Major Project - Final Compilation
Teu Yu Tian / 0371923
Major Project 1 | Bachelors of Design (Honour) in Creative Media | Taylor's University
Task1 -3 Final Compilation
1. INSTRUCTIONS
In the first week of Major Project 1, we received a briefing from our lecturer and were asked to form groups of four with students from the same specialization. I grouped up with Jun Jie, Shawn, and Wei Yi. We had to come up with topics for our project.
During the tutorial session, we met our supervisor, Mr. Shamsul. My teammates selected me as the leader. We discussed initial ideas from different members and prepared a document with problem statements related to Sustainable Development Goals. My proposed topics were underemployment (job recruitment) and overweight issues, but I only presented the underemployment idea since it was more developed. Other members suggested topics on healthcare systems, NGO platforms, and nature-related issues.
After further discussion in an online meeting, we replaced the NGO topic with a travel solution idea proposed by Wei Yi. We found it more interesting and had more possibilities. We identified problems related to both topics and discussed them in detail.
We had a meeting to confirm our final topic with Mr. Shamsul. Our concept focused on free exploration during travel, including features like live map suggestions, user-generated content, and verified reviews. Mr. Shamsul suggested additional features such as AI auto-planning and trip collaboration. We finalized our problem statement, project aim, objectives, and "How Might We" statement, then started preparing interview questions. We decided to target three traveler types: solo, couple, and family travelers. I was responsible for preparing family traveler questions.
Mr. Shamsul advised us to keep the questions general so that user responses would naturally indicate their travel type rather than us assuming it from the start.
This week focused on Task 2 deliverables: user personas and user journeys. Initially, we created three personas. Since we had four members, each of us was required to create one, so we later added an "Adventurous Explorer" persona. This persona represented users who often travel solo or with friends, seek adventure-based activities, and explore hidden gems. I documented interview insights and developed the Adventurous Explorer persona.
The user journey starts at the awareness stage when users discover our app's collaboration features. They download the app, sign up, and go through a simple onboarding tutorial. The app then guides them to create a trip plan and invite friends for collaboration. It includes voting and comment systems to aid decision-making. During the trip, users navigate with the app and explore nearby areas. After the trip, they review their travel summary and use the split bill function to manage expenses with friends.
After completing Task 2, we brainstormed possible app functions. We held a meeting and conducted card sorting to determine the main features and their organization. The app focuses on discovering destinations, trip planning with AI assistance, and a community space where users can connect and share experiences. We also considered gamification and rewards. Later, we added a booking feature for accommodation, transport, and tickets.
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I created initial app sketches, exploring different layouts for the homepage, trip planning screen, and discovery page.
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| Homepage design |
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| another version of home page |
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| Onboarding flow, choose preference, and search & filter |
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| Create new trip with destination, date, budget set up and AI prompt screen |
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| Trip planning details, discover page listing |
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| Badge display page |
I was responsible for designing the Share Experience flow.
We compiled our findings, wireframes, and insights into a presentation slide deck.
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| Home, AI conversation, New Plan Set Up, Prompt Screen, Activity List with floating AI assistant button |
2. FEEDBACK
- Healthcare idea: Not recommend to take this topic. Higher age and rural area are hard to access the technology, people are more familiar with traditional way, and not used to the mobile technology. It might need user to change their behaviour to adapt the app, which is hard.
- Unemployment Idea: Still okay, the mock interview idea looks interesting.
- NGO platform for coral bleaching Idea: This also fine, maybe the approach can be the user search or browse the NGO activities there, and create a community there.
- Nature idea: Too wide, need to be more specific.
- Current idea is just focus on information finding, can add automatic planning function. Example: user search for location (eg: Penang) and set duration of travel, the app automatic help them to plan where to go and what to eat. Because people might feel troublesome to make travel planning.
- Can do smart filter, like Muslim friendly restaurant or family friendly destination.
- Can add features like community connection, people can host a travel plan, find or invite travel companion to join the trip in the app. (Safety consideration: need to filter user by upload profile picture, verify id number etc.)
- Think about how to earn money(by subscription or advertising)/how to plan the subscription. Eg: Premium user can host while free uer can only join the trip? How much would people want to subscribe? (can ask in interview question)
- Things to modify: Overview, Problem statement (add problem related to overwhelming info when doing travel planning)
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Interview Questions prepare 3 set for: Solo traveler
Couple traveler
Family traveler
- Add supportive research for Challenges
- Go search on youtube/insta/xiaohongshu famous influencer, or online newsletter, see whether got people have the same problem>>eg: struggle with information overload, over crowding, decision fatique or any problem related to our project to support the problem statement. make it as supportive research for your statements.
