Placeholder
Know where you are going next by letting us know where you have been.
Type:
Bootcamp Project
Tools:
Figma, Paper
Roles:
Solo Project
Timeline:
4 Weeks
Project Overview
A UX project where the prompt was to create an app that was somehow related to travel. I took this prompt and thought about how there are not any travel apps that really helped people figure where they could go next. This was the general idea for what would become Placeholder, an app that would give you suggestions as to where you might want to go and what you might want to do when you get there. Through developing this idea, there were repeated interviews and testing done to improve the usability of the app with a large part of the effort being put towards the onboarding process.
User Research - In Search For The Perfect Trip For You
Before designing the app, we needed to first get a grasp of our users' travel habits. This led to the creation of our proto-persona, Cornelius Rockefeller, to help guide the design process. To create this we interviewed people to who we thought best fit our user’s and looked to find any trends.
Definition & Synthesis - Finding New Information For A New Destination
After gathering user insights on topics related to traveling one of the biggest pain points we discovered was that people need to feel confident in their decisions when traveling. This helped us understand that if we wanted to make an app that helps people we need to not just give users suggestions about where they should go, but also let them feel like they are making the best out of the time that they have. It was this finding that made us see where we could improve. If someone is only able to go on vacation once or twice a year then they should not have to worry about how they could be doing something better.
Storyboard used to help better understand why and how someone might use Placeholder, at this time going by Wanderlust
Ideation - Mapping Out The Future
Once the conclusion was made to focus on showing users how to optimize their vacation, the decision was made to focus on a system that could help tell people what else could be done in their desired location. This can be seen in findings from the user insight statement and problem statement to even the value proposition and storyboard as they all stress the importance of respecting users and how there is a lack of a product that can help suggest where someone could go and what they can do there.
Prototyping (Lo-Fi)
When it came to thinking about how a user might interact with this app one of the first things to consider was remembering that users should always have the ability to very clearly make changes to their accounts and be able to use this app as way to both keep track of where they have gone, but also where might they be going next. From there other functions that can be seen in various stages of the prototype steps later on took form, these included having the option to get reminders about upcoming plans or the ability to see what the weather might be like so that you might be able to make changes to plans you had already made.
Despite all of these features and functions that the prototype would ultimately show, the earliest forms of the prototype focused heavily on incorporating a strong onboarding process that not only would be telling the users how this app would work, but explaining why it was asking for specific information from them.
When user testing began there was the initial prototype which despite visually being barebones was mostly praised for being well put together and having a focus on the on boarding process while the critiques of it were that it was too wordy and some of the questions it asked were unnecessary. From this feedback we made adjustments to the app to improve usability and avoid any unnecessary confusion which led to us having to learn the importance of less is more.
User Testing + Outcomes
Conclusion + Future Opportunities
In the end, it was clear that this was a first attempt from someone who was new to this field, but that led to further refinements and changes being made. Those changes included shifting the order of the onboarding process and adding more very plain and uninspired screens amongst other things to give the app its own identity. This meant creating a logo for the app, going and removing the default placeholder images on the screens and elements that I used from element libraries and using instead images from my various vacations.
If I were to continue working on this app in the future, there are a number of things that I would do, whether that be working with back-end developers and programmers to see if creating an algorithm for an app like this could be possible, allow a way for local businesses and people to submit different attractions to Placeholder to help promote them when it comes to giving users the option to view attractions nearby the area they are visiting.