SOLOS Travel

SOLOS

The Rundown

Solo traveling doesn't mean being alone. Post COVID, travel is more rampant than ever, and more people are traveling for work and booking trips they've always wanted to go on. Solo trips are often deemed "revolutionary" or "life-changing"—most people say it's because of the people you meet and the newfound understanding of self. SOLOS is here to facilitate that—it's a reimagined event-based platform to connect solo-travelers abroad, allowing you to build low-commitment, genuine connections, anywhere in the world.

TEAM

Siyi Liu - Product Lead, UI Design

Huarui Lai - UX Design, UI Design
Kinshuk Dudeja - UX Research

Da Sol Kim - UX Research

Sanghmitra Wankhade - Project Management

TIMELINE

Oct - Dec 2023

SKILLS

UX Design

UI Design

UX Research

Digital Innovation

App Design

TOOLS

Figma

Notion

Think-Aloud Research

Directed Storytelling

The Problem

How might we facilitate connection abroad for solo travelers?

Product Preview

the highlights

An event-driven app

Users see a range of events posted by other solo-travelers looking for company. They can view recommended events based on profile, explore by category, or search by keyword.

Pick a party theme that fits your dietary needs

Everyone agrees on one theme for the night, and gets to pick their own meal to chef up.

Crown a victor, play again

Cooking is only half the battle, plating and presentation is what can make or break your dish—sway your friends and garner votes for your dish!

Crown a victor, play again

Cooking is only half the battle, plating and presentation is what can make or break your dish—sway your friends and garner votes for your dish!

Post your ideal event

Travelers can also post an event they have in mind, and find other travelers to join them on an adventure!

Meet new friends, safely

Travelers have the ability to peruse each other's profiles, communicate directly with event organizers, and gain insights into their travel experiences and interests well in advance of embarking on any adventure. Throughout the SOLOS experience, the platform prioritizes the safety of travelers by implementing real-time check-ins and offering the option to contact emergency services if they encounter any discomfort or concern.

Give feedback!

After each meetup, travelers provide ratings and reviews for their companions, which are then anonymized and incorporated into the SOLOS score—a metric that gauges both safety and enjoyment levels of individuals on the platform.

Our Process

We started this project knowing we wanted to make the travel experience for individuals abroad more social. What social, technological, and environmental factors have built up a culture of travel, and would allow a service like SOLOS to enter the market? And what forms could our travel-based community building idea take on?

During the research process, we started to wonder "How do we balance a solo travel experience with the opportunity to build connections and friendships abroad?"

Market Research

Examining the current competitive landscape, we observed Hinge and Tinder emerging as prominent platforms facilitating connections among like-minded individuals. Meanwhile, platforms like Meetup primarily cater to local event participation, albeit often geared toward group outings. In contrast, SOLOS presents a distinctive proposition: a platform fostering genuine connections with minimal commitment, coupled with the opportunity for collaborative exploration in new destinations.

Since our platform was also founded on the notion of pairing people with similar interests together, one question that kept coming up was, "How is this different from a dating app?" We made the key decision early on to make this an event-based, rather than people-based platform, to prioritize the act of exploring a new city with someone, rather than emphasizing personality traits about who that person was.

Building an event-first platform.

Persona-building

Realizing we needed to design an event-first platform

User Research

We sketched out a pretotype, and then brought a basic physical MVP to conduct directed storytelling interviews with over 10 target users. The goal was to understand their solo travel experiences, habits and preferences, interactions with our mockups, and willingness to use our solution. This process uncovered four major pain points that kept people from solo traveling again, or experiences they felt while abroad:

early stages of our user research and testing process

Early Insights

Solo travelers seek spontaneity

When interviewees were asked to select two different search options from the MVP, all of them searched for an event, rather than a person. They mentioned that it makes more sense for them to explore different places by participating in events. Unless the application recommends a place, they would pick an event based on pictures.

Adding a recommendation page

Based on user feedback, we decided to integrate a recommendation feature into the platform, leveraging user preferences, past event ratings and reviews, as well as other relevant data sources such as location popularity and personalized recommendations algorithms. This ensures that users receive tailored suggestions that align with their interests and enhance their overall travel experience.

Building trust with users is key to growing the platform

Access to other travelers' information and credibility is a major factor while making decisions about whether to meet up or not, especially for women. Users need to trust the platform, its features, and most importantly, the people they plan to travel with.

Filters are important to maintaining the quality of users' feeds

When interviewees were transitioning from the “Explore Page” to the search bar, they looked for different event details. One specifically looked at the time of event. Another interviewee looked at the gender of the person that created the event. Users need specific filters to streamline their search.

Building trust with users is key to growing the platform

Filters are important to maintaining the quality of users' feeds

A Deeper Understanding

of the solo traveling experience

Features like tags and interest match make sure that you always match with the people that you will vibe with.

Travel-oriented user profiles help you in getting to know the travelers prior to the event, where as one-on-one messaging makes it super convenient to plan and co-ordinate schedules. These features make sure that each and every experience on the SOLOS app is authentic and genuine.

We want each and every user to feel safe while using SOLOS, whether it is when you're finding other travelers to match with or when you are on a trip together. Hence, user safety on SOLOS is not just an afterthought, but an integral part of each and every experience.

The Final Experience

We also considered the how this solution would generate revenue. We decided on 2 main factors of bringing in money—the first way is through user subscriptions to access the platform, and the second is from business partnerships and advertisements on the platform. This builds a two-sided market of users seeking new places to explore, and local businesses attracting a new user base.

Learnings

my takeaways

As an avid-traveler, this project was especially fun to work on, since I'd wished for something like this in past solo travel experiences. These were a few of my major learnings:

Ask why!

I realized that working with a team to design a new solution required digging into new territories, constantly. Frequently asking ‘why’ abstracted the problem, created new definitions and expanded the landscape of solutions, and overall helped us ideate and refine our solution. By consistently pondering the “why” behind our design rationales, we were able to ultimately design a user-first, research-backed solution.

Understand the state of the industry and environment you’re designing for

Prior to this class, I’ve never really done environment-based analysis of a company or service. I found it extremely helpful to look at the spheres of control, influence, and then external forces to identify why a new innovative service could be built, and what products failed and succeeded in the past.

Play to your team's strengths

It was so much fun designing for a space we were all passionate about—everyone on the team cared about travel, and this translated into our designs and overall workflow. Early on, we were able to establish areas of focus for this project, and what skills we wanted to practice (UXR, visual design, experience design, project management, etc.), and establish a culture of stepping in and stepping up to help each other out. We were truly a well-paired team, full of budding ideas, open to pivots, and immensely collaborative on each deliverable. This team made work feel fun.