Eureka! is a travel planning application that satisfy the wanderlust of travel-lovers by providing itinerary inspirations in a fun and interactive manner. 

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RESEARCH

Five travel lovers were interviewed to understand their travel planning habits, as well as the pain points during the process.

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Insight 1: The initial itinerary planning process is often intensive and time-tight. 

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It is interesting to find out that the travelers have to complete an initial itinerary months before the actual trip in order to book tickets and accommodation. 

 

Even though these travel lovers are exposed to a lot of travel recommendations from their social media engagements, they often forget what they have seen or saved. At the point of itinerary planning they need to research about the places all over again. 

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Limited time combined with an overwhelming amount of information have made the initial itinerary planning process extremely tedious and messy altogether. 

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Insight 2: It is difficult to find unique and genuine travel activity recommendations. 

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"Everyone are doing the same thing, in the same place."  - Terry, interviewee

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Several interviewees have expressed the difficulty in finding more "local" or "special" recommendations during the planning process. They enjoy going to famous travel spots which are truly an eye-opening experience, but sometimes they found themselves stuck in a generic and bland tourist spot.   

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They rely on sites like TripAdvisor or Lonely Planet to discover interesting travel activities, which is very time-consuming due to the broad spectrum of activities and large amount of reviews. On the other hand, their favorite source of itinerary inspiration - network of friends - are not always available. 

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DEFINING PROBLEM

Information overload, limited time and the desire to discover unique travel spots makes travel planning intensive and tedious.

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To solve this problem, we need to narrow down the scope of activities for the user, make better use of the time before the itinerary planning process, and introduce more personal sources of itinerary inspiration. 

 

FUNCTIONAL SOLUTION

1. Preference-based itinerary inspiration

For indecisive users or those who seek a spontaneous adventure in somewhere special, Eureka! would recommend a travel destination as well as itinerary items base on your preference. 

2. Assimilate travel-planning in daily life

Users could save travel activities from travel articles, blogs or itineraries on their feed into their bucket list. By the time a user wants to travel to Tokyo, he could simply go to his Tokyo Bucket list, and generate an itinerary using the items in their bucket list. 

3. Itinerary-sharing

Users could save travel activities of their friends or travel bloggers from their itineraries. Cut time on research by visiting spots where your friends recommend! 

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DESIGN SOLUTION

1. Gamify preference indication process

Swipe right to like a travel activity, swipe left to eliminate one. Swipe up for an activity you love! Comparing to filling in your preferences in a boring form, swiping make it easy and fun to express preferences.

2. Photo-heavy design

Eureka! let photos to do all the talking. Photo is an immersive medium which could take travel lovers to a short mental getaway. Therefore, Eureka! incorporates photo as a major element in the preference expression and itinerary planning process.