Yelena Dobric
Yelena Dobric
Lonely Planet - travel companion mobile app
Situation:
Lonely Planet was known to travelers for its books. As users were becomind increasingly reliant on digital tools, the beloved company was in danger of becoming irrelevant and worse - extinct. Task:
Task:
The challenge was to come up with an app, to compliment the existing Lonely Planet ecosystem that will appeal to travelers between 18-25 years of age.
Team:
Myself and 3 other UX designers.
Settings:
This project was built as a class project, at SVA (School of Visual Arts) Interaction Design Summer Intensive class.
Timeline:
Start to finish 5 weeks; 3hrs per week class time, and many hours of teamwork outside of class.
Action:
First step was an ecosystem analysis. It revealed channels with overlapping content and apps that were a continuation of the existing printed material. Client needed an innovative and engaging product.More steps, below, above each relevant deliverable. Result is at the end.
Research revealed that young travelers mostly long for companionship. Three women are actual travelers I interviewed for this project.
My team and I then brainstormed ideas and interactions for our app.
We did a card sorting exercise.
We organized our content on the wall, and then created an app map.
Final concept was an app that lets users locate other travelers around them. The idea is that the app would be used by folks traveling in exotic locations. User can see who's nearby, see that person's profile and reach out. The recipient can choose to respond. The app supports messaging. We called our app Trabbel, and users Trabbelers.
Result: Voted second place, among 6 groups. The instructor voted our prototype best in class. We were all very proud of the quality of work we were able to pull off, while most of us (myself included) worked full-time.
About the video below
The video below is a prototype built in InVision. 1:30 minutes long. No sound.
