Web App that’s gonna facilitate your trip itinerary planning. You plan. I help. We trippin’.
Since the pandemic took a hold on our lives, many people had to hold off on their traveling, visiting family and friends and their vacations. Now a couple of years later, we are starting to see more people traveling more often than they would to make up for the “lost time” during the pandemic. However, planning trip itineraries with friends and family can be challenging, to keep everyone on track and make sure everyone knows where they are going and what they are doing at the destination.
Gen Z and millennials are on the rise of traveling and they are very tech savvy. There is a lack of traveling technology apps that provide good itinerary planning and collaboration features to make every travel planner satisfied. We are here to bridge that gap and make traveling go as smoothly as possible so it feels like vacation since day 1.
By running a survey, we identified crucial pain points and then decided to do 3 interviews to help us develop further information. We found that our user pain points are: they don’t like searching for things to do once they’re at their destination, there is a lack of collaboration from others going on the trip, they want to be able to create a trip with fewer tabs with not having to go back and forth from looking at directions on maps, and our users do not like searching for destinations using different applications or tools.
To validate this problem with travelers traveling in groups, there needs to be an all in one application so people do not feel overwhelmed while planning and traveling. Trippin’ will allow users to easily share the trip once created to allow others in the group to participate in helping plan the trip, to create a detailed trip in advance so they can enjoy their time when traveling, give users the estimate time distance in between places automatically when added to the itinerary table, and users will be able to search for destinations in the same application with Google map integration.
Based on our target users’ pain-points, we learned what were the parts of the itinerary planning process they thought were inconvenient and added extra time to be done. Thinking of that, the team brainstormed many ideas that could help solving the users’ problems, but we had to pick and prioritize the ones that were feasible with the time we had to build it and that would enable us to achieve the goals for the MVP.
Trippin’ is a webapp that facilitates and makes it more convenient for users to plan and put together their trip itinerary, and collaborate in that planning with their travel buddies.
Tippin’ has 3 key features that we are launching with:
After moving from the Lofi to Hifi screens, we showcased and tested our prototype with users and got some encouraging feedback, showing that Trippin’ is taking the right path to achieve our goals. Described as friendly/fun, easy to use and functional/convenient, 100% of testers said that they would like to use Trippin’ to plan their next trip.
Some iterations related to the UI and UX have also been implemented after the rounds of testings based on the users’ feedback, such as the sign up/sign in process, the discoverability to add more than one place in the daily itinerary activities and information hierarchy.
Where is it hosted?
What is your tech stack?
What was the hardest part of development?
Does your app have any scaling issues?
What are some key takeaways?
The team hasn’t decided about continuing or not the project yet, however we learned from speaking with our customers how Trippin’ is a good tool for the travelers who like to plan and map out their trips, as well as collaborate with their group to put together an itinerary that everyone enjoys. It provides convenience to the planning process and lessens the time spent on it.
If the team does decide to continue, we have already considered many ideas to refine the experience of what we have now and keep improving the product, adding more features to facilitate the user’s itinerary creation and planning, to provide a more in depth and seamless experience for Trippin’s users.
Co.Lab was an experience that I am so grateful I got the opportunity to do. This experience helped me gain product management experience and what it is like, but it also helped me grow as a teammate.
I truly learned the importance of teamwork. People in my team taught me how to be a better communicator and teammate and I am truly grateful for that.
I learned that communication needs to happen within the whole group to make sure things are getting done effectively and everyone is on the same track. My technical skills have improved and I gained knowledge from the designers and developers!
Co.lab was a growth experience for me, as a designer and as a team member! I had the opportunity to improve and hone my technical skills, but above that, I had the opportunity to find myself being successful as a professional working in a collaborative environment.
I learned the importance of frequent communication, not only to keep the work flowing, but also to make sure everyone in the team is being heard, understood and included in the discussions, decisions and plans.
I have also learned a lot about prioritization when constraints arise during a project development.
Colab did not come without its challenges. These past eight weeks, I’ve been able to improve myself in numerous aspects which includes contributing more to idea brainstorming, working with the designer to communicate the technical feasibility of certain features within the timeframe we had and effective task prioritization.
I have also improved in time management and making myself available for important team discussions. I have also gained more experience in working with a diverse team across different time zones.
Communication is also one aspect I have been able to improve in during the program, I now feel better about explaining the technical aspects of building software with non-coders and not having to think they won’t really understand.
Technically, I have been able to try different technologies and concepts that are new to me and used them to achieve the desired result after discussing with senior engineers such as our mentor and other senior engineers. Also, we’ve been able to achieve end-to-end (server-to-client) integration.
The experience I have gained after signing up for Colab is far more than I expected. Within the duration, I have been pushed beyond my limits. I have gained new skills and have picked up new skills as well.
The biggest team learning was how to communicate is important. That’s the way we have to understand, to empathize and help each other. By communicating we can keep the work flowing, discuss changes, compromise and go in different directions when needed.
