Component ideation
Scope
14 weeks
Individual Project
Course
Visual IxD 2,
ArtCenter College of Design
Skills learned & applied
Prototyping, Branding,
UX Research, UX Strategy
Group have a hard time making trips happen because it’s tricky to gather suggestions, get consensus, and plan for logistics as a group. Existing tools allow for more seamless travel planning are geared toward single and couple travelers or toward sharing travel information in one place. But they don’t tailor to the moving dynamic of a group — with combinations of different preferences, communication styles and travel styles — when they’re planning a trip together.
The Problem I Set Out to Solve
Product
01
Eunite is a group travel planning and tracking platform that tailors to groups, that means suggesting, considering and making decisions together. With Eunite, groups continue the momentum and make their trips come true.
Group suggestions
Member can add activity and stay suggestions for others to rate and collaborate on building the itinerary
Planning convo summary + update
AI tool listens and summarizes real-time planning convo, and updates in group itinerary
Group availability syncing
Group members input their availability, the system figures out the rest
High-priority tasks assignment
Assign important tasks (inputting budget, availability, and travel profiles) to move the plan forward
Real time group alert
Eunite notifies group when to leave for a planned activity, and remind group who will be coming
Transportation plan for activity
Add a transportation plan between itinerary items for ease of transport and time management for the group
Key features
Purpose
Groups are splurging on “celebration travels” such as milestone birthdays, bachelorette parties and destination weddings. Travelers in general are planning trips around sports, music events and adventure activities.
Reward
People go on group trips because they want to foster a deeper relationship with their friends and family by spending quality time and experiencing the world together.
Opportunity
Groups are spending more on travel, traveling more frequently, and becoming significantly smaller in size. Gen Z tends to opt for shorter adventures but more of them. Small groups expect a more flexible and unique itinerary.
Travel trends
/
/
Serendipitous
Energized
Refined
Capitalizing on my guidewords “energized” and “serendipitous”, I created a visual language that represents that tingly feeling when you’re exploring and hanging out with your friends in a brand new city in your 20’s. I shy away from blue tones that typically represent travel and appeal to a wider demographic, and brought in a cloud-like texture for a flowy feel. Dark background pairs with vibrant purple helps communicate that excitement and serendipity while making photo content pop.
Research
02
There’s a mountain of logistics a group has to navigate through such as budget, scheduling and building an itinerary while also researching flights, accommodation, transportation and activities. Doing this while balancing needs, preferences and personalities is incredibly overwhelming for people who already have to balance their daily life and work/school.
With a market in mind to dive deeper, I created a working hypothesis then researched to validate it.
Why is a solution for group travel needed?
User research
2 Expert Interviews
4 Conversations
14 Surveys
After expert interviews and friend conversations, I felt that I still needed to understand the group pain points more deeply in order to ideate effective solutions. So I sent out a survey, then synthesized all my learnings.
I learned:
People want to easily access the itinerary and see what’s being and has been considered.
Be updated with group members’ whereabouts, meetup location/time during trip.
One activity has multiple logistics (tickets, how to get there, what to see/eat/do, etc.)
Most groups figure out stay first and flights first.
Before trip, people want to figure the logistics, be aware of everyone’s preferences, and be able to get consensus among each other.
During the trip, there are a variety of travel styles and personalities in a group. Some people also want to be informed if the group breaks off and be on different schedules.
People want a way to track and pay for group’s expenses.
I verified:
People want an easy way to communicate their budget constraints and know other’s budget in the planning phase.
They want different ways to split expenses, including splitting paying responsibility based on people’s income.
They want an easier way to figure out group’s schedule for flights, stays, and activities.
An easier way for the group to get consensus on any decision (getting dates, choosing and booking activities, how to split and pay bills).
They also want to know:
If people in the group wants to or don’t want to do something.
Group’s needs and preferences.
To be able to balance preferences.
To know or be able to check in with group: Do they like the activity? Are they having a good time?
I was surprised that:
People want help with finding and comparing prices: flights, accommodation, and transportation.
Help with finding restaurants and activities and navigating local transportation and transportation app.
They want the ability to be flexible and change their stance on a decision.
A way to make group plan changes more convenient.
Help on budgeting with their group during the planning phase.
