.png)
Wayfarer is a travel website for travelers to discover new locations around the world. Though not directly selling trip bundles, flights, or accommodations, it seeks to connect people to options as they research where to travel next.
This project was completed as a 10 hour design challenge for DesignLab.
To create a desktop landing page for Wayfarer that has:
• Simple search functionality
• Navigation to other pages
• Featured destination section
• Newsletter signup section
• Footer section with navigation links and copyright information
To create a mobile app for Wayfarer that has:
• Sign-in screen
• Landing screen with list of destinations
• Simple search functionality
• Featured destinations
• Location details screen
• Pen and Paper
• Figma
Product Designer (UX/UI)
January 2021
Market Research
Informal Interviews
Sketching
Lo-fi Wireframes
Hi-Fi Wireframes
Prototype
Project Takeaways
This was a 10 hour design challenge for entry into DesignLab's UX Academy. As I was operating on limited time, I did informal market research of top travel industry sites.
I looked at three popular travel sites, and quickly listed the things I liked (strengths) and didn't like (weaknesses) about them. I used these findings to inform my design of Wayfarer. This task took about 20 minutes.
.png)
As this was a project with a very tight timeline, I proceeded immediately to sketching screen designs. Once I finalized designs, I proceeded to create wireframes.
.png)
.png)
I used my discoveries from my market research to sketch out potential solutions for Wayfarer's home screen on desktop, as well as screens for the mobile app. This task took approximately an hour and a half.
Wayfarer's branding needed to be decided from the ground up. I experimented with many color palettes before proceeding to build my high-fidelity wireframes for desktop and mobile app screens. I then created a short prototype for the mobile app.
.png)
.png)
As a project completed for admission purposes, Wayfarer functioned similarly to a take-home design challenge. This was my first time designing under tight time constraints, and I was able to get taste for how it would feel to work for a startup, or in an Agile environment. I was able to create a viable product despite the timeline, and for this I am very proud.
There are a lot of things I'd change about Wayfarer if I had more time. I'd have completed more market research and been more imaginative with my design of the product- while I am happy with how it turned out, I believe that I could have made the product more visually interesting. I was determined to stick to familiar design patterns for Wayfarer, which was good UX practice- my inability to conduct user testing before submission and make iterations based on feedback, was not.
Overall, I'm satisfied with Wayfarer. I was a very novice designer when I completed it, and there are many aspects of it that do not hold up to the design standards I now hold myself to. However, it was a project that allowed me to showcase, not just to the admissions team but to myself, how much I'd developed as a designer in just a matter of weeks. And this is why I choose to have it in my portfolio- to demonstrate my growth and how far I've come.