KALEID
From scattered inspirations to organized trips: your ultimate travel planning tool.
Product Experience
Problem Space
Problem Statement
How might we provide travellers with a seamless way to leverage their saved travel inspirations and transform them into personalized travel itineraries, so that they can easily plan and experience their dream trips, bridging the gap between inspiration and execution?
Problem Background
Who is the customer?
Our primary customers are modern, tech-savvy travelers who use various digital platforms to gather travel inspirations. These individuals are often overwhelmed by the amount of information available and struggle to organize and utilize this information effectively during their travel planning process.
What is the need or problem we're addressing?
The problem we're addressing is the difficulty and time-consuming nature of turning travel inspirations into actionable travel plans. Travelers save inspirations across multiple platforms, but when it comes time to plan a trip, they struggle to remember, locate, and effectively use these inspirations. In fact, more than half of our survey respondents (59%) reported challenges with organizing their inspirations in a useful way. Interestingly, while all 63 respondents look at travel inspirations, 21 of them don't save them, possibly due to the lack of an effective method for saving, organizing, and using these inspirations.
How do we know this is a problem?
The problem has been identified through extensive user interviews/ surveys and market research. Users have expressed their frustrations with the current travel planning process and their desire for a more streamlined, personalized approach. The fact that travelers resort to using multiple platforms and tools to plan their trips indicates a gap in the market for a comprehensive solution. Moreover, when travelers do miss or forget an inspiration when travelling, they experience instant “Fear of missing out” (FOMO) or slight regret, underscoring the need for a more effective solution.
Research Insights
User Pain Points
Central to our findings is the recurring challenge users face: difficulties in organizing travel inspirations, translating these inspirations into actionable plans, and often forgetting about saved travel destinations. For instance, Thais struggles with revisiting her saved inspirations on Instagram when planning a trip, while Catherine grapples with organizing inspirations across multiple platforms. These insights, combined with the fact that a notable 21of 63 respondents don't save travel inspirations at all, suggest a significant market gap.
Supporting Data
- Travel Frequency: A majority of survey respondents, 45 out of 63, travel multiple times a year, indicating a consistent need for travel planning.
- Inspiration Sources: Word of mouth, travel blogs, and Instagram emerge as top sources, suggesting users actively gather travel ideas across diverse platforms.
- Organizational Challenges: Catherine and Rianna's insights underscore the diverse ways users approach travel planning, from using multiple platforms to 'reverse traveling'.
- Memory Lapses: A significant 20 respondents "sometimes" forget about their saved inspirations, with another 13 facing this issue "often".
Feedback
Users are signalling a clear need: a centralized hub for travel inspirations. The data and interviews conclude a desire for a standalone, comprehensive app offering an integrated, personalized travel planning experience. Beyond just organizing, there's a call for features that provide timely reminders or suggestions, ensuring users make the most of their saved inspirations.
Landing on the Solution
After diving into user feedback and understanding the challenges travelers face, it became clear what our solution needed to offer. Travelers wanted a simple, centralized place to manage their inspirations and turn them into actionable plans.
Explanation of Solution
Travel planning can be a maze of scattered inspirations and tedious organization. Our solution streamlines this process:
- Centralised: Save and access all travel inspirations, from links to photos, in one place. No more juggling between apps.
- Easy Tagging: Organize inspirations with a user-friendly tagging system. Find what you saved, when you need it.
- Drag-and-Drop Planning: Turn inspirations into itineraries effortlessly. Visualize your journey with a simple drag and drop.
- Group Travels Simplified: Collaborative planning spaces are on the horizon, making group trips a breeze.
- Tailored Recommendations: Get travel suggestions that align with your preferences, ensuring a personalized experience.
- All-in-One Platform: From dreaming about a destination to booking it, we aim to be your go-to travel companion.
Our solution is more than just a tool—it's a travel companion. By addressing the core challenges faced by travelers, we aim to make the journey from inspiration to itinerary as seamless and enjoyable as possible.
