My Hypothesis

At the beginning, I believed Synctrip would mostly serve young solo travelers .

But early interviews challenged this idea almost immediately. It became clear that the real problem wasn’t age or experience; it was the lack of a simple, shared space where people could find compatible co-travelers and plan trips without chaos.

Research

Research Sources:

• Reddit travel communities
• Instagram travel pages
• Chats with friends & travellers during trips
• Conversations with small travel groups
• Notes from casual interviews (5 personas captured)

Sample:

A wide age range — 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s

Solo travellers, small groups, retirees, creative professionals

Research Questions:

These questions guided every interview and shaped SyncTrip’s structure and tone:

• How do you currently plan your trips?
• Where do your ideas and inspiration come from?
• What frustrates you the most during planning?
• How do you organise your saved content (reels, photos, links, notes)?
• What causes confusion or stress while planning?
• What makes you feel calm or “held” during the process?
• How do group plans break down, and when do they succeed?
• What makes you trust a recommendation—or ignore it?
• What would make you open a travel app every day, not just before a trip?

Artifacts:

• 5 Personas (Aarav, Ananya, Ravi, Meera, Lucas)
• Affinity mapping
• Screenshots of real planning threads
• Notes from actual travel group behaviour

I spoke with travellers across different age groups and life stages—solo travellers, small friend groups, retirees, and working professionals. Most of them travelled often but still struggled with connection, planning clarity, or coordinating with others.

What I wanted to understand

• How people of different ages actually make travel decisions
• Why planning feels overwhelming or confusing
• Whether travellers genuinely want to meet new people—or only when it feels safe and aligned
• How group plans fall apart (and why they work when they do)
• Whether existing tools solve anything beyond inspiration
• If “social discovery through travel” is something they find meaningful or risky

These conversations helped me shape clear, grounded personas—Aarav, Ananya, Ravi, Meera, and Lucas—and understand the emotional patterns behind how people plan trips, not just the functional ones.

• 4/5 users begin their travel planning by casually browsing content on Instagram, Pinterest, or Google just to “feel inspired” and mentally shortlist places without making any real bookings yet.
• 3/5 users maintain travel checklists or personal notes in scattered places like WhatsApp saved messages, phone notes, or physical diaries before committing to a plan.
• 4/5 users rely on friends or family availability before confirming a trip, which often leads to plans getting delayed or dropped due to misaligned schedules.
• 3/5 users end up storing travel ideas for “later” but never revisit them due to lack of structured reminders or collaborative planning tools.

• 5/5 users want to travel more frequently rather than waiting for an annual big trip.
• 4/5 users want to connect with people who share similar travel styles, budget ranges, and energy levels to avoid mismatched expectations during trips.
• 3/5 users specifically expressed a desire for a system that helps with early-stage group coordination before bookings are made.
• 4/5 users want to avoid being the only one responsible for organizing everything in a group, which often causes burnout and eventually ruins excitement for the trip.

The motivation to travel is already high.

The real blockers are:

• Coordination fatigue
• Scattered communication
• Lack of compatible co-travellers
• Unclear group decision structure

I realized my hypothesis was wrong.

Synctrip isn’t only for young solo travellers.

Older adults, retired travellers, and family-based planners also expressed a strong need for structured planning and aligned companionship.

The challenge isn’t age! it’s the absence of a platform that supports shared decision-making before a trip truly begins.

Through interviews, I met:

• Teachers who travel in small groups
• Retirees who want company
• Solo travellers who don’t want to feel lonely
• Small teams wanting smoother coordination

Synctrip is not age-based.

Synctrip is rhythm-based.

It’s for anyone seeking aligned travel energy — not just young travellers.

This reframed the entire product direction.

HMW (How Might We...)

• How might we reduce decision fatigue during planning?
• How might we make choosing destinations intuitive?
• How might we make travel buddy discovery feel familiar but safe?
• How might we support both solo + group travellers in the same flow?
• How might we keep older users comfortable while keeping the interaction modern?

Brainstorming solution ideas

Using this HMW question as a filter, I started brainstorming different ways Synctrip could intervene in the current planning mess. I wrote down every possible interaction that could reduce friction between group members — from quick polls to synced calendars to playful “Are you actually coming?” confirmation nudges.