- Continue competitor analysis, find more app, eg: Agoda, Tripadvisor, Langkawi App
- Add the sampling method we choose
- Research on how to verify users on app.
- Research on how review affects people's decisions.
- One person do one user persona.
- The amount of user journey map still not confirmed, will update once he get the answer.
- Need to have motivation in user persona
- The photo does not match the name. Make sure all the information is aligned.
- The submission requirement are just user persona and user journey map.
- User Persona-no comment
- User Journey-check out the link sent in the group for the component of user persona, can add more if needed (eg: channel) but our user journey content is quite complete, so it is optional to modify it.
- Card Sorting - Need to test by users, collect at least 2 test result and compare to our results, revise accordingly.
- Information Architecture - Suggested to put discover section before planning
- User Flow- make sure you have the onboarding in the user flow, and the process is streamlined, not too many steps.
- Sketches - Just draw the app interface, not necessary to have storyboard
- Good progressions
- can add error colour in the design guideline
- Presentation time still not confirmed, will update later, attire: semi-casual (no shorts and slipper)
- It is up to us to distribute the workload, we can do one person one flow for the Lo-fi wireframe
- Can use UI kit to construct wireframe.
- We add more content in Information Architecture, it has some difference from card sorting results. Mr. Shamsul said as revised back again the card sorting does not make sense since the Information Architecture already done, we can explain the reason for our changes whenpresenting.
- The outcome does not address the problem statement, people still need to select many things in booking process.
- The main feature is AI auto trip planner, but the UI does not show the sense of AI-driven, it is just normal app interface similar to other app in the market.
- Should research on the AI interface design and how it looks like, how it interact with user and how it works.
- Outcome for now cluttered with many features, but they does not address the problem, once your main feature address the problem well, you canadd in other features.
Revise the wireframe according to the feedback
Consultation Feedback after presentation
Random suggestions from Mr.Shamsul:
Option 1: Revise the Wireframe
- Add a screen for users to input a prompt for AI-generated suggestions, with questions like destination, budget, and travel mode(should be no more than 3 steps).
- Introduce a simple CTA button for trip planning:
- Prompt screen → User inputs preferences → Auto plan.
- Home page design is unclear:
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Consider making the home page an entire prompt screen where users
enter preferences and instantly generate a suggestion list (or make
itinto discover page).
- Search function should be the main feature.
- If using Discover, consider changing the icons for better clarity.
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Host & Join Trip feature could be the unique selling point.
- Could revise the problem statement: hard to findtravel buddies etc.
3. REFLECTION
Experience
Leading this project was both challenging and rewarding. Travel solution is an interesting topic and I enjoyed the process of designing the app. Conducting user interviews provided valuable insights into travelers’ struggles, such as budgeting, safety, and decision fatigue. I was responsible for designing the experience-sharing flow in our wireframes and explored various layouts for trip planning and discovery. A key challenge came when feedback revealed our AI integration was unclear. Our design initially felt like a standard travel app, so we revised it to emphasize AI-driven planning. This process taught me the importance of adaptability and refining ideas based on feedback.
Observations
User research heavily influenced our design decisions. Initially, our ideas were broad, but through interviews and testing, we refined them based on real user needs. Travelers wanted both structured planning and spontaneous exploration, which shaped our AI trip planner. Our process was highly iterative—our information architecture, wireframes, and user flows been through multiple revisions. After receiving feedback, we also notice that AI shouldn’t just be a feature but should define the user experience. Our original UI lacked an AI-driven feel, leading us to rethink how AI interacts with users and enhances their travel planning experience.
Findings
A key finding was that users value efficiency in travel planning. They don’t just need information but a system that simplifies decision-making. Another takeaways was that constant iteration is necessary. Our initial ideas changed a lot after we got real user insights. We also realized that trying to include too many features made our app feel unfocused, so we had to simplify it. Testing methods like card sorting helped us see what worked and what didn’t. Another important thing was documentation—keeping track of research findings and design decisions made it easier to organize our work. Overall, I learned that design isn’t a one-time thing; it’s a process that requires constant changes and improvements. Lastly, effective UI design needs to clearly communicate its purpose to better address the main issue.
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