JetSet


Role

UX & Visual Designer

Timeline

Spring 2024

Tools

Figma, Design Thinking

Context


Developed at DIS, I worked in a team of four students to create a mobile application to support college students travelling abroad find compatible travel peers. We used an iterative design thinking process while referencing research and user-centered literature, and we presented continuous findings on peer interviews, constructive feedback, social surveys, and AI interaction. Our work was crucial to understanding a human-centered design approach for mobile applications and travel communities. 

At the start of our journey, we were asked to create a problem statement. The solution didn’t matter just yet; all we had to do was think of a problem to apply the process of design thinking to. Our discussion started broad: What were our personal experiences with the education system? How could we compare DIS courses to our home university courses? At some point, our discussion shifted to travel within the DIS program, specifically finding people to travel with. We shared our worries and anxieties of not having our usual friend groups. Our thoughts bloomed into a greater statement to work with.

Problem Statement

In a time where study abroad students are in search of travelling to new locations with few connections, how might we facilitate travel planning and coordination among students?

Our Solution

JetSet is a mobile application that brings together students travelling abroad in Europe to find travel buddies and groups based on interests, habits, and compatibility.

User Personas



After considering our problem statement, we conducted a survey sent to students within our study abroad program regarding travel, interests, and insights. Our survey was incredibly useful to create our persona, who was created based on the design thinking process of “say, do, think, and feel.” We iterated our own experiences as study abroad students, as well as those listed from the survey. We also built a user persona, “Jacob Moore,” who was an average DIS student in sesarch of travel connection.


Low-fidelity prototypes



Once we had evaluated survey responses, our persona, and our own personal experiences, we moved forward with creating a low fidelity prototype using Figma. We imagined users creating a profile, with specific details on their budget, interests, and personality traits that would be useful for pairing in travel. 

Wireframe Prototype



With much feedback from users themselves, we added more design-based features to make our prototype high-fidelity. We added new pages, such as a feature “adding friends” based on contacts, including a message inbox for users to communicate with one another, as well as recommendations for trips based on their answers.


Conclusion


JetSet become a mobile application used for travel connection and coordination within the DIS study abroad program. We completed our own commercial to advertise and market our product to students!