Budget Meets Adventure: Creating the Tripsaver App Experience

A travel booking app that helps users find trips within their budget.

The Problem

Traditional travel booking platforms often provide a wide range of options but do not help users stay within their budget. Many travelers struggle to balance the cost of flights, accommodations trying to have a memorable vacation experience. This leads to either overspending or the inability to fully plan their trip due to budget constraints.

Evaluating Competitors: Insights into Travel
Booking Apps

This competitor analysis compares Booking.com, Expedia, and Tripadvisor, focusing on their unique offerings, strengths, and areas for improvement. All three platforms share common features like user-friendly interfaces, mobile apps, and search/filter tools.

Booking.com stands out with flexible bookings and a loyalty program, while Expedia offers package deals and last-minute discounts. Tripadvisor emphasizes user-generated content and community engagement.

Key drawbacks include overwhelming options, complex navigation, and limited flexibility. The analysis highlights opportunities to improve through budget tools, personalized suggestions, trip analytics, and clear, simplified experiences.

User Research

To better understand user needs and behaviors, I conducted remote interviews with 5 target users such as budget-conscious travelers, young professionals, frequent travelers. Each participant was asked about their travel planning habits, challenges, and priorities when a booking a trip. Based on these interviews, I identified key pain points and opportunities, which were then used to inform the design of the TripSaver app.

Key Findings

  • Pain Points: Travelers may encounter surprise costs that aren’t accounted for, such as last-minute fees.

    Current Behaviors: Travelers often adjust their budgets on the fly, but this may not be easily done in traditional apps.

    Opportunity: A budgeting feature that adjusts based on actual spending, enabling users to be flexible while staying within overall budget constraints.

  • Pain Points: Overwhelming amount of information, difficulty in balancing quality and cost.

    Current Behaviors: Users often compare multiple travel apps to find the best deals on accommodation, flights, or activities, but this can lead to decision fatigue.

    Opportunity: A budgeting feature that helps users balance budget constraints with quality expectations, suggesting options that meet both price and quality requirements.

  • Pain Points: Many travel apps provide vague pricing details, making it hard for travelers to foresee the full cost of their trip, including taxes, service fees, or extra charges.

    Current Behaviors: Frustration with hidden costs.

    Opportunity: A cost estimator that projects the total trip cost, breaking down the expenses (flights, accommodations) to help users plan more accurately.

Personas & User Flow

User Personas

Two key personas to represent travel app users, highlighting different needs and priorities in relation to budgeting, trip planning, and the overall travel experience.

User Flow

Visualization of the steps users need to follow to complete key tasks, ensuring that the navigation was intuitive and seamless.

Navigation and Structure

Based on the information I created a sitemap. The sitemap helped visualize the relationship between different pages and features, ensuring a clear content hierarchy.

Visualizing the User Journey

This user journey map outlines the experience of using a travel budget booking app, from discovering the app to finalizing a booking. It highlights the user’s thoughts, actions, and emotions at each stage, revealing a shift from curiosity to cautious optimism and eventual relief. Key improvement areas include simplifying the process, offering clear value, and providing strong support to build trust and ease decision-making.

Idea Validation: Early Concept Exploration

I started by creating low-fidelity wireframes to focus on layout and functionality, without getting distracted by visual details. This helped me quickly map out key screens, such as the homepage, budget setup, and flow screens.

Branding

Сolors were thoughtfully chosen to reflect the brand's values and evoke the right emotions: blue for trust and reliability, yellow for happiness and excitement, and red for energy and enthusiasm.

I chose Fredoka for its soft, rounded shapes that create a friendly and approachable tone, ideal for engaging users in a welcoming way. To balance this, Public Sans brings a modern, clean, and highly legible style that adds professionalism and clarity to the overall design. Together, they offer a blend of warmth and trustworthiness.

Usability Test Insights

I interviewed 7 users. 6 out of 7 users find the event discovery process simple and intuitive, appreciating the familiar pattern and usefulness of a calendar feature, while 5 out of 7 users are comfortable sharing events directly on Instagram and clearly understand that saving an event automatically adds it to their "Saved" section, reflecting effective communication and ease of use.

Positive User Feedback on the Intuitiveness of the Budget Tracking Feature

User Confidence in the Variety of Travel Options Provided

User Satisfaction with the App's Ease of Navigation

Design Iterations

Based on user testing, I made several UI iterations to refine the design, resulting in the final version.

The background was made clear, and the illustration colors were updated to match the app's color palette.

BEFORE

AFTER

The text size was increased, the CTA button was enlarged, and the information displayed was updated.

BEFORE

AFTER

Final Version

The final prototype showcases how user interactions have been improved through careful design decisions and intuitive navigation. This section visually highlights how the design effectively addresses user needs and delivers an enhanced experience.

Learnings and Opportunities

As a designer, I discovered the importance of creating intuitive interfaces that make complex features, like budgeting and destination suggestions, feel effortless to use. I also learned that users appreciate a clean, straightforward design that allows them to easily navigate and manage their travel plans without feeling overwhelmed.

Expanding the "Budget Destinations" feature with exclusive deals or partnerships could provide users with more affordable travel options. Introducing savings goals would boost user engagement. Other opportunities include adding multi-currency support, enabling social sharing, and integrating travel insurance—features that would increase the app's value and improve user retention.

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