Overview: Globe Trotter is an app used to make connections and plan out trips. Using Globe Trotter, users can connect with other travellers and host travellers in their hometown.
Duration: January 2025 - April 2025 (4 Months)
Toolkit: Figma & FigJam
My Role(s): UX Researcher, UX Designer
Globe Trotter
Overview
Context
Gathering Ideas
As part of a four-person team for SI 311: Product Design, we were tasked with finding a problem space featuring a large consumer base, an important unmet need, and a gap in current market offerings. To kick off our project, each team member independently brainstormed potential ideas. We then came together to share, discuss, and refine these concepts as a group.
Through collaborative discussion and analysis, we decided to focus on the idea of helping people connect with others who share similar hobbies. After further exploration, we narrowed our problem space to the travel industry and began working on a solution: an app designed to connect travelers with others who have compatible interests.
The Problem
“Solo travelers often struggle to connect with trustworthy locals and peers due to safety concerns, loneliness, and cultural barriers.”
Desk Research
After coming up with our initial idea, it was time to conduct market research. My team gathered insights on the size of the market, our target audience, social and cultural implications, and how we can utilize emerging technologies. I assisted in conducting an in-depth competitive analysis of 3 competitors, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses so that our application could look to fill those gaps that these applications might have.
Bumble (for Friends)
MeetUp
Couchsurfing
Key Moment
During this phase, I recognized an opportunity to strengthen our ideation by seeking external feedback. I raised my concerns with my team and proposed reaching out to a potential member of our customer base.
Drawing on my experience in user experience research, I prepared an interview guide to help validate the need for our application. Opening questions included,
Empathize
Interview 1
“How often do you travel?”
“What has your favorite destination been?”
The interview format was virtual and consisted of open-ended questions that targeted how users planned trips and understanding the challenges of solo-travel.
During the interview, the interviewee highlighted important challenges with safety on existing platforms and expressed enthusiasm for connecting with locals. These insights confirmed the relevance of our idea.
Journey Map
On the side of our customer’s profile (the circle), we identified that the problems that the customers were trying to solve (i.e. Customer Jobs) included: a desire for authentic experiences, a way to connect with locals, a way to prioritize destinations to visit and for how long, and a way to find accommodations. As for pain points or risks that one faces, our interviewee expressed that safety is the main pain point when it comes to traveling and not knowing how to prioritize destinations to travel to. Gains included the ability to travel more affordably and to meet new people while travelling.
To help us better understand our prospective users, I alongside my teammate Tiffany Tam created a journey map, showing the journey a prospective user may take using our theoretical application. By doing this, we were able to better visualize how our product could appeal to our users. Using insight from my interview, we were able to more accurately populate the canvas with real-world insights.
Value Proposition Canvas
Key Consideration
After creating our prototype, we would go on to conduct 4 other discovery interviews. Conducting user interviews in this course was something that was reserved for after the creation of our prototype. Due to the structure of the course, only one interview was conducted at this time. The insights below are from this interview and those conducted after the creation of our prototype.
Affinity Mapping
Prior to adding insights from our interviews to our figjam board, I made sure each participant had an associated sticky note color
Tiffany and I then organized the notes by similar themes. These themes included,
Wanting to receive recommendations from locals
Preferring local experiences
Associating locals with having exclusive safety information
Using digital platforms to plan their travels
Our findings made our team confident in continuing to pursue our app idea.
Prototype
Usability Testing
Using the wireframes above, Tiffany and I prepared an usability testing guide to find usability issues with our application. Our tasks included:
Signing up and completing assessment
Going through a post and reaching out to a fellow Globe Trotter
Match with other Globe Trotters
The usability test format was virtual and participants were asked to think-aloud as they went through the screens.
Affinity Diagram
We grouped sticky notes by which screen it was associated with.
After discovering themes across multiple interviews, we worked together to agree on insights. This included:
Users were confused by our assessment questions
Users wanted to know more information about other users
Users also wanted to see a video format
We then made sure our findings were reflected in our final design.
Final Prototype
Reflection
Participating in Globe Trotters was a highly valuable experience in my development as a UI/UX designer and researcher. I am always eager to take on new opportunities to build my skill set, and this project allowed me to collaborate with students from diverse educational backgrounds. Working as part of an interdisciplinary team taught me how to effectively merge different perspectives and collectively shape our ideas—a truly eye-opening experience.
Additionally, this project provided my first exposure to entrepreneurial concepts such as the value proposition canvas, product marketing strategies, and pitching a product. Gaining hands-on experience in these areas has broadened my understanding of the product design process beyond UI/UX and research.
Looking back, one key takeaway is the importance of early and thorough user research. While we did conduct interviews with individuals from our target audience, I recognize that interviewing more participants at the outset would have enabled us to develop a more accurate user persona and journey map. Although course constraints and limited resources affected our timeline, this experience has underscored for me that robust, early-stage user research is essential for guiding the ideation process—an insight I plan to apply to future projects.