CrossRoads 

Capstone Group Project
Improve the process of planning trips so the experience of traveling with friends and family.

CrossRoads is an app that users feel confident using to organize their trips in the most stress free manner. Some of our preliminary proposed functions will revolve around the following:

• Itinerary/Time Management
• Group Management
• Discovery and Exploration
• Group Polls

For our design, we seek to understand the needs, desires, and pain points of our diverse user base by conducting interviews  to learn about prior travel experiences and use cases. We will also research other travel and booking platforms, as well as  group management applications to analyse design successes and identify areas for improvement. We will use this feedback to develop a user centered design.

Conceptual Design

• Design a wireframe that follows a personal, intuitive travel planning flow via mobile app interface

• Ensure the design balances eatures from the 6 themes found in our user study

• Develop and use our customer journey to build effective collaboration in travel planning between hosts and trip attendees

Detailed Design

• Demonstrate the interaction of Cross Roads features in a high-fidelity prototype built in Figma
• Show key user journeys within the application in storyboard/animation 

We reviewed competitor apps and their features to find out what tools are already available to travelers

To best understand the thought process of planning a trip from multiple perspectives, we decided to conduct in-depth
one-on-one interviews with 10 people. 

Before doing this, we conducted a few pilot interviews for optimal results.

Ideation Methods

After review of benchmarking and direct quotes from interviewees, conducted 3 sessions of 12 minute blocks of ideation with no limitations.
Generated 195 – 200 (individual sticky notes)
Sorted each into one of our 6 themes

Low-Fidelity Prototyping

Split themes and ideas between team members
Sketch ideas
Discuss architecture
Map architecture
Build wireframe
GUI concept

We were able to implement a lot of the core features our participants expected from a travel application within Cross Roads while experiencing limitations in building everything. However, these limitations allowed us to narrow the scope of the app as a whole to make its core features the best we could for our users. Features we did not think would play a major role such as the Randomizer ended up being a hit with users because they aligned with the original goal of simplifying the planning experience. Ultimately, CrossRoads can be used as both a travel planning tool for solo travelers and a social, group planning platform as we intended the app to be.