Color
I chose blue as the primary color. It has a sense of professionalism, trust, and calmness. The color purple was chosen for energy and allow certain elements stand out.
- #30BEFF
- #FF6679
Overview
What is Weekendr?
Ask people what activity they prefer as in a work-life balance, and many of them would say they would get out and travel. Ask people if they had more time and money, and many of them would say they would travel more even if its local.
The goal of Weekendr is designed to help people find great local destinations through streamlined research and process for busy people that just need a work-life balance. It introduces users to new exciting ideas to travel locally for the perfect weekend away from work, school, or just need new ideas.
Problem
The challenge.
In today’s world, a good balance of work and life is one of the vital parts, and one way to succeed in that is through travel. However, in this day and age, international and even domestic travel can be very difficult, both financially and time. Local getaways are more accessible, but the planning is still up to us. We all tend to get a very daunting list of what we want on a vacation and spend hours on it. This, combined with finance and time constraints, creates hurdles that users are not particularly fond of.
Solution
Balance with
work and life.
Weekendr is a local travel app that encourages users to explore local destinations that are driving distance of your town. The goal is to streamline research and selection process based on their budget, interests, activities, location, etc. From there, Weekendr introduces a list of many options for users to view from. Each location is presented with hotel deals and activity discounted vouchers.
Discovery phase
User Survey
Get to know our users.
I began with a user survey and sent them out to my email contacts, friends, social media, and subreddit in order to get a good grasp of my target audience. I needed to learn the following:
- How often users go on trips a year;
- What they look for in a trip and types of activities;
- What type of device they use to search;
- What is the most important when planning a trip;
- What stops users from not traveling more often;
- Most importantly whether or not they’d want a solution to find trips
- based on the location close to home, budget, activities, and price;
The survey questions were completed by over 50 respondents.
View survey questionsBelow are my key discoveries:
41% of respondents travel more than 5 times a year.
51% travels out of state.
54% uses a smartphone to plan a trip.
71% would travel destinations based on recommendations.
82% cannot travel because of their busy schedule.
75% says they would take more vacations if it were closer to home.
48% says their usual stay for a vacation is 1-3 days.
60% of respondents were open to suggestions and activity deals.
87% users browsing multiple websites looking for ideas and booking their trip.
With the discoveries I found through my survey, I was able to move forward and bust out some concepts. It was clear that the frustration with traveling has to do with time and budget. Whether it’s their busy lifestyle or spending hours researching for a vacation, users want a quick solution for a trip.
Personas
Held accountable by users.
To gain a deeper understanding of my users, I asked more in-depth questions to 3 users. I succeeded to gain interesting motivations and frustrations from the interviews.
Rebecca
College Student
Age: 21 / Location: San Mateo, Ca / Gender: Female
Motivation
Rebecca is just finishing up her studies at her college. She loves to travel and explore new places. On her college budget, she does not have the luxury to travel all over the states or the world. She mostly takes advantage of the local areas around where she lives. The bay area has many places to offer. She wants to be able to balance her studies and life for a quick getaway on a friendly budget all at once.
Frustration
She can't travel when she is busy with studies and work. Sometimes she can't figure out where to go for a trip.
“I want quick, budget friendly trips when I can”
Jason
Creative Director
Age: 36 / Location: San Diego, Ca / Gender: Male
Motivation
Jason has a wife with 3 kids. His job keeps him busy as much as his family life does. Due to his schedule, he is able to take couple vacations a year. He can not afford to be on a vacation longer than 5 days. He needs a solution where he and his family can get away even if it's local so that he can balance his life and relax.
Frustration
Jason has no time to travel. If there was a way where he can find quick solutions, he can be back to his reality in on time.
“I want quick getaways with my family even if it means local.”
Jay
Freelance Designer
Age: 32 / Location: San Jose, Ca / Gender: Male
Motivation
Jay designs remotely for companies. One way he gets his inspirations are from trips. He loves local trips mainly because he likes to work from anywhere, and it is mostly budget friendly but can still make it a trip and see new stuff. He loves taking pictures and trying new activities.
Frustration
Jay runs out of ideas for his next trip. If there were a way to find quick solutions for a getaway, he would be thankful.
“My office is my next trip.”
Competitive analysis
What are other brands doing?
