HODO

a trip recommendation app

My Role

UX Designer

UX Researcher

UI Developer

Team

Charmi Chovatia

Soumya Sharma

Nikita Gokhale

Duration

12 Weeks

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Hodo is a cutting-edge mobile app that utilizes Recommendation AI to recommend travel places and destinations based on one’s travel personality and travel preferences.

Vacations are crucial because they provide people a chance to escape the stress of everyday obligations. Choosing the perfect place can seem like a big task in and of itself, even when one decides to take a short trip.

We created the app with the goal of enhancing the user experience of travel planning, so one can find their best-suited travel places in a time-efficient way instead of spending hours trying to find the perfect place or picking places to travel based on top tourist sites.

  • I was responsible for initial ideation, designing a recommendation model, and designing the user flow and recommendation screens of the app. I also contributed to the overall research, ideation, project planning, designing User Interface, prototyping, and user testing.

  • Asana, Figma, Miro, Adobe Illustrator, Invision, Photoshop, Sublime, Visual Studio

  • UX Research, UX Design, Visual Design, Project planning, UI development, Prototyping, Usability testing

  • Thesis Group Project, Mobile App, IOS, Recommendation AI

We all enjoy travel for various reasons. Everyone's individual interests, thrills, and modes of relaxation are too diverse for everyone to enjoy the same overarching suggestions. There are numerous travel planning platforms available, but the majority of them are only concerned with booking your trip or managing your itinerary. There is no credible platform that offers personalized travel suggestions based on an individual's interests.

Problem

“How can we create an app that makes use of cutting-edge technology to improve users' trip-planning experiences?”

Initial Research

“On average, a person spends 10 hours planning their holiday destination.”

“A quarter of people consider holiday planning one of life's biggest stressors.’’

— According to the SWNS survey

Research

User Interview

We conducted interviews with a varied group of individuals, including 25 people and 5 travel agents, ranging in age from 21 to 60 and representing diverse demographics. The aim was to gain insights into their travel planning experience, goals, motivation, and frustrations. Here's a concise overview of the insights we gathered.

Travel personality - There are different travel personalities. Each traveler has different goals for exploring the same destination and has varied ideas for an ideal vacation. The majority of people prefer to plan their excursions months in advance, including every aspect of their itinerary, while some prefer to go on spontaneous trips.

Generic Suggestions - The majority of people between the ages of 21 and 50 do not opt for travel agents. Travel packages typically feature generic tourist attractions and cannot accommodate everyone’s expectations.

Time-consuming - The majority of people use search engines, online travel agencies, or travel blogs for their trip planning. Planning a trip takes too much time and effort, and online recommendations are not always satisfying.

Secondary Research

To learn and understand more about the different travel personalities, we did secondary research. Through this process, we came across studies that examined distinct categories of travelers and their preferences. Building upon this insight, we crafted the 5 travel personas.

Culture Creature

  • Loves art

  • Loves history

  • Loves to know facts and information

  • Loves to go to festivals, art shows, museums, fairs and theatres

  • Loves to visit old forts and castles and places that have historic importance

  • Local spots to soak in the culture and heritage of the place

Active Adventurer

  • Loves to stay active on the trips. Walking over driving

  • Loves to go on hikes, treks, trails and walking

  • Loves adventure sports

  • Does not love to sit around

  • Loves to wake up early and start their day

  • Adventure over comfort

  • Loves exploring local sights but prefers walking

Leisure Lover

  • Family oriented vacationer.

  • Loves to spent time with family.

  • Focus on hotels and activities that help the relax

  • Loves beach day with friends or family

  • Touristy instagram worthy sightseeing.

  • Loves shopping. Shops local cultural things

  • Do things at their own pace

Party Person

  • Loves to party

  • Loves to dress up

  • Loves to explore the pubs, clubs and night life in the area

  • Loves to explore wineries and breweries by the day

  • Loves to meet new people and hang out

  • needs the city pulse

  • Loves concerts bands, music and performances.

