The Challenge

Design a  group travel planning app to support real-time decision-making and seamless expense management, focusing on reducing friction for both trip organisers and participants.

The Brief

Problem Statement

‍Friend trips are exciting, but organizing them is frustrating. TripSync needed a redesign to support spontaneous decision-making, shared ownership of planning, and frictionless interactions—all while maintaining the delicate balance between organizer control and participant involvement.

Key User Insights Provided:

User Profiles
‍
Organisers (proactive leaders)
vs.
Participants (want involvement without being overwhelmed)

Behaviour Patterns
‍
Spontaneous decisions, shared ownership, low friction tolerance

User Preferences
‍
Polls over chats, simple expense tracking, real-time updates

User Scenario

‍Design for an organiser, Ari's journey on the last evening of a group trip to Lisbon.
‍
1. Add a new friend (Ren) to the existing trip
2. Create a restaurant poll for the group
3. Track real-time voting and automatically add winner to itinerary
4. Log dinner expenses with selective exclusions
5. Facilitate in-app expense settlement

Deliverables

Wireflow
‍
Maximum 15 screens
‍Complete user journey from trip selection to expense settlement

High-Fidelity Screens
‍
3 key screens
Pixel-perfect Ul, including appropriate colors, images, and media

Trip Navigation & Member Management

Trip Navigation
‍
- Clear trip hierarchy on home screen with visual summary of each trip.
- Placed active trips and upcoming events at the top for quick access.

Trips List
‍

Trip Itinerary Page

Member Management
‍
- Used familiar invitation patterns to reduce cognitive load.
- Made member addition a floating action for visibility.
- Included confirmation step for clear feedback and transparency.

Edit Trip

Invite Members

Invite Confirmation

Poll Creation & Voting

Poll Creation

- Rapid poll creation with search integration.
- Allow for member suggestions and smart suggestions.
- Additional poll settings for more control and system visibility.

Placeholder Event

Poll Creation

Poll Voting & Real-Time Updates
‍
- Show real-time vote counts, remaining time and current poll leader for clarity.
- Automatically close polls, select winner and update itinerary to reduce manual steps.
- Push notifications about updates.

Live Voting

Updated Itinerary

Smart Expense Management

Adding an Expense
‍
- Option for receipt scanning for convenience .
- Options for even bill splitting or specifying which group members had each item.
- Calculated expenses based on bill and item splitting.

Add Expense

Expense Summary

Item Edit

Consolidated Trip Expenses
- Smart debt consolidation to minimize transfers.
- Integrated payment system for immediate in-app settlement.
- Options to settle all expenses with single click or settle individually.

Trip Expenses

Settle Expenses

Settled Trip

Full Wireflow

High-Fidelity Design

Three key screens from the flow brought to life in high fidelity, showcasing the polished , visual hierarchy for creating polls and managing expenses.

Visual Design Considerations
‍
- Clear grouping of related information.
- Strong CTAs for critical actions.
- Colour coding for expense categories

Reflection

If I Had More Time:
- Conduct user interviews to validate assumptions about group dynamics.
- Analyse competitors.
- Test features with real groups.
- Explore accessibility considerations for group coordination.

‍Key Learnings:
- Designing for group dynamics requires balancing individual needs.
- Financials can be anxiety inducing so transparency and visibility is key.
- Complex functionality can be simplified through smart defaults.

‍Success Metrics I'd Track:
- Time to complete group decisions.
- Expense settlement completion rate.
- User retention after first trip completion.