Roam
Roam is a platform designed to help individuals easily and quickly get curated information on restaurants & fun things to do in a city that they have never been to or want to explore more based on friends and family interests. Roam will allow users to pin locations on a map to highlight some of their favorites spots in a particular city, and will also allow users to create, manage, organize and share those pins with their “followers”.
Problem Space
Problem Statement
How can we make the process of finding restaurants, places to go, and things to do that our friends and family enjoy in a particular city that we haven’t been to or explored yet less overwhelming & more centralized?
Problem Background
Traveling is natural for humans, we weren’t meant to be so sedentary. Whether it’s in state or internationally, there are many reasons why we like to travel. Being able to see the world gives you an escape, it can be relaxing, allows you to learn new things, see different cultures, explore and helps you build quality relationships with people. A lot of the time people don’t even want to travel because they don’t know where to go once they get there or wouldn’t know certain things exist.
Finding places to eat and things to do can be easy but can be a bit overwhelming when you realize that you’ve been in a google rabbit hole for the past 3 hours. It can then be difficult trying to find specific things you’d enjoy doing and places you want to eat. What if we could remove those barriers and get people to explore & travel more by allowing them to see where their friends recommend going and what they like to eat because who do you trust more and have plenty in common with than your friends and family? Roam aims to remove that exact barrier to ease people on the fear or struggles of traveling.
Research Insights
User Pain Points
Using a combination of surveys and interviews, we were able to gather user insights in regards to their travel experiences. We were able to identify based on the conclusive feedback we received, that a lot of our target users shared the same pain points.
Supporting Data
100% of people we spoke to mentioned that they could easily find new places to go, restaurants to try and things to do but would quickly get overwhelmed with the amount of options and reviews they’d have to read through. Various mediums such as social media, blogs, and travel sites were all listed as viable options but deciding who to trust and what to go with was also a task in itself.
Feedback
Our research also confirmed that 100% of users liked being updated when theIr friends and family travel or try new things and would take their suggestions first over ones they read online. They liked to hear about their experiences to get inspiration, jot down their recommendations from their reviews and it gave them a general sense of happiness seeing their family and friends having fun and trying new things.
Landing on the Solution
Based on our target users’ pain points, we knew we wanted to work on an application that allows users to browse through activities and restaurants based on highlighted pins from their “followers” through the following features…
- Map highlighting pins of restaurants, places in a particular city with reviews from followers
- Share & Save icons to showcase favorite spots in a city with other friends and save locations as if i was writing in my dairy
- Show similar recommendations based on activities, restaurants my friends have engaged with
Future Steps
As my next steps I hope to be working with a cross functional team which includes Engineers and UI/UX designers to develop the “hows” of my proposed solution.
Presentation - https://www.loom.com/share/391c9ea9a2ac4f729c49e5f8fcede321
Learnings
Product Manager Learnings:
Emmanuel Raji
Co.Lab was a very interesting experience for me getting to step into the shoes of a real PM. Some of the key learnings I took away from this sprint include:
- As a PM, it's important to focus on the problem space, not the solution space. Defining an actual problem that is focused on one problem
- Talking to customers through surveys and user interviews to validate your problem will be valuable in the market
- The importance and quantitative research that helps to tie back to both user and market research which ultimately help define the product’s success and guide its potential growth.
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.