Addressing pain points of travel itinerary planning.
Overview:
This case study focuses on addressing the challenges faced by travelers when planning itineraries. I noticed this issue firsthand while observing friends plan their trips—they were frustrated by the overwhelming amount of research required to figure out destinations, timing, personal interests, and bookings, all while juggling multiple platforms. It became clear that many people struggled with the complexity of trip planning.
Problem:
Travelers face challenges in finding activities of interest, managing itineraries, and balancing preferences. Limited knowledge of destinations and missing out on hidden gems can also result in missed opportunities. Unclear travel distances and time constraints add to the feeling of a rushed experience, leaving trips falling short of expectations.
Goal:
The goal is to design a solution that simplifies trip planning, enabling travelers to create enjoyable and efficient itineraries with ease. The solution will help users discover activities of interest, organize their plans, and balance preferences, while offering destination insights and local recommendations.
Table of Contents
Overview
Observed Problem
Project Vision
Target Users
The Design Process
Problem Research
Affinity Mapping
Priority Matrix
User Pain Points
Competitor Analysis
Market Research
User Journey
Feature Priotization
Low Fidelity Wireframe
First User Testing
Design Iterations
High Fidelity Userflow
Second User Testing
Challenges
Reflection
Tools Used
Maze for user testing
Qualtrics for research
Miro
Figma
UX Techniques
Affinity Mapping
Priority Matrix
Usability Scores from Maze
General overview
Project Type: Solo
Time taken: 6 weeks
Observed Problem
I noticed that many travelers, like my friends planning trips to Europe, felt overwhelmed by all the research involved. They feared missing out on the best experiences, unsure if their plans would make the most of their time and money.
Project Vision
The initial vision for this project was to create a travel app that helps users discover places and activities that align with their interests at their destination(s). The app would use AI to generate a personalized itinerary and provide real-time updates on any changes during the trip, ensuring a seamless and tailored travel experience.
Target Users
Professional Travelers
Travel bloggers, photographers, and videographers who are always on the move for work. The app can help them discover unique spots and hidden gems that align with their content needs, while providing real-time updates to keep their plans flexible. This ensures they don’t miss key moments, even with constantly changing schedules.
Frequent Travelers
Those who travel once or twice a month for both work and leisure. The app allows them to quickly generate personalized itineraries, reducing the hassle of repetitive planning.
Occasional Travelers
Individuals who travel when time and resources allow. The app simplifies their planning by offering easy-to-use tools for building an itinerary that matches their preferences. It helps them maximize their rare travel experiences by offering recommendations and ensuring nothing important is missed due to lack of local knowledge.
The Design Process
Problem Research
Survey Overview:
Conducted a survey through Qualtrics with 16 responses to better understand users’ travel planning and itinerary challenges.
Key Insights:
Users struggle to find activities that align with their interests and have difficulty deciding on destinations.
Challenges include finding activities that fit within their time constraints.
The process can be stressful, especially when planning multiple aspects of a trip.
Users expressed a desire for personalized itinerary suggestions with integrated maps.
Many users have limited knowledge of hidden gems and unique local spots.
Time constraints make it difficult to explore all attractions effectively.
Affinity Mapping
To synthesize the data collected from user surveys, I used affinity mapping, to group pain points into four key categories: activity-related, destination-related, planning-related, and information-related. This method of organizing qualitative insights helped me identify recurring patterns and key themes, which provided a structured overview of the users’ pain points and allowed me to empathize with their frustrations in a more holistic manner.
Priority Matrix
After categorizing the pain points, I employed a priority matrix to evaluate the level of impact and the effort required to address each issue. The matrix revealed that users struggled most with finding destinations that aligned with their preferences and time constraints. Additionally, there was a clear frustration with the lack of accurate information on destinations, hidden gems, and travel distances between different locations. Prioritizing these pain points helped clarify which issues needed immediate attention and which could be addressed in later iterations.
User Pain Point
By triangulating the findings from the survey, affinity mapping, and the priority matrix, I identified three core areas of user friction within the itinerary planning process. First, users experienced difficulty discovering relevant activities and balancing multiple preferences when managing itineraries. Second, a lack of destination knowledge led to missed opportunities, with users feeling unaware of hidden gems and poorly informed about travel distances. Finally, time constraints often left users feeling rushed or unprepared, resulting in trips that did not live up to their expectations. These insights guided the subsequent stages of the design process.
Competitor Analysis
To understand the industry landscape, I conducted a heuristic evaluation of 11 travel and itinerary planning applications, identifying usability gaps and feature shortcomings in each. I selected three standout competitors for a deep dive, analyzing their UI / UX. Common shortcomings included an overwhelming presentation of the itinerary without clear categorization, and poor visibility of day-to-day plans. These insights were mapped against user pain points to identify opportunities for improvement in my own design solution.