But adding everything was not the goal. The goal was to reduce mental load, not add another complex tool that needs a tutorial to understand. So I used the research insights to define clear product goals that helped me eliminate anything that didn’t actively make group alignment smoother.

Product Goals

• Make it easy for everyone in the group to see the plan taking shape in one place
• Replace endless “final dates???” messages with a shared confirmation flow
• Give non-planner members quick ways to participate without feeling responsible
• Reduce friction by letting people vote, react, and lock preferences in one tap
• Support the planner friend by shifting the planning from one-person task to visible group progress

Brainstorming

Ideas explored:

• Swipe-based destination shortlisting
• Group date-voting
• Itinerary builder broken by days with visible dates
• Travel mood tags
• A “Who’s Coming?” step after each plan
• Group-to-group matching
• Visual-first dashboard

So I asked a very direct question:

What is the smallest version of Synctrip that still solves the chaos of group planning? This helped eliminate heavy features like shared packing lists or experience journals from early versions.

Took alot of messy conversations

But we were able to finalise a path

Included

• Itinerary builder (day-wise + date-based)
• Dual calendar system
• Destination swipe shortlisting
• Trip dashboard
• Travel buddy discovery
• Group and solo matching
• Safe verified profiles
• Basic chat
• Mood tags
• Save lists

Removed / Delayed

• Advanced budgeting
• Automated bookings
• Multi-currency tools
• Social feed with reels/photos
• AI itinerary generation (planned for V2)

Reason: These features add complexity without helping early flow validation.

Inspiration to Prototype

For the first round of Synctrip sketches, I placed quick wireframes alongside interface patterns from well-known travel and lifestyle platforms to study interactions that already feel intuitive to users.

I drew inspiration from Swiggy’s straightforward decision-making flows, Airbnb’s clear and confidence-building layouts, Trip.com’s structured search and booking patterns, and the way Marriott Bonvoy simplifies complex travel information without overwhelming the user. These references helped guide early choices around navigation, hierarchy, and interaction so the experience felt familiar from the very first use.

This inspiration phase made the shift from low-fidelity to mid-fidelity designs far more seamless. Because the foundation was built on proven user behaviors rather than experimental patterns, the overall structure remained strong and consistent as the design evolved.

Yellow flag: Overwhelming text

While shaping the trip board, I noticed that the itinerary section quickly became a wall of text. Most travel apps present the plan as one long paragraph, and during testing this made users skim or ignore important details.

I wanted the itinerary to feel lighter and easier to navigate.

So instead of one continuous block, I split the plan into day based segments. This mirrors how travelers naturally think about their trips and reduces cognitive load. Users can tap into one day at a time without feeling rushed or overwhelmed.

I marked this change as a yellow flag for testing because I wanted to see if users would understand the new format instantly or still expect the traditional long itinerary. Early feedback showed that breaking it down by days gave users more control and made the trip feel clearer.

How this improves navigation

Breaking the itinerary into days did more than reduce text. It changed how users moved through the plan. Instead of scrolling repeatedly to find one detail, they could jump directly to the exact day they cared about.

This also made it easier for groups to discuss plans. When someone said check day three, everyone knew exactly where to go without searching through a long list.

During quick tests, users naturally tapped through the day tabs without needing cues. The structure matched their mental model, so the navigation felt simple and familiar.

Red flag: Limited calendar visibility

The initial design showed only one month at a time. I assumed this was enough because most users usually plan short trips and would select dates within a single month.

However, this created a major limitation:

• Users couldn’t see that trips could span two months
• Longer plans felt confusing
• There was no clear indication of how date ranges were being selected
• Users had to manually navigate back and forth to compare dates

During usability testing, it became clear that users expected to view a broader timeline at once. The single-month view made the experience feel restrictive and caused uncertainty.

To fix this, I replaced the one-month layout with a two-month view that shows a full range at a glance. Dates now highlight immediately when selected, reducing confusion about what is included in the trip.

Priority revisions

Testing surfaced multiple opportunities to improve clarity and reduce misclicks. I evaluated each issue based on impact, frequency, and the effort required to resolve it.

Most users were able to select dates, but the experience felt unclear. Expanding the visible calendar and improving selection feedback helped users feel more confident and aware of the trip range they were choosing.