  • Fine dine and good wine

Avid All-Rounder

  • Loves art and history

  • Loves to soak in the destination's culture

  • Loves to explore city

  • Loves to go to festivals, art shows, museums, fairs and theatres and old historic places

  • Loves to food and night life and pubs and clubs

  • Loves adventure spots and hikes

  • Loves shopping

Competitive Analysis

With the insights we gathered, our next step was to closely analyze Hodo's competitors to understand how they help users in their travel planning. By exploring the functionality of competitors’ apps, we assessed their strengths and weaknesses, pinpointing opportunities for Hodo to enhance its offerings.

  • Almost all online travel planning platforms like Expedia, Google, etc. focus on booking, trip budget planning, finding the best travel deals, scheduling itineraries, or suggesting a generalized list of places based on popularity.

  • There are many apps that employ AI to make recommendations that are specifically tailored to the user, like Headway, which recommends books to read, but none of them are for suggesting travel places based on one’s personality.

  • Travel professionals do provide personalized trip plans, but they are expensive. Budgeted, pre-planned packages do not fit the idea of a perfect trip for the majority.

Persona

To better understand Hodo's users and ensure user-centered decisions, we used research insights to create personas that represent the individuals we are designing for. This helped us comprehend potential user needs based on their strengths and challenges.

Prioritization

To achieve a clearer direction for the app's focal points we utilized the MoSCoW method. This approach enabled us to visualize and categorize the app features we intended to develop. This was a 3-month project, and we were required to design as well as develop the features. To effectively manage the limited timeframe, we opted to use the Impact Effort Matrix, a strategic tool that provided us with insights into what could feasibly be accomplished within the given time constraints.

UserFlow

After finalizing the list of essential features, we created a user flow to properly organize the app's features into flows and to depict the steps users would take across the app from start to finish to complete the key tasks.

Low Fidelity Sketch

We sketched rough, low-fidelity screens to achieve a preliminary understanding of whether the concepts for sections and requirements were intuitive and user-friendly.

Medium Fidelity Prototype

Prior to getting into aesthetic design, our priority was to validate the design's functionality. To achieve this, we chose to create a mid-fidelity prototype. This approach enabled us to swiftly test the design with users and make essential revisions, ensuring the app's structure and flow are user-friendly.

Recommendation AI Prototype

In order to create a functional prototype for the recommendation AI system, we carefully considered our goal and selected the most suitable recommendation AI system to incorporate into the design. Due to limited time, we opted to concentrate on developing the prototype for one location. Consequently, I obtained the dataset for Italy and developed a recommendation AI system that caters to both new and existing users, providing recommendations for places to visit and activities to engage in throughout Italy.

Usability Testing

Individually, we conducted in-person one-on-one usability testing sessions with 5 users. We requested them to openly express their actions, thoughts, and emotions as they engaged with the prototype and attempted to accomplish the assigned tasks. We specifically focused our testing on critical app features such as taking the quiz, discovering one's travel personality, and receiving recommendations.

On average, each person took about 10 minutes to finish the given tasks. After that, we spent another 10 minutes collecting their feedback. Overall, the users were able to complete all the tasks successfully, and the usability test gave us positive results. However, there were specific areas where users identified opportunities for enhancing the user interface.

Style Guide

  • We believe that color plays a crucial role in setting the tone and mood of our app, so we have chosen a vibrant palette that reflects the excitement of exploring new destinations.

  • Typography is another important element in our design strategy, as it helps to convey information clearly and effectively. We have opted for clean and modern fonts that are easy to read, ensuring that users can effortlessly navigate through our app and discover their next travel destination.

  • We have carefully selected colors for each personality that evoke a sense of wanderlust.

Interactive Prototype

Onboarding Experience

Following usability insights, we strategically added four engaging onboarding screens to introduce users to our app's features, ensuring a seamless onboarding experience.

Quiz for discovering the travel personality

We deliberately created a fun and engaging quiz to assist individuals in revealing their distinct travel preferences and inclinations. Users can retake the quiz if they are dissatisfied with their initial results.

Get Recommendations, Search places, and Save trips

Users can enter their desired destination to receive recommended places or choose from suggested destinations. Using usability insights, we've modified the home screen to prominently feature the recommendation input, significantly enhancing user accessibility.