Rove: Trip Planning App Case Study
ROLE
Did 0-1 product design to solve a real problem in the outdoor community through human-centered design.
DELIVERABLES
Completed competitive research and SWOT analysis for competitors. Managed entire user research process from crafting a user research script to recruiting and scheduling research participants to conducting the user research and synthesizing user research data. Completed affinity mapping, defined problem, designed empathy map, created journey maps, defined user scenarios and crafted persona in Miro. Delivered feature sets, user workflow, information architecture and wireframes designed in Figma. Also, crafted various data visualizations.
PROBLEM
HMW enable a more efficient and enjoyable trip planning process for trip organizers?
After moving to California I started getting into outdoor activities like backpacking, rock climbing and mountain biking. The more trips I got invited on, the more new tools and apps I had to download and learn. There were so many tools to plan trips and it baffled me that even the most experienced people I knew venturing into the outdoors utilized a seemingly random set of disconnected tools to plan and communicate details with trip participants. So, I set out to learn more about how and why people plan group trips into the outdoors. Also, I wanted to find out why the trip planning experience was so convoluted.
POINT OF VIEW
USER SCENARIOS
SOLUTION
A modern, powerful trip planning tool for outdoor group adventures.
SCOPE & CONSTRAINTS
Time was the biggest constraint for this project. I was working full time and doing this project on the side on nights and weekends. I was very keen to get more experience with research and end to end product design process. The scope was to complete the entire design process to craft interactive, high fidelity mockups that solved a real world problem.
PROCESS
Full human-centered design process: Emphasize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test
RESEARCH
I conducted one on one interviews with nine people based in the Bay Area who could be potential users of this product. Research participants were balanced in terms of age, gender and preferred outdoor activities.
USER RESEARCH
COMPETITIVE RESEARCH
SWOT ANALYSIS
RESEARCH SYNTHESIS
CURRENT TOOLS
WHERE RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS ARE EXPLORING
WHY RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS ARE EXPLORING
TRIP PLANNING PROCESS
INSIGHTS
PERSONA
After analyzing the research I crafted this persona. Alex is a bona fide weekend warrior who wants to spend less time planning trips and more time connecting with friends while in the outdoors.
EMPATHY MAP
JOURNEY MAP
FEATURE SETS & USER FLOW
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
WIREFRAMES
Splash Screen, Onboarding, Sign Up, Map Home, Trip Setup
Trip Builder
Profile, Notifications, Comments, Augmented Reality Map View, Logo
OUTCOME
I turned this project into a presentation that I gave during design interviews. Unfortunately the company that hired me was not comfortable with me working on my trip planning mapping app while working on their mapping apps, so the project concluded after crafting wireframes.
LEARNINGS
Learned so much more about the product design process and really enjoyed both building out the research process and persona. Also, after diving into this space I learned that trip planning is a complicated and emotional beast. Lastly, data visualization is an absolute art.