Bonvoyager

User persona

How can I keep all my trip details organized in one place?

Alex B

35 yrs old | New York | Marketing Manager

Bio

Alex is a busy marketing manager who travels frequently for both work and leisure. With a demanding schedule, they seek a streamlined way to plan and manage trips efficiently without the hassle of juggling multiple apps. Whether traveling solo or coordinating group trips with friends or colleagues, Alex values flexibility, collaboration, and real-time updates.

Goal

• Plan and organize trips seamlessly with minimal time investment
• Stay informed with real-time updates on travel plans
• Maintain an efficient and stress-free travel experience

Needs

• A centralized platform to manage all travel details in one place
• Easy itinerary collaboration with travel companions
• Real-time location sharing and messaging for coordination

Pain Points

• Switching between multiple apps for planning, booking, and coordination
• Difficulty managing shared itineraries with groups
• Lack of real-time updates and seamless communication with travel partners
• Challenges in tracking expenses and splitting costs

Competitive Analysis

Below are the 4 main travel planners that came up most often in survey responses. My goal was to compare what features they had to offer in order to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement.

Google Trips

• Centralizes flight, hotel, and activity bookings.
• Provides trip summaries in a simple interface.
• View previous + upcoming trips
• Syncs with Google Maps for location-based recommendations.

Cons:

• No itinerary customization for personal plans.
• Lacks expense tracking and cost-splitting features.

Roadtrippers

• Ideal for planning scenic road trips with route suggestions.
• Allows users to discover attractions and stops along the way.
• Supports basic trip budgeting.

Cons:

• Limited itinerary management beyond road trips.
• Lacks hotel and flight organization tools

Splitwise

• Simplifies cost-splitting for group travel.
• Integrates with Venmo and PayPal for easy payments.
• Tracks expenses in multiple currencies.

Cons:

• No itinerary or trip-planning features.
• No itinerary or trip-planning features.

Triplt

• Automatically imports trip details from email.
• Syncs with calendar apps.
• Works offline after syncing trip details.

Cons:

• No real-time collaboration for group trips.
• No built-in expense tracking.
• Lacks location sharing and in-app messaging.

Feedback & Testing

Conducted Usability Testing and A/B testing for Collaboration features.

• Usability testing: I received some users feedback and incorporate it into ideation.
• A/B testing: I invite users on two versions of UI and test whether a streamlines interface improves user engagement.
• “I love the location sharing, but it would be helpful to set temporary visibility, like for few hours.”
• “The in-app chat is great, but it will be helpful to integrate quick polls for group decisions”

Key learnings

Design isn’t just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works - Steve Jobs

• Simplicity wins. User prefer intuitive, clutter free UI: This is my first UX project so it definitely took me a lot of time to make pixel right and iterate the UI. But I am so grateful for all the learning happened. :)
• Design with business goals in mind, align the decisions with business objectives. I did initially think about the possibility of actually launch the product but had to surrender to deadline. Someday!
• Real user needs should drive design decisions, not assumptions. As Don Norman said, we must design for the way people behave, not for how we would wish them to behave. So true! I had a lot of assumptions as a solo traveller myself, but the more user research and data I gathered, the more I understand what it is to be user-centric. So, keep asking questions, and ask the right one!
• Keep mid-fi prototypes more simple and allow the iteration at early stage ( as early / many as possible, actually)
• Last but not the least, stay curious and keep learning! Moving forward, I wish I continue to grow in this journey and be able to contribute to the business revenue expansion from the meaningful, impactful, intuitive design.