TravelCamel
Helping travelers fit what they need in their carry on luggage and get through airport security so they can have a stress free travel experience and know they have the essentials when they get to their destination.
This summer my husband and I took the trip of a lifetime -- two weeks traveling around Greece with our teen boys, Jack (16) and Griffin (13). It fell to me to spend months planning so that each of us would have everything we needed and it would all fit into one rolling carry on and a small personal item per person.
I did a lot of searching for packing lists that my teens could use and modify on their own, but most lists included everything but the kitchen sink, and others were based around activities my teens would not be doing on our trip. I tried out several packing list apps and even for myself found them less than useful.
We were traveling with a group of over 50 people, mostly parents with teens, and I found that the other parents had the same frustrations. Some of the older teens mentioned that they wished they had an app that was relevant to their needs - helping them make decisions and tradeoffs about what to bring, while making sure they packed the essentials such as chargers for their electronics and the right clothes for the weather. And getting everything through security didn't always go smoothly - they talked about digging through their suitcase for their shampoo and contact lens solution to put through the X-ray machine separately.
Thus was born TravelCamel.
User Research: Survey
I began with a survey to get a feeling for just how teens and young adults use packing lists and apps. The results brought some surprises. 70% of teens and 76% of overall participants stated “I don’t really use a packing list, I just know what to pack.” 20% said they get suggestions but make their own list, and only 10% gets a packing list from either an adult or their school or organization. None of the teens surveyed uses a packing list app or website, or even searches for and uses a list from the Internet. In fact, 0% of participants overall use a packing list app or website. In additional comments on creating a packing list, three said that they check the weather of the destination and one said they look at how long the trip is.
“Always bring a change of underwear and/or shirt in your carry on because your checked luggage can be misplaced.”
“I always pack wrong! I feel like I need the flexibility of my closet when I’m traveling, but then I end up with five sweaters in a hot climate..”
“I always pack too much and use about half of it.”
“There is no such thing as bringing too many books.”
User Interviews
Looking for more information, I interviewed two teens who had recently traveled internationally with their parents and an adult who has never traveled by plane. During the interviews, we wanted to find out what they were nervous about, what they already knew, and what they didn’t know about the air travel process.
Based on the results, I revised the user problem and wrote the first draft of the solution.
USER PROBLEM
Many older teens and young adults are traveling and having their first experience of being responsible for independently packing their own luggage. They are generally traveling for a few days or up to a couple of weeks at a time. They feel confident that they know what to pack and don’t currently use an app or website to help with a packing list. Often they don’t have a packing list at all.
However, they are concerned with forgetting things or having too much to fit in their suitcase, and have experienced traveling and forgetting important items or packing too much stuff they didn’t use before. They know vaguely that they should look at the weather of their destination when deciding what to pack and often have specific ideas about what types of clothes they want to wear, but aren’t sure exactly what to bring or how much they need.
SOLUTION
The TravelCamel App will help teens and young adults find the weather at their destination at the time they will be traveling and make sure they can fit everything they want to bring in their suitcase. The app will give them the essential must-have items and help them think about the different types of outfits they want to wear so they can fit the things that are most important to them in their luggage. It will give suggestions of things they can purchase such as compression packing cubes or the right size carry-on luggage. It even has a virtual measurement feature, where they can place their luggage on the floor, take a photo, and determine if the bag will meet carry-on size requirements for their airline.
When travelers plan with the TravelCamel app, they are confident they know what they need, they can pack it into their suitcase, and their carry on and personal items will fit properly in the overhead bin. Whatever the weather, they will enjoy their vacation with the right outfits, swim wear, electronics, chargers, and other essentials ready to use.
TravelCamel: Key Features
Destination and Weather: Generates packing suggestions based on destination and weather at the time of travel.
Interactive List Prioritization: Based on length of travel, size of luggage, and activities planned, offers an interactive list of items they can prioritize based on what will fit and how much they need to bring.
Virtual Measurement: The user takes a photo of their luggage and the app determines if it will meet size requirements for their airline.
Airport Security Guide: Walkthrough of the process of getting through airport security and tips on organizing carry on items to make the experience as smooth as possible.
Essentials: Creates a list of essentials such as chargers for electronics and personal hygiene items that the user must find room for.
Packing Maximizer: Suggestions for ways to pack more efficiently such as using compression packing cubes.
International Travel: Information on things such as adapters or converters they may need for their electronics and how to get foreign currency.
Export: The list and other information can be exported to PDF or sent by email or to print.
User Story
As a young traveler, I want to be able to carefully plan how to fit everything I need in my suitcase so that I can pack with confidence that I have room and haven’t forgotten anything.
