Get Out is a budgeting app allowing users to plan their upcoming travel costs.
Role: UI/UX Designer and Researcher from concept to delivery
Responsibilities: User research, wireframing, prototyping, designing, and iterating.
Completed: December 2022
The Problem
Frequent travelers have a difficult time organizing and budgeting for upcoming travel.
The Goal
The Get Out app strives to provide users a straightforward planning and travel budgeting experience.
Pain Points
Price
Users do not want hidden fees, including taxes. Price options should reflect total price at the point of sale.
Customization
Those who use travel agents don’t want to give up the ability to pick and choose individual travel details.
Splitting Costs
When planning a group trip, users want to be able to easily split total cost based on details, rather than evenly splitting the total price.
Personas
Alan
Age: 44
Education: Master’s degree
Hometown: Calgary, AB, Canada
Family: Wife, two daughters (17, 12)
Occupation: VP of Sales
Goals
Enjoy rich experiences with those around me
Find good deals on international travel
Choose from activities that would be fun for the entire group
Frustrations
Limited customization of trip options
Lack of price transparency when deciding on trip details
Alan is established in both his career and family. He likes to take yearly international vacations with his family. He finds it challenging to find activities that suit all members of his family. If there was a good way to customize individual travel details AND see a transparent price, he would find trip planning much easier.
Mishka
Age: 26
Education: Bachelor’s degree
Hometown: Roanoke, VA
Family: Living with partner
Occupation: Data Analyst
Goals
Travel to well known destinations
Make life-long memories with friends
Find affordable travel deals
Frustrations
“I like the discount packages, but wish I could add individual items to customize my trip"
Taxes and fees not being included in the initial price estimate
Mishka is just starting to make money in her career and wants to find affordable travel deals to well known destinations. She doesn’t like spending the time required to book her own travel, but will if she can save a considerable amount of money.
Wireframes
Keeping in mind the importance of overall budget for the usefulness of the Get Out app, the designs keep the total cost visible on the bottom part of the Home Screen. Each expense is also listed out for the user to see.
Lo-Fidelity Concept
Users can customize the title of their trip, individual expenses are listed, and the total cost estimate is always visible.
Research findings showed that users wanted an app that not only helped keep their budget front and center, but would also be useful for keeping track of activities during travel.
Usability Study Findings
Findings
Users should be able to edit every detail of their receipt
Users want to use this app as an organization tool, not a planning tool
Users want to see a detailed information breakdown
Changes
After it was determined that users were not as interested in booking travel through this app, many features were removed. Booking flights, hotels, car rentals, and activities were taken away in favor of budget-focused tools. More thought was then given to uploading and tracking receipts, as well as a new detailed view of planned expenses.
Mockups
After adding images to this page the added visual feature still looked lackluster. I wanted the images to stand out, so I expanded them and revamped the expense description, which can now be found by clicking on the picture.
I felt that the total cost estimate could be removed since the calendar view is important in it’s own right. With the expanded calendar height, users have more room for items to display, as some users will inevitably have a packed calendar.
Click below to view the hi-fidelity prototype
Design Kit
Summary
Key Features
Get Out set out to make an innovative planning and budgeting app. During development it was determined that the planning portion of the project would not suit users needs, therefore it was dropped.
Budgeting tools in Get Out still stand out amongst the competition and should allow users a worry-free experience that helps organize upcoming travel.
Accessibility
A simple color palette using tones of grey and orange allow for color blind users to use tones rather than colors in processing information.
Navigation buttons have icons and labels for ease of use for all ages.