Personal project · Travel

Roam

A travel app that helps you plan a trip end to end — and matches you with a local guide who knows the place's history, language and food.

Role: UI/UX Designer
Scope: User research, personas, IA & user flow, wireframes, hi-fi UI, prototyping
Timeline: 12 months · 2022

Overview

We travel to see, taste and try new things — but not knowing a place's history and culture ruins the trip.
Roam lets you search a place and enter your dates, rough time estimates and preferred language.
It then matches you with a local guide for the trip.

Make planning a trip as easy as booking one — with a guide who covers the places, history and food no booking app talks about.

Roam onboarding, guide search and account creation screens — Roam: search a place, set your dates, rough time estimates and preferred language — then find the person who will guide you there.

Background

Roam was a self-directed case study built during the UX/UI Design Pro course at Designient School of Masterminds in 2022.

It was my first end-to-end product: research, structure, interaction and visual design, all on my own.

The process

A classic empathise–define–ideate–prototype–test loop: user interviews and surveys, personas and an empathy map, card sorting into themes, a full user flow, then low-fidelity wireframes iterated into high-fidelity screens.

Design process diagram from empathise through define, ideate, prototype and test — The design process: empathise, define, ideate, prototype, test — run as a solo designer over 12 months.

The problem

Budget, choosing the destination, the language barrier and cuisine culture are the most frequent problems when organising a trip. Systems exist for booking lodging and transport — but none for places, local history or food.

No simple way to plan a trip; package holidays were rigid and inflexible
Last-minute weekend plans end up at the same crowded places
Older travellers didn't know how to research locations or use travel apps
No help with language or where to eat once you arrive

The challenges slide listing budget, destination, language barrier and cuisine culture — The challenges: budget, destination choice, language barrier and cuisine culture. Plenty of apps book stays and transport — none cover places, local history or food.

What we found

Target audience: travellers aged 15–65, planning trips around work and family
Many apps cover travel and lodging — almost none cover trip planning
Weekend travellers wanted uncrowded places with a stable network to work from
Family travellers wanted history, monuments and someone to explain them

User research slide showing target audience aged 15 to 65 and research plan — Interviews and surveys with travellers aged 15–65: package trips were rigid, and there was no simple way to plan a trip of your own.

Two user personas: a Bangalore sales manager and an entrepreneur — Two personas: Harshitha, a weekend traveller escaping crowds, and Mukunda, an entrepreneur travelling with family who struggles with apps.

Empathy map with think, feel, say and does quadrants — Empathy mapping what travellers think, feel, say and do — planning is difficult, language is hard, food is a gamble.

Card sorting board grouping travel pain points into themes — Card sorting the research into themes before committing to structure.

The solution

A search-first home that opens on where you want to go, with upcoming events and top locations
Guide matching by language, price range and date preference, so the fit is decided before you book
Curated experiences and top categories instead of fixed packages
A booking flow with dates, guests, pricing and payment in one confirmable summary
Verified guide identity — email, phone and reviews — to make trusting a stranger reasonable
An account area covering bookings, wallet, refer & earn and support

Roam user flow diagram from onboarding through booking and account — The user flow: onboarding, top locations, guides, experiences, filters, booking, payment and account — every task mapped to a path.

Developing it

Low-fidelity wireframes covering every screen in the flow, iterated after review, then a full high-fidelity UI in Figma with a consistent component set across tab, inner and supporting screens.

Low fidelity wireframes for tab, inner and other screens — Low-fidelity wireframes for tab, inner and supporting screens, before iteration.

High fidelity screens for search, guides, filters, booking and payment — High-fidelity screens: search, top locations, guides, experiences, filters, booking confirmation and payment.

Roam top locations and destination detail screens — Destination detail and top locations — the surfaces travellers actually browse.

Results

The outcome was a complete, prototype-ready travel product with a coherent flow from search to guide to booking. The next step would be rounds of usability testing on the prototype, click and navigation analysis, and iteration on those results.

Research earns the structure. Personas and card sorting decided the information architecture, not taste.
Trust is a design problem. Verification, reviews and clear pricing do more for a marketplace than polish does.

Conclusion slide describing next steps and usability testing — Conclusion: next up were usability tests on the prototype, click and navigation analysis, and iteration on the results.