Market Research
To inform my design strategy further, I analyzed current market trends, focusing on features that attract today’s tech-savvy travelers. I found a growing demand for apps that leverage AI to provide personalized recommendations and reduce the amount of manual planning required. Additionally, users are increasingly drawn to “super apps” that offer an all-in-one solution. This trend toward integrated, personalized experiences provided valuable context for shaping the feature set and interaction flows of the app.
Userflow
The primary focus was on addressing key challenges users face when planning itineraries, such as finding activities that match their preferences and managing time constraints. The user flow was designed to simplify the process, from selecting a destination to receiving personalized activity recommendations. The secondary focus was on additional features, such as collaborative trip planning is reserved for future iterations after validating the core functionality.
Feature Priotization
With a clear understanding of user needs and market expectations, I conducted feature prioritization to determine the minimum viable product (MVP). The most critical features were identified as a curated list of activities based on user interests and an interactive map with personalized route recommendations. These features were essential to resolving the highest-impact pain points by providing users with tailored suggestions and a dynamic, visually-guided itinerary creation process. This phase helped me establish a clear product roadmap, ensuring focus on delivering core value before layering in more complex features.
Low-fidelity prototype
I began the design phase by sketching on paper and bringing it to figma low-fidelity wireframes to establish the basic information architecture and user flow. These wireframes were focused on ensuring that the layout would support intuitive navigation, prioritizing clarity and ease of use. Low-fidelity prototyping allowed me to quickly iterate on different ideas and test the foundational interactions without being distracted by visual design details.
First user testing and results
To validate the initial high-fidelity design, I conducted the first round of usability testing with 12 users using Maze. The results showed that 67% of participants were able to complete the core task (creating an itinerary), but the overall usability score was only 40%. Key usability issues emerged, with 67% of users confused about where to click to begin creating an itinerary. The low satisfaction score highlighted a disconnect between user expectations and the prototype’s current interface, signaling the need for significant refinement.
Design iterations
Sign up
Through heatmap analysis, I observed that users were struggling with the sign-up process due to conflicting visual cues. Despite instructions to sign up using Google, users were frequently distracted by the centered “Register with Email” button. To resolve this, I restructured the visual hierarchy by repositioning the sign-up options, ensuring that the preferred sign-up method was more visually prominent and aligned with the users’ natural reading flow.
Creating an itinerary (The core task)
Based on the feedback from the first round of testing, I made a design iteration focused on guiding users through the itinerary creation process. Initially, I added a walkthrough guide, but after further analysis, I opted for a more frictionless solution: placing inline instructional text directly on the screen where users would expect to interact. This reduced cognitive load & time, and provided just-in-time guidance without overwhelming the user.
The itinerary page
The user feedback indicated that the itinerary layout was overwhelming, with too much information displayed at once. To enhance the usability and reduce cognitive overload, I restructured the design, separating the itinerary view and map view into two distinct screens. This allowed users to focus on either the route or the activities without being bombarded with too much information at once. I also introduced a floating action button to easily add new destinations, improving the flow of interaction and making the interface feel more responsive to user needs.
Creating an itinerary
I streamlined it to require just five key inputs from the user, ensuring a simple and low cognitive load experience. The inputs include the trip date, the places they want to visit, the starting and ending points of the trip, the type of experience they’re looking for, and an optional field for any specific preferences they want the AI to consider. This approach ensures that users provide only the essential information upfront, allowing the AI to generate accurate and personalized itineraries while keeping the process quick and efficient.
Adding a new destination
I implemented a floating action button directly on the itinerary page. This ensures that users can quickly and conveniently add destinations without navigating away, providing a streamlined and efficient experience.
Other pages
Here are additional pages from the high-fidelity prototype, including web versions, extra mobile pages, and a quick view of the itinerary designed for the Apple Watch. These variations ensure a consistent and optimized experience across different platforms and devices.
Second user testing and results
Following these iterations, the second round of usability testing showed improvements. Task completion rates rose to 80%, while the usability score increased from 40% to 66%. Drop-off and misclick rates decreased significantly, and the time to complete tasks was reduced. Additionally, users reported higher levels of satisfaction, specifically noting the improved clarity of the instructions and the streamlined user interface. The improvements to information hierarchy and visual affordances also led to better first-click accuracy, demonstrating the success of the design refinements.
"One of the main challenges was organizing large volumes of information in a way that felt simple and intuitive for users."
Reflection and further steps
Lessons learned: This project underscored the importance of an iterative, user-centered design process, particularly when handling complex, information-heavy tasks like itinerary planning. The challenges of managing user expectations, simplifying navigation, and maintaining a balance between functionality and ease of use were central to the design’s evolution. From initial research to final testing, each stage offered invaluable insights that informed successive iterations.
Upcoming steps: Moving forward, I plan to further develop the app by incorporating features such as collaborative itinerary planning and budget management. These additional features will be validated through further user testing, ensuring that the app continues to evolve toward becoming a comprehensive travel solution that meets the needs of modern travelers.
