PROJECT OVERVIEW
Collaborative Travel: Redesigning Expedia’s mobile app to make trip planning seamless
MY ROLE
UX Researcher
TIME FRAME
15 weeks
TOOLS
Figma
Google Suite
TEAM
CS, AN, LA, DC
As part of my Capstone project with Expedia Group, we were tasked to uncover the complexities of travel planning and redesign Expedia’s mobile app to enhance the group travel planning experience.
We were able to go into Expedia Headquarters in Seattle and use their User Testing center to conduct our study. The Expedia app is an all-in-one travel companion where you can plan, book and manage your whole trip, plus earn rewards, in one place.
PROBLEM
SOLUTION
Travelers are increasingly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of options available across digital platforms, making trip planning a stressful and complicated task.
We introduced 3 main features into the app to allow users to gain a comprehensive overview of their trip, track live expenses, and leave on-topic comments and chats.
PROCESS
PHASE 1: DISCOVERY
Literature Review: Let’s learn what we already know.
Teaming up with Expedia meant diving deep into the research they had already done. After sifting through their findings and doing some digging of our own, we pinpointed three key insights to use as our jumping-off points.
01
Our target user
Travelers are Ages 30-45, typically planning for groups of 3-4
source: Expedia Group02
Current trends in travel booking methods
Mobile booking is growing rapidly, indicating a shift towards more convenient and accessible travel planning.
source: Sia, P.Y.-H., Saidin, S.S. and Iskandar, Y.H.P.03
Everyone has their own method
Frequent travelers tend to stick with what they know, often resisting change.
source: Expedia GroupCompetitive Analysis
We turned to competitive analysis to help us understand the landscape, identify industry standards, and uncover opportunities for innovation.
With our discovery research, our first HMW iteration was created ✨
How might we redesign Expedia’s mobile app’s Trips page to better support group travel planning, using methods that travelers find intuitive and comfortable?
PHASE 2: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH [Team lead!]
Based on our initial findings, we selected three different qualitative research approaches to explore our insights more thoroughly.
As the team lead for this phase, I prioritized choosing methods that would build on each other. We began with broad exploration and gradually funneled our research into deeper “why’s” to uncover meaningful results.
01
Surveys
Helps us gather initial insights from travelers to pinpoint what we should focus on during field observations and interviews.
02
Field Observations
Lets us see how people naturally handle different parts of trip planning, providing a real-world view of their thought processes.
03
Interviews
Gives us a chance to dive deeper into why users make certain choices, helping us get to the heart of their needs and challenges.
Surveys
We surveyed 48 people on Instagram, Reddit, and Slack about their Expedia experiences, gathering diverse insights. Using FigJam, we organized our findings into four categories.
Tools: Google Forms + FigJamFigJam Analysis
Key Findings from FigJam AnalysisORGANIZATION ISSUES
Managing shared travel info is difficult; better sorting features are needed.
ITINERARY DETAIL
Users want more customizable and detailed itinerary templates.
PREFERRED TOOLS
Notion is favored for its flexible and robust organizational features.
TIME AND COLLABORATION
Users find it hard to coordinate and prefer tools like Google Docs and Sheets.
Field Observations + Interviews
We used our survey to create questions and tasks for deeper insights. We conducted nine 30-minute sessions, combining interviews and field observations.
Interviews gave detailed feedback, while observations showed how users interacted with the current Expedia app and other planning apps, revealing important user behaviors and preferences.
Tools: FigJamFigJam AnalysisCOMMUNICATION
Group coordination involved messaging apps, social media, and collaborative tools for planning.
BUDGETING
Users often had preset budgets and lacked patience to continually recalculate trip costs.
Key Findings from FigJam AnalysisDESIRED FEATURES
Users sought enhanced collaboration, clearer pricing, better itinerary planning, and improved pricing comparison in travel apps.
TRIP PLANNING TOOLS
Users used tools like Google Flights, Chase Travel, and Google Docs for collaborative planning and researched affordability, safety, and destinations.
DESIGN GOALS
Using our qualitative research, we grouped our interview insights into 4 major groups for us to use as a guideline for user needs & desires throughout our design process.