User Flows/Mockups
User flow diagram for "Adding and Tagging Inspirations":
Mockup: “Adding Inspirations”
Future Steps
As part of Co.Lab's BOOTCAMP with SPRINT22, our roadmap for 'Kaleid' is set:
- MVP Development: We're crafting an MVP that directly addresses user pain points.
- Team Synergy: In our cross-functional team, effective communication is key to harnessing collective expertise.
- User Feedback Loop: Post-MVP launch, we'll gather user feedback, making it central to our refinement process.
- Broadening Horizons: With 50% of our survey respondents valuing word-of-mouth for travel inspirations, we'll explore adding a social component to 'Kaleid'.
- Continuous Improvement: As we move forward, we'll delve deeper into secondary pain points, ensuring 'Kaleid' remains a comprehensive solution for travelers.
Mockup: Social aspect
Other Documents
Learnings
Product Manager Learnings:
Martin Kwok
Co.Lab was a very interesting experience for me. Here are my learnings:
- Deep Dive into the Problem: Investing time in understanding the problem space is crucial. It's not just about finding a solution but ensuring the solution addresses genuine user pain points.
- Balancing Research Methods: Both qualitative interviews and quantitative survey data were invaluable. Each offers unique insights, and together they provide a comprehensive understanding of user needs.
- Beware of Bias: Initial product visions can be clouded by personal biases. It's essential to remain open to change, especially when user feedback points in a different direction.
- Community is Gold: Engaging with a community like the Co.Lab Community of product enthusiasts and experts can be a game-changer. Their feedback, resources, and shared tools can significantly enhance the product development journey.
- Problem Before Solution: It's tempting to dive into solution ideation, but defining the problem space clearly is paramount. Solutions should always be rooted in well-understood problems.
Designer Learnings:
Designer Learnings:
Jo Sturdivant
- Adapting to an Established Team: Joining the team in week 6 of 8 was challenging, as I had to quickly adapt to existing workflows, dynamics, and goals. This mirrors real-world situations where you often integrate into teams mid-project, and flexibility is essential.
- Work-Blocking for Efficiency: With only two weeks to complete the project, I learned the importance of a structured work-blocking system. This approach allowed me to manage my time effectively and meet deadlines under pressure.
- Making Data-Driven Design Decisions: Unlike my past projects, I had to rely on research conducted by others. This was a valuable experience in using pre-existing data to guide design decisions, helping me focus on the core insights without starting from scratch.
Developer Learnings:
Developer Learnings:
Vanady Beard
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As the back-end developer, I learned how important it is to create efficient and reliable systems that support the entire application. This experience also taught me the importance of optimising the database and ensuring the backend is scalable and easy to maintain.
Developer Learnings:
Stephen Asiedu
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As a back-end developer, I've come to understand the importance of being familiar with various database systems and modules. This knowledge enables me to build diverse applications and maintain versatility in my work. I've also learned that the responsibility for making the right choices rests on my shoulders, guided by my best judgement.
Developer Learnings:
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Developer Learnings:
Maurquise Williams
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- Process of Creating an MVP: Developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) taught me how to focus on delivering core functionalities balancing between essential features and avoiding scope creep.
- Collaboration in a Real-World Tech Setting: This experience taught me how to collaborate efficiently in a fast-paced tech environment, keeping the team aligned and productive, even while working remotely across time zones.
- Sharpening Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills: This experience honed my ability to think critically and solve problems efficiently. By tackling challenges and finding quick solutions, I sharpened my decision-making and troubleshooting skills in a dynamic, real-world setting.
Developer Learnings:
Jeremiah Williams
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All in all this experience was very awesome I learned that in coding with others being transparent is key
Developers Learnings:
Justin Farley
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I learned how important communication is when working with a team. Communication provides understanding, advice, ideas, and much more. While working with the product team, I’ve found that communication keeps everything flowing smoothly. Working with a team also showed me that every member brings something different to the table and we all have to work together in order to align and meet our end goal.