In order to see where weekendr sits in the market, I needed to dig deeper into the companies of the travel app world. In my user survey, I asked which travel apps they mostly go on when looking for a trip. Tripadvisor, Expedia, Travelocity, and even Groupon was among them. Groupon was interesting as a travel pick because Groupon offers activities with deals. In my survey results, activities, budget, and deals were major interests for the users. This allowed me to be more creative with the marketing and business standpoint. What if, weekendr also offers discounted activity vouchers which would make it easy for users to just buy them on the app and not have to worry about what they’re going to do on their trip. Weekendr would, of course, receive a fee from the vendors selling their activities.
Branding & Identity
Conceptual Ideation
Let it brew.
At this point, I was ready to generate concepts and thumbnails based on my research. From the research, I kept myself accountable to my users as I started designing for weekendr.
Some of my first concepts were:
Dayvacay - Allowing users to take day trips within driving distance.
DayTripper - Based on users preference that is one day stays.
DealTrip - Based on deals only
Among those, I had other concepts but ultimately it came down to weekender which allows users for stream-line research and selections based on preferences and deals for activities.
This brand as a product needed to capture something relaxing, soothing, and fun. It needed to make users feel like they are on a vacation and excite them with one. I included high-resolution images of the forest, beach, road, city, etc to entice an adventure.
Logo design
Designing the logo to evoke a feeling of fun
I wanted the logo to be fun, energetic and decided to design it in a script style. I created shadows within the words to give it depth for aesthetics. Ultimately, I wanted the logo to be fun, simple, elegant and free.
Information architecture
User flows & User stories with Sketch tool
Defining user’s main goals.
With more discoveries found of my users, I could move forward on user stories and user flows. I created user stories to highlight the main features of the product. The user stories were then converted into User flows done in Sketch, to illustrate how the user would interact with the product and accomplish those goals.
Paper prototype
Starting out with paper and pen.
With my user stories and flows in place, I can begin sketching with paper.
I then walked some friends and one random person at Starbucks for the price of a coffee and explained briefly about the app. Most testers wanted to filter their preference so that their vacation could be more tailored to them. I moved forward with the results and proceeded to create a more refined hi-fidelity wire-frame using Sketch.
Wireframes
On to Hi-Fidelity wires.
It was time to develop hi-fidelity wireframes to get ready for prototyping and testing.
A common topic that arose from my user research and paper prototype tests was that when it came to finding destinations around them, users wanted a quick solution to their options.
As a result, I wanted to be sure the wireframes were accessing the customers to their options before signing up for an account. That would lower the chance of abandonment.
User testing
Intro user testing.
Another common topic that arose from user research was that one of the main goals of weekendr needed to create a user experience that was friendly that would guide users in finding their trips based on preferences.
For this test, I wanted to find out whether users would go through the filter preference before they see their options or would prefer filter option later. I tested with wireframes first so that when I go into visuals, I am confident to do so in that direction.
As a result, users wanted a quick navigation to their options. They
prefer doing filters later. The decision was made and I moved on.
A / B Preference test
Testing the designs.
I conducted 2 preference design tests on usability hub to see whether one design favored the other.
Visual Design
Create account
Onboarding with ease.
Users should be able to create an account through Facebook for quick and easy setup. Once the user signs up, users are directed to their map.list view. Users are also able to edit their profile.
Browse destination
Searching should
be quick and easy.
Learning from user testings earlier, this flow navigates users to their options fast and efficiently.
Purchasing vouchers
Purchasing a voucher should be as easy as selecting one.
Activities and locations are based on user’s filters. If they did not use it, weekendr still provides an awesome list users can quickly navigate to and buy vouchers.
Filter option
Using the filter option with ease.
Filter option allows users to narrow down their search to their very best interests. It’s quick and easy.
Conclusion
What I learned.
Weekendr is a project that I am very passionate about. There were times where I wasn’t 100% sure on making a decision so I decided to ask the right questions and test them out. I found out that within many of those user testings, it resulted in consistent creative output.
In considering further development of the current minimal viable product, I would like to see if out of state locations are eligible. From a business standpoint, I would like to see how this product can work with vendors and create revenue. From a marketing standpoint, I would like to see how this app can also be handy to users in a location they are not familiar with and are interested in exploring local destinations.
I believe these goals can be achieved through user research, ideation, prototyping, wireframing and usability testings.
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