ENHANCED COLLABORATION
Incorporate features that facilitate collaborative trip planning and decision-making within travel apps, such as shared itinerary planning, group chat functionality, and real-time collaboration tools.
DESIRED FEATURES
Incorporate features that provide users with a complete overview of their entire trip, and price transparency to track budget throughout the trip.
COMFORT
Produce an application that stems off planning strategies users are already comfortable with.
PERSONALIZATION
Allow freedom to accommodate many different user preferences.
With our new insights, we refined our HMW…
How might we redesign Expedia’s mobile app’s Trips page to better support and simplify group travel planning, ensuring it accommodates collaborative efforts and utilizes methods that travelers find intuitive, comfortable, and personalized?
…NOW LET’S BUILD! 🧱🔨
PHASE 3: BUILD
Intuitive & Comfortable
Intuitiveness and comfort come with familiarity. We designed two views that users are likely familiar with:
Calendar View: a quick snapshot of the trip
Itinerary view: streamlines trip planning by displaying both confirmed bookings and saved activities on a unified timeline
CALENDAR 🗓️
1st Iteration
❌ Overly stacked events lack organization and suggest a false timeline
❌ Cannot see everything all at once
2nd Iteration
✅ Familiar standard calendar view
✅ Rid of x-axis scrolling, adds and expands rows contingent on content mass
✅ more intuitive button flow to a separate detailed timeline itinerary page + offers ability to duplicate button navigation to place elsewhere
Lo-Fi Wireframe
The lo-fi wireframe reflects the second sketch more closely with a more detailed look at the structure of this page.
ITINERARY
Design Sketch
✅ Invites collaboration for decision making
❌ Overwhelming amount of elements
lo-fi wireframe
✅ Detailed information
⚠️ uncoverable features (Will this pass user testing?)
❌ cluttered
Three other key components of trip planning were budgeting, chatting, and booking. Designing these elements was straightforward, but the real challenge was integrating all the components into a seamless, intuitive flow.
Our main features:
Calendar
Itinerary
Group Chat
BudgetLet’s Piece it Together 🧩
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Expedia HQ User Testing CenterTesting, Validating, Iterating
We identified 3 task flows that represented the most important actions to be accomplished for trip planning.
TASK FLOWS TO TEST WITH PARTICIPANTS
01
Viewing and understanding the itinerary
02
Making a decision with the group about an activity
03
Checking & understanding if the trip is within budget
TESTING INSIGHT 1
The itinerary was difficult to read
❌ Could not distinguish different types of cards
❌ Crammed contents in cards
❌ Commenting feature was not intuitive to find
After feedback
✅ Developed diverse card designs to display essential information
✅ Streamlined the interface for a less overwhelming appearance
✅ Enhanced intuitive indicators for saved or booked items
TESTING INSIGHT 1
The budget took too long to understand
❌ Too much unnecesary content
❌ Added x-axis scrolling
After feedback
✅ Quick at-a-glance look
✅ Quick bill recorder feature
TESTING INSIGHT 2
The chat did not have many features
❌ Limited to messages only
❌ Abrupt blocks do not align with design system
After feedback
✅ Can feature itinerary items
✅ Poll for simpler decision-making
✅ Cleaner design
PHASE 5: FINAL THOUGHTS
The standout experience of this project was the opportunity to visit Expedia HQ, where I conducted user testing with their participants and equipment. I also had the privilege of working with a highly efficient team and learning from exceptional mentors.
Key Takeaways:
Simplicity is Powerful: I tend to overload screens with too much information, but user testing underscored the effectiveness of a more streamlined approach. Less truly is more.
The Power of Questions: Asking questions—whether to participants, mentors, or team members—proved invaluable. It not only deepened our understanding but also sparked meaningful discussions that propelled the project forward.
A Passion for Research: Research is embedded in every stage of the design process, but I particularly enjoyed engaging with participants. Understanding their perspectives and uncovering the underlying "whys" behind their thoughts and actions was a highlight for me.
FINAL DESIGN