Concept Sketches
After doing all this research it was time to sit down with pencil and paper and sketch out some ideas for how TravelCamel might really work. I now knew my persona was most concerned with getting everything she needs into her carry on, but “everything” is very broad so I needed to boil it down to the essentials to get her packing list up and running.
I also thought that the bag sizing feature I’d seen in a couple of apps was a natural fit for what TravelCamel was trying to do, and so I played with some ideas for making it a more or less prominent feature.
One early experiment was to make TravelCamel a virtual reality wizard to measure everything the user was going to pack, and to use the bag sizer as a base.
Another idea was to start with the destination with a bit of a fantasy trip feel. The user could enter a destination such as Fiji and it would give the user a beach getaway packing list with ideas of exotic activities and locations available there.
Ultimately
I decided to focus on the packing list idea by flipping it around and starting with the suitcase to fill.
I started thinking a lot about the survey results, where teens said they didn’t use any sort of packing list yet they were worried about fitting everything in their suitcase and often forgot things. Instead of telling the user what to do and what to bring, I wanted TravelCamel to feel like a life hack type of app that would work along with the user to figure out how to travel light while bringing what they really need.
Paper Prototype
I used the POP Marvel app on the iPhone to have users test the paper prototype. Right away I got feedback on the screen asking about what luggage they wanted to bring. One user said she didn’t know because she knew the airlines had strict requirements so she thought there should be some information about measurement requirements.
Users were also confused about the laundry question. There were too many options, and a yes/no question might be preferable. An option to skip for would let them know they can come back and decide later.
The flow where the user must remove an item to add a different item did not seem to cause much confusion for the users. They did spend a longer time because the list was longer, and I wonder if there might be a better way to organize things so there is not so much detailed text.
I tested the bag sizer prototype at a different time, along with some other ideas about adding in some airport information and getting your bag ready to go through security. People really liked the sizer, but the extra information was confusing and they weren’t sure where to find the bag sizer - should it be in the information about getting ready for the flight, or just with the packing list? Ultimately I decided simplicity was best and decided to keep the app focused on the packing list with the bag sizer added in.
Medium Fidelity Wireframes
When I did usability testing with the medium fidelity wire frames, the users went through the flows pretty well but pointed out a couple things that were a bit clunky. Nobody liked the way that the quantity of items on the packing list could be increased or decreased. It took up so much space compared to the items on the list it was hard to read. One person thought that a user should click on an item and then be able to change the quantity inside the item, but another thought that would be too many steps and that I should find a way to make it take less space. It also seemed that no one thought choosing the luggage to bring up front made sense. In fact, a majority of people, especially in this age group, went to great effort to avoid bringing any luggage they had to check and thought the whole point was to be able to bring just what they could carry on the plane. They stressed that was what they needed - to figure out how to get all their stuff in there, not bring a bunch of extras they don’t need, and still not forget essentials.
HIGH FIDELITY MOCKS
For my high fidelity mockups, I decided to focus on the essence of what I’d learned from my user research: teens and young adults don’t want a lot of lists, and they don’t want to bring a lot of luggage. They want to bring a carry on and they want to make sure what they want and need to bring fits in it. I focused on making sure the packing list is customized to their own plans and travel destination.
Packing List
For the packing list, I decided to make it easier to visualize what is in the bag by using icons for the clothing item. They can see at a glance what is already planned for their carry on, and then they can look through the list if they want to make changes. The numbers and up and down increment controls take up a lot less space in this design.
And of course, the link to the virtual bag sizer is prominent - key to their successful trip planning is making sure they have a suitcase that meets their airline’s requirements!
WHAT TO EXPECT: AIRPORT SECURITY
Part of the support for TravelCamel users is making sure they know what to expect during the trip. This is a concept flow for the Airport Security Guide, which helps them have documents and luggage ready and to know what they will need to do to get through security smoothly.
Next Steps
Based on my user research throughout the project and the user testing I did on the final high fidelity mockups, my next step in developing this design would be better defining activity categories. This is an area where some card sorting could be very helpful. The trick is to provide an array of activities while still keeping it to a limited number for the mobile application.
I also got a few comments on the design of the packing list with the clothing icons. People generally liked the idea but the design needs some refinement. Perhaps I could having them be more streamlined or having one stand for multiple pieces of the item.
Looking back at my initial idea, it has come pretty far from a simple packing list app to something much more dynamic that could be strongly personalized. Another area I didn’t explore was the social aspect, where multiple users could plan their trip and what they are bringing together.
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