Wayformer
A.I. Assisted
Travel Planner
As the pandemic comes to an end, more people are beginning to travel, especially the younger generations. For our new travelers, planning a trip can de difficult because it takes a lot of coordination and can be done in many different ways. With Wayformer, users can easily get their trip planned with the help of A.I., reducing the turbulence in their trip.
Project Duration: 5 weeks, Spring 2023
Tools Used: Figma, Figjam, Illustrator, Photoshop
Team:
Colin Morris- UI Lead, User Testing, Design Research, Copywriting
Farrah Nobles- Research lead, User Testing, Prototyping/Wireframes, Copywriting
Problem Statement: Planning a vacation is a nightmare, especially when coordinating with a group. Hiring a travel agent is expensive and planning a trip yourself can be time consuming and confusing.
Goal: To provide travelers a tool that helps them create an itinerary and allows groups to collaborate on travel plans.
Outcome: We created “Wayformer”, a mobile app that utilizes A.I. to generate a travel itinerary that corresponds with the groups destination, time, interests and budget.
Project Scope:
Design Research
UX/UI
Brand Identity
Copywriting
My Role:
UX Lead
Design Research
User Testing
Prototyping/Wireframes
Video Edit
Trademark
Travel Pain Points
Group Coordination
Getting a group to make collective decisions is never easy, especially when traveling.
Planning
Creating an itinerary that doesn’t overlap and factors in travel time requires a lot of back and forth coordinating.
Budget
Planning a trip within a set budget is difficult, especially traveling to a new location.
travel Methods
There’s a million ways to get from point A to point B, but it’s hard to find which method works best for each unique travel scenario.
Interview Questions
Frequency
How many times do you travel in a year?
What is the average duration of your trips?
Do you plan your own trips or do you hire a travel agent?
Do you prefer a structured trip or one with loose plans?
Planning
How many people do you typically travel with?
Has your group ever temporarily split up to do different things?
Groups
Location
How far are you likely to travel?(Out of town, state or country)
How do you find activities that you want to do on your trip?
Have you ever had trouble finding food options that please your whole group?
Activities
What experience do you have using artificial intelligence?
How do you feel about A.I. learning your travel habits?
artificial intelligence
Wayformer is aimed towards a younger generation of travelers who are just beginning to see the world. They are open to the opportunities of artificial intelligence and have little to no experience when it comes to planning a trip.
Target Audience
Addie Walsh, Recent College Graduate
“My friends and I have always wanted to go on big trip after graduation, but that was about a year ago and we still haven’t started planning ”
“I’ve looked into it a bit, but there are just so many factors with traveling abroad, I don’t know where to begin.”
Interview Takeaways
User Persona
beginner traveler
Tucker Fulmer, 23
Frustrations:
-Different travel websites say different things.
-Hard to coordinate trip with the group.
-Doesn’t know where to begin with travel planning.
-Travel agents are expensive.
Goals
-For everyone to enjoy the vacation.
-To experience fun and unique activities.
-Stay within budget
“I just graduated college and can’t wait to travel the world with my friends! I want us to have a great experience, but I don’t know where to start with making this trip a reality.
Trip Stages
Dreaming
Wayfinding:
-Using wayfinder’s explore feature to view possible travel destination.
-Saving activities for later.
Budgeting:
-Creating a overall budget for the trip.
-Expense priorities: Travel v.s. lodging v.s. activities.
Group:
-Who will be going on trip?
-Who is going to be co-host?
Destination:
-What type of vacation does the group want?
Does this location fit within the groups budget?
Dates:
-What time of year is best for the location?
-Whats days work best for the groups schedule?
Dream Board:
-Creating a trip “bucket list.”
-Finding activities that the whole group are interested in.
Planning
Experience:
-Landmarks: guided tours, tickets, open hours, ect.
-Unique Experiences: winery, nightlife, mountins, beach, ect.
-Food: restaurants, groceries, dietary needs, ect.
-Group voting on activities.
Moving:
-Book modes of transportation.
-In route transportation (how to get around once at destination)
-Mapping routes (is group traveling from city to city?)
Staying:
-Booking lodging.
-Making dinner reservations.
execution
Check in/out:
-Checking into and out of hotel reservations.
-Boarding transportation
Timing:
-Do activities have a strict arrival time?
-Will you possibly stay at an event longer than anticipated?
Communication:
-Communicating with group while traveling.
-Communicating with hotels/travel companies: cancelations, lost baggage, natural disaster, re-schedule.
memory
Documenting:
-Taking videos and photos.
-Bringing home memorabilia from travels.
-Talking about the memories with freinds.
Future Trips:
-What did the users enjoy from past trips that they want to do again in the future
-Wayformer learns what activities users tend to prefer.
Moscow
must have
-Trip parameters (budget, location, dates and members)
-Group collaboration
-Trip host and co-host
-Voting on activities
should have
-Option in itinerary for group to split up.
-Loose ideas/Dream board
-Hotel check in/out
-itinerary calendar
could have
-Communication with hotels
-Photo and video scrapbook
-Travel template based on other users trips to location
-World travel news
won’t have
-Built in map
-Flight planning
-Automatic booking
How Might We’s
creating trip
User Journey
Travel planning can be tedious and confusing, especially if you don’t have a lot of experience. This could mean finding modes of transportation, creating an itinerary and planning with a group.
Wayformer’s goal is to reduce the stress of traveling, allowing users to enjoy their trip without any turbulence getting in the way.
Mission Statement/USP
Travelers coordinate a group and destination for their next trip. Wayformer then asks each member to complete a survey in order understand their travel preferences. Utilizing artificial intelligence, Wayformer creates an itinerary based on the groups survey results. As travelers continue to use Wayformer, built in A.I. uses machine learning to plan more personalized itineraries for future trips.
How it Works
UI Elements
Video
Our team created a short video explaining how Wayformer can be a useful tool to people traveling in groups and the problems it solves with travel planning.
Homepage and Explore Feature
The mobile app home page features a travel news section that shows current events in popular travel destinations. This section is replaced with the users upcoming trip if they have one planned.
We also wanted to include an explore feature, allowing travelers to get ideas for their next trip.
The Host creates a new trip, inputting the desired destination, and group members. From there the Host sets trip parameter, including: survey duration, pre-planned events and travel style. Once the parameters are set, a survey is sent out to each member, gathering their personal preferences for the itinerary.
Creating a New Trip
Once the survey results are in, Wayformer uses A.I. to create an itinerary that correlates with user preferences. If travelers wish to change the itinerary, they have the option to put activities up for vote or can completely remove it from their schedule.
Trip Itinerary
Webpage Home
The website home page features a prompt to begin planning your next trip. It also has itineraries generated by Wayformer for users to copy or take inspiration from.
Webpage Itinerary
Similar to the mobile, the web format shows the users itinerary by the day. It also features navigation to view the budget and survey.
Over the course of this project we played with around with several forms of navigation and learned the pro/cons of each. We eventually settled on having a tab bar at the bottom of the page, since it was easiest to use while on the go.
I also learned about the options that artificial intelligence opens for the future of interactive design.
WHAT I LEARNED:
With more time we would have liked to expand more screens for the web version. We primarily focused on the mobile since people typically carry their phone with them at all times when traveling.
With More time:
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Bigfoot
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