FIND WHERE TO GO AND WHAT TO DO, ALL FROM YOUR FRIENDS’ RECOMMENDATIONS
TravelBirds
Our client came to us with a really cool idea, they wanted to create an app that could be used amongst friends, for travel and leisure. Think about it as a yelp where all the reviews come from friends.
Fun Stuff I did in this project:
Branding refresh
User Flows
User Mapping
API Research
iOS design
Dev collaboration
BACKGROUND.
The TravelBirds group came in with plans to raise funds for a new app that would disrupt the traveling and leisure world — no purchases, no flight ticket comparison, this was more about finding curated experiences.
Finding things to do, places to eat, locations to explore at the tip of your fingertips, with information vetted by your closest family and friends. This is TravelBirds.
THE CHALLENGE.
Since React Native and Swift are pretty compatible when it comes to designing, I moved forward with the assumption that, either way, when this goes to production, it can be easily adjusted.
Not all is lost! Some of the other things we did was research the technologies that could meet these needs. The Google Maps API was a great contender for the location information and the imagery, We would need to create a custom API with some extra end points so that the users could connect with each other and only their information would be displayed .
DESIGN.
This app is highly visual and utilizes lots of actual photos or beautiful locations and landscapes. So, my focus went towards matching up the user experience with the technology we were assuming we would use. Visuals for this app remained very clean and light as to not compete too much with the beautiful imagery.
Oh, where is the imagery coming from? The Google Maps API, of course!
GAMIFYING IT.
During one of our discovery sessions, something that really peaked everyone’s interest was gamifying the app. For example, if I was the user and reviewed 5 coffee shops, perhaps I deserved a coffee badge?
For this feature, I custom-designed some beautiful 3d looking badges and a leaderboard. Users can compare their stats to their friends, and see where they are in the game, encouraging them to use the app more and more by collecting more badges.