see

  • Multi-functional Notes page to brainstorm group ideas, bookmark “maybe” places, & add written notes

Final Prototype: Try out Google Travel Planner!

Next Steps & Impacts

Next Stop: More User Testing for Perceived Stress & Real-Time Collaborative Functionalities

As this was a solo student project with no engineer involvement, collecting real-life metrics would be difficult. However, I would have loved to work with engineers to bring my designs to life in a functional prototype to be used for further user testing, especially for testing real-time collaborative features.

If I had more time to work on Google Travel Planner, I would have loved to:

With engineer involvement to further advance this project, other ideas I would love to explore:

  • Program a functional Google Maps interface that generated pins for each place added to the user’s itinerary

  • Sync with users’ Google Maps accounts so they could automatically access Google Maps navigation for their pinned itinerary places

  • Create pages for more itinerary dates and sample Google Maps locations so that users have more customization freedom in creating their itineraries

Takeaways

Taking even bigger steps than before…

  1. Leveling up my prototypes with variables, expressions, and conditionals — Since a main feature of Google Travel Planner is users’ ability to customize their own travel itinerary, I practiced and refined my knowledge on advanced variable prototyping to accurately portray a website that automatically updates information shown based on each user’s own choices.


  2. Managing conflicting user feedbacks — Compared to my previous project, usability testers gave more varied feedback that conflicted with other users. One user would say they want to keep a certain feature, but another would ask me if it could be removed or changed. I decided it would be best to do a follow-up survey on the contested feature with all my usability testers to get a more accurate ‘majority rules’ opinion.

Thank you for reading!

Psst! Want to get a sweet treat and chat?
Reach me at: cm.chelseamai@gmail.com