Traverse | www.zainabkabira.com

Traverse

Your travel story; illustrated.

Summary

Traverse is a mobile app that enables users to visually document their journeys

by creating illustrative travel maps.

In this 0-to-1 project, I was responsible for the entire design process—from initial research to high-fidelity prototypes. My work focused on crafting a seamless user experience, designing intuitive interfaces, and building user flows that make it easy to record and share travel stories.

Role

Principal designer

Platform

Mobile, iOS

Timeline

2 months

Introduction

Key Features

Smart Place Adding

Add destinations, and Traverse auto-sources details, allowing you to personalize each stop with notes and memories.

Customizable Map Styles

Set the mood by browsing map styles and using Traverse's library of illustrations, text styles, and patterns. Adjust sizes, colors, and positions to make it your own!

Expressive Schematic Creation

Easily transform your pinned map into a stylish schematic, saved to your profile and ready for printing or sharing on social media.

Research

IDEA EXPLORATION

Identifying the problem

Social Media

60% of millennials share photos on social media while traveling for instant communication and gratification.

Blogging/Travel Journals

17% of travelers share their journeys online through reviews, blogs, or videos, but the effort and time required often inhibit them.

Photo Albums

Digital photos can easily be forgotten as new ones are taken.

The volume of snapshots makes it easy to overlook them.

Travel enthusiasts struggle to document their journeys in a comprehensive, personalized, and engaging way. Current tools are fragmented, lacking a cohesive format to fully capture and relive travel memories, which lessens the connection to past experiences.

How do we elevate our storytelling experiences?

Is it possible to sum up our trip on one canvas?

How might we empower travelers to create and share more expressive narratives of their travels?

PRIMARY RESEARCH

Chronicles of the travelling folk

I interviewed diverse travelers to understand their travel documentation habits.

Analyzing the data revealed key pain points, motivations, and behaviors.

Pain Points

80% of interviewees found using multiple platforms for photos and notes fragmented their travel memories, making documentation cumbersome.

Motivations

All interviewees upload travel pictures on social media & wish to create visually appealing and shareable content to connect with others.

Behaviors

Struggle to share travel experiences engagingly, leading to less frequent or impactful sharing.

Define

DESIGN PROCESS

Concept Development

After conducting interviews and surveys with travel enthusiasts to understand their pain points and needs,

I did a market analysis of existing travel documentation tools to identify gaps and opportunities for innovation.

Identifying Core Features

Unified Platform: An all-in-one platform to combine photos, notes, and geotags.
Customization: Features for