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Tripmate: designing a travel app for planning trips together

A self-directed product design concept exploring how groups of friends can plan, share, and manage trips together in one place — from research to a full UI system.

RoleProduct Designer

TeamSolo project

ScopeiOS app concept

StatusConcept

Overview

Tripmate is a product design concept designed to simplify planning and enhance travel experiences with friends. It lets a group seamlessly create detailed itineraries, collaborate on travel plans, and explore new destinations together.

The app goal

The main goal of Tripmate is to transform the travel planning process into a seamless, enjoyable, and collaborative experience, allowing users to focus more on the excitement of their journey and less on the complexities of coordinating details.

The business value

Tripmate delivers substantial business value by creating a smooth and enjoyable travel planning experience that keeps customers coming back for more, building a loyal user base. The app extends its market reach by partnering with various travel service providers, enhancing its visibility and user engagement.

Tripmate app concept: plan, share, and explore travel adventures together — Plan, share, and explore your travel adventures together

Research: why group trips fall apart

To ground the concept in real behavior, I ran in-depth interviews with people who regularly travel in groups, to understand where their current tools and habits break down.

Emma Thompson

"Coordinating travel plans with a group is hard because everyone has different schedules and preferences."

Jake Robinson

"I hate having my travel information across emails, messaging apps, and booking websites."

Olivia Chen

"I want one place where I can store and access all my travel details, documents, and communications."

Ethan Patel

"It's challenging to keep everyone updated with the latest itinerary changes and travel info."

Liam Johnson

"Planning trips with others can be chaotic without good collaborative tools."

Ava Nguyen

"Managing travel budgets and expenses is tricky, especially with groups."

User personas

The interviews converged on two recurring types of travelers, which I used to keep design decisions grounded throughout the project.

Sarah, 28 — Marketing Manager

Profile: An outgoing marketing manager who loves exploring new places with her friends. Sarah values staying organized and keeping everyone in her travel group on the same page.

Summary: Main focus is on planning and coordinating group trips efficiently, sharing updates seamlessly, and discovering new experiences.

David, 42 — IT Consultant

Profile: A father of two who enjoys planning family vacations that are both fun and educational. David seeks to balance activities that appeal to both adults and children.

Summary: Main focus is on creating balanced family trips, managing all details in one place, and ensuring the trip caters to both adults and children while tracking the budget.

Value Proposition Canvas mapping customer pains and gains for Tripmate — Mapping the value proposition against real pains and gains

Structuring the product

With the research synthesized, I mapped a full user flow — from onboarding through trip planning, budgeting, and profile management — to make sure every feature the interviews pointed to had a clear place in the product.

User flow across onboarding, trips, budget, and profile

Visual design system

Before moving to high-fidelity screens, I blocked out the full flow in grayscale wireframes, then defined a small, friendly visual system — a bright, travel-appropriate color palette paired with Poppins for a warm, approachable feel.

Hi-fi wireframes and the Tripmate color palette and Poppins typeface — Hi-fi wireframes, color palette, and the Poppins type system

First screens

The home screen sets the tone: a single search entry point, the next upcoming trip front and center, and quick access to popular experiences and destinations — so planning starts the moment the app opens.

Tripmate home screen: plan, collaborate, and make it happen — Home screen — plan, collaborate, and make it happen

UI design

Trip details bring together everything a group needs in one place — accommodation, flights, restaurants, and a day-by-day itinerary — alongside a shared budget screen for tracking and splitting expenses.

Tripmate UI screens: trip details, accommodation, flights, itinerary, and budget — Trip details, accommodation, flights, itinerary, and budget screens

Reflection

As a self-directed concept project, Tripmate let me practice the full arc of product design — interviews, personas, a value proposition canvas, user flows, and a complete UI system — without the constraints of an existing codebase or roadmap.

The most interesting design problem turned out to be the budget screen: travel expenses are inherently shared and messy, and giving a group one legible view of who owes what, without turning it into a spreadsheet, shaped a lot of the later UI decisions.

The natural next step would be usability testing the itinerary and budget flows with real travel groups before considering technical feasibility for a build.