Budget / Expense
Scheduling
Consensus / Transparency
Itinerary
Logistics
Stress factors
Flexibility
Recommendation System
Pre-trip
During trip
Planning fatigue
Scheduling conflict
Budget difference
Difficult group
decision-making
Unclear communication
& confirmation
Heavy leader
responsibility
Un-communicated
needs
Un-communicated plan changes
Different interests
and preferences
Pain points in the group journey
Positioning matrix
What’s on the market? What are they doing well and what is missing? How can Eunite solve the group trip planning problem coming from a unique position?
Insights from user research showed needs for a more collaborative and transparent group travel planning environment with help on calendar syncing and expense tracking with their group. I conducted competitive analysis focused on existing tools for travel planning, group travel planning, calendar syncing and expense tracking. And used the positioning matrix to solidify how Eunite can stand out in the market.
User definition
03
Personas
I saw 3 types of personas surfaced as I learned about people’s needs, preferences, and frustrations traveling in groups: The Group Leader – the one who pushes the plan forward, The Feel Good friend – they want to get along with everyone, and The Go with the Flow – they just show up. They can also be categorized based on how much involvement they have in the travel planning process, which ties to how much time they would spend on the platform.
June
Graphic Designer
Involvement level in the planning process: high
Gwen
Marketing Student
Involvement level in the planning process: medium
Mike
Sport Instructor
Involvement level in the planning process: low
User goals — the type of platform that we should offer our users:
Collaborative
Everyone in the group has equal weights in the planning and decision-making process, and feel like they’re working together toward a common goal
Transparent
Group members feel encouraged and safe to be transparent about their budget, preferences, and opinions while offering the same attitude in reverse
Comprehensive
A space that offers what a group needs to get inspired, plan for the trip and keep track of the itinerary
Rewarding
Actions throughout the platform feel rewarding, fun, and help encourage collaboration
Side note on persona
Gwen is someone whose ideal scenario is sharing equal planning loads with her friends and having fun while doing it. This goal and personality set up the right challenge to design Eunite. With the limited project timeline, I dived deeper into Gwen and her use case scenarios to ideate features and user flows while still considering June and Mike’s goals. I divided Gwen’s use case scenario into 2 stages (pre-trip and during trip).
During the persona stage, I did a posture exercise, which looked at what our personas did in their during moments they would use the platform. This helped me get started on ideating the right features and actions that would make sense for my users.
Home
Moving
Ideation
04
Jobs-to-be-done
There are 3 touch point moments: relaxing at home — most time and attention for the platform, sitting in the coffee shop — some level of multitasking and lower attention span, and walking to work — fastest touch point and lowest time and attention. I took those 3 moments and combined them with a variety of technology levels to uncover jobs to be done and brainstorm unique solutions for group travel planning. This also helped me think about the device that were the most fitting for that use case.
Sitemaps
Mobile
Watch
Laptop
User flows
Live group planning summary
Finding group availability
Rating a suggestion
Add a suggestion to group trip
Add a transportation route
Create a new group trip
UI deep dive
05
State exploration
Fleshing out the difference between an activity suggestion card and a stay suggestion card. Within a suggestion card, what if it’s a restaurant? a ticketed activity? a non-ticketed activity? what would it look like expanded? or when the group finishes rating an activity?
Stay – Rate
Stay – Rated, not decided on
Activity – Rate
Activity – Finalized, compact view
Activity – Finalized, expanded view
Activity – Rating, expanded view
What’s the best way for someone to quickly tell their group how they feel about a suggested stay/activity? How do we visualize that action effectively, taking into consideration people’s feelings?
vs.
vs.
“Voting” vs. “Rating”
No one wants to be seen as a person who downvote or says no to another group member’s excitement. From my user research, people wanted to know other preferences and be able to decide as a group, so the experience should be about how you feel about an activity, rather than not letting that activity happen.
Screens
Mobile, watch and laptop
Next steps
06
User survey + test:
Test core flows with groups and get feedback:
Starting a new group itinerary.
Adding an activity / stay suggestion.
Rating an activity / stay suggestion.
Recording a live planning conversation and updating to itinerary.
Receiving an coming up activity alert on watch.
2025
Bri Mai
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bri@brimai.design
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