Trival
Built for travelers to share travel plans, connect with their favorite people, and make trip planning feel effortless.
My Role
Co-Founder / Chief Creative Officer
CEO, CFO
Team
Project Dates
Feb 2019 - Sep 2019
Context
The Problem
I'm passionate about traveling the world and meeting new people. In my travels, I found that trip planning is unnecessarily stressful and time-consuming, detracting from the overall experience. The other two co-founders of Trival felt the same way. Between the three of us, we've met hundreds of people from diverse backgrounds and have discussed many different approaches to trip planning.
We use various trip-planning websites like TripAdvisor and individual blog posts to get information about our destinations. The recommendations are generally for a broad audience, so it is difficult to find information in line with our specific interests, and lack specifics to help plan the travel logistics.
Poor planning results in logistical surprises that waste time, overspending on pre-packaged tours that offer little freedom to venture, and travel experiences that begin to lack in authenticity.
Our Solution
Our favorite trips were always planned with the help of friends who had already made a similar trip and had gone through the trip planning process already. Their recommendations were often the best part of a trip.
This inspired us to create Trival, a travel-focused social media platform with tools for people to plan and share trips by connecting with their network.
My contributions
Research
Interviewed and analyzed top pain points of trip planning
Designed full mobile app, tested protoypes, and implemented designs with contracted engineering team.
Mobile Application Design
Designed logo and color palette, created company name and tagline, and built social media and marketing assets
Branding
Research
Interviewing target audience
Between the three co-founders, we had an extensive network of young professionals and students who loved to travel and did so often. I distributed surveys and conducted in-person interviews with more than 20 individuals to better understand how we could enhance the joys of traveling and reduce people's negative experiences.
Top trip-planning frustrations
Researching using various travel blogs, websites, and apps to plan trips is time-consuming.
Young people don't trust sites like TripAdvisor. Most reviews are written by people with different travel styles, activity levels, and priorities.
Instagram is a great platform for showing travel photos and inspiring new trips but the format is not designed for trip planning. It is difficult to find details about other users' trips or experiences.
Organizing research and itineraries is challenging because the information is spread across multiple platforms (e.g., Google Sheets, Google Docs, TripAdvisor, Expedia, calendar apps, company-specific hotel and airline sites, etc.)
Friends and people who meet during travel often give recommendations verbally, which makes recalling them later tricky.
Design
An app designed to encourage socially-oriented trip planning
I designed a mobile application to solve trip-planning frustrations and encourage fun and socially-oriented planning. The application lets users plan and share their experiences while connecting with their favorite people.
Some of the key user flows are showcased below.
Plan a trip
Users can plan their trips easily and in one location by:
Viewing friends’ recommendations on the map
Filtering by food, experiences, lodging, or nightlife
Starting a conversation with friends who have been to, or are currently in, a city of interest
Bookmarking recommendations
Adding items to a trip itinerary
Share a trip
Users can share their trips with their network by:
Adding recommendations for food, experiences, lodging, and nightlife
Uploading images of their trips and tagging locations
Writing tips to help other travelers navigate cities more easily
Connect with friends
Users can view their friends’ profiles and do the following:
Check out new cities to inspire their next trip
Comment on their trips, photos, and recommendations
View recent activity and if they are currently traveling
Find out where friends plan to travel next to offer insight or tag along!
Share contacts to help create new connections
Message friends to ask for tips or plan new trips together
Branding
Appeal to young, socially-minded travelers
I created the logo concept and social media marketing assets for Trival. I aimed to appeal to young, social people who love exploring the world.
Color palette and logo design
I chose orange as the brand color because it promotes energy and excitement. It also differentiates the app icon from the other top social media apps (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, etc.).
I based the logo design on the monarch butterfly because it travels vast distances and, combined with our tagline, prompts the idea of a “social butterfly”. To further this concept, I designed it to appear as a single butterfly to represent a traveler, or two butterflies facing each other from a side view to represent a connection.
Marketing Assets
The other co-founders and I began creating a marketing plan to utilize social media platforms and paid advertisements. I made marketing assets, so we could start advertising immediately after the mobile app launch.
Results
Business outcomes
I worked with a contracted team of 3 engineers and reached 80% completion of the mobile app consisting of 25+ user flows. After running out of the initial start-up funds, Trival shut down ending our 8-month venture before the release of the app.
Professional growth
The experience of starting up Trival was a pivotal time in my career. I took a risk that had no guarantee of a payoff. I took an entire product through the design process instead of a single idea. I became an entrepreneur and learned about business and start-ups. I experienced the consequences of improper scoping and bloated MVPs. I propelled my product design career and prepared myself for success in my next role at CourseKey.