Overview
Trip Keep is an application that puts a user’s geolocational history to use, making it easy to browse and review trips taken, as well as enhance trips users are currently on. It takes a very practical and implementable approach combining both data and tools into one easy to access place perfect for a number of situations.
Just here to see highlights and pretty pics? 👀
My Role
UI Design
Tools Used
Figma
Timeline
2 Weeks
Design Brief
“Design the user interface of a mobile application for Android or iOS, following the guidelines in the mobile design system of your choice. Focus your efforts on the screens that illustrate your key original ideas, features, and tasks. Use the design system templates provided for Android or iOS to seed your design and do not make new components unless you need them.”
Project Theme – Fostering Urban Connectedness
In choosing a project theme that seeks to improve urban connectedness, my aim was to use a user’s location to help document, share and enrich their experience by connecting to locations around them.
Project Objectives
01 / Review Trips
Improve the wayfinding experience for students on campus.
02 / Find Info about Points of Interest
Using reviews and usage data, build a knowledge base of quality tested wayfinding information.
03 / Browse Trip Photos by Location
Using reviews and usage data, build a knowledge base of quality tested wayfinding information.
Ideation
Originality and Differentiation
Applications like Google Maps use geographical information to form a timeline that provides some information to users at a later date like where you were and how you got there. Trip Keep organizes these timelines into trips, to tell the stories of adventures by making use of the modern smartphone’s ability to log geolocational data. This allows users to remember and recommend their favourite places like, “that café they had lunch at in Naples”. Unlike applications like Swarm, there’s no longer the need to compulsively open your phone to check-in at every location.
Opting into Trip Keep’s location services automatically logs the places you visit on your trip ensuring there are no gaps in your adventure. While on a trip, users can use the application’s built in camera to take photographs that will instantly get added to their trip, as well as make use of Google Lens, allowing them to identify landmarks, find the name of the artist who made that sculpture in the Museum of Modern Art, or translate a menu in a restaurant in Peru. This integration will allow them to connect with the environment around them, demystifying and exploring new locations as if they had their own tour guide.
Initial Sketches
My initial sketches for this application aimed for features that would allow users to see “trips” that featured automatically grouped collections of photos, a digital “tour guide” feature, and section where users could write diary notes during moments of their trip.
Later sketches attempted to organize trips by location or time, visualize trips points, photo view and details, and envision the use of Google Lens.
Testing and Evaluation
To gather feedback on some of these initial sketches, I turned them into very rough testing screens to gather feedback from potential users.
Likes
Feedback
Hi-Fi & Storyboards
Using the feedback generated, I made changes to earlier testable screens and developed three high fidelity storyboards centered around:
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Reviewing a trip
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Finding information about a point of interest
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Browsing photos by location
After comments made from test participants, I chose to remove the written memories/journaling feature and focus on connecting users to the environment around them by allowing them to learn about their surroundings in foreign environments with the power of Google Lens.
1. Reviewing a Trip
The reviewing a trip storyboard outlines the path of navigating through and selecting past trips, viewing past trip timelines, points of information, photos from particular trips, and favourite locations from trips.
2. Finding Info About a Point of Interest
The Finding Info About a Point of Interest storyboard displays the path of a user using Google Lens to identify and find more information about a point of interest around them while on a trip.
3. Browse Photos by Location
The Browse Photos by Location storyboard show the path of a user browsing, navigating and filtering through past photos, as well as importing photos from other locations on their phone to an existing trip.
Results
Key Lessons
Designing around an already existing design system
Much of my design experience, especially on the web doesn’t typically factor in an existing design system as extensive as something as material design, because the web is the wild wild west. This was a great experience in trying to build something that used and fit inside of a guard rails of an operating system’s design system.
It’s easy to think that using a design system would be easier, but in reality it takes quite a bit of discipline to follow rules and taper ideas to fit inside a system that someone else built.
People give great feedback to things they love
I received more feedback from the testable screens that I created than I would have anticipated, but those who provided feedback were very enthusiastic because they noted that the idea behind the app was great, and something they would use. While some of the feedback was radically different than others (because many people enjoy doing different kinds of things on trips) focusing on common feedback was key to not designing for one person or the person I spoke to who most frequently goes on trips (and was therefore the most particular).
