Overview

Travelogue is a mobile app built for modern travelers who want to plan together, capture memories, and explore collaboratively. It merges trip planning, storytelling, and gamification into one intuitive experience.

The Problem

Travel planning today is scattered, inefficient, and lacks a human-centered design approach.

Modern Travel Planning is Fragmented
People use a patchwork of apps like Google Docs, WhatsApp, and spreadsheets to coordinate itineraries. None integrate planning, collaboration, and sharing seamlessly.

Pain Points

• Hard to coordinate group travel in one place

• No dedicated space to share and reflect on trip memories

• Offline access is rarely supported

• Gamified travel apps lack practicality

• Onboarding in most apps is confusing or impersonal

Whats missing
Current platforms offer isolated features itinerary planning or social storytelling but rarely both. Travelogue identifies this gap and seeks to unify them under one app experience.

Research Process

A mutli-method approach to uncover what real travellers need from a planning app.

User Interviews

11 Participants (Ages 18–35)
We interviewed solo and group travelers to understand planning behaviors and pain points.
Key Finding: People valued collaboration more than gamification.

Card Sorting (Optimal Workshop)

6 Participants
Used open card sorting to categorize features.
Helped us shape primary app sections:

• Trip Planning

• On-Trip Experience

• Explore

Usability Testing

Mid-Fi and Hi-Fi tests with 6 users
We observed user flows, tracked errors, and refined:

• Onboarding clarity

• Collaboration discoverability

• Offline accessibility

Personas

Understanding user behavior and context led to a more meaningful and intuitive smart water experience.

Design Process

Travelogue - A single app to plan, collaborate, and share your journey – online or offline.

Travelogue bridges the gap between travel logistics and memory-making.
It enables collaborative trip planning, real-time itinerary access, offline documentation, and a gentle layer of social gamification — all in one place.

Core Features Overview

• Create solo or group trips

• Invite friends to co-edit itineraries

• Add destinations, tickets, checklists, and documents

• Access everything offline

• Capture and share travel stories post-trip

• Discover hidden local gems through community recommendations
  
  

How Research Shaped Design

Our research wasn’t just a step — it was a continuous driver that shaped the app’s foundation. Insights from interviews, card sorting, and usability testing influenced multiple layers of the product:

• Navigation Structure
   Card sorting exercises exposed how users mentally grouped features — like distinguishing “Trip Planning” from “On-Trip Experiences.” This clarity led us to restructure the app’s bottom nav bar and content categories to match user logic.

  
  

• Offline-First Experience
   Offline access was cited as crucial across interviews. Users traveling abroad or into remote areas needed access to documents, itineraries, and checklists without connectivity. This led to the design of a dedicated “Make Available Offline” toggle per trip.

  
  

• Visual Hierarchy of Features
   Users prioritized checklists, travel docs, and itinerary over gamification. We elevated these in the dashboard design, placing core trip planning tools above secondary features like social feed and rewards.

  
  

• Simplified Onboarding with Personalization Hooks
   We noticed users were confused about how interest selections impacted their app experience. So we added subtle tooltips and live examples to explain how their choices would personalize suggestions and dashboard widgets.

  
  

• Iterative Refinement Through Usability Testing
   Each test led to tangible design changes: improving the visibility of “Invite to Trip,” rewording confusing CTAs, and adjusting iconography to reduce misclicks. Nothing was final until it passed user validation.

Prototypes

Early Concept Mockups

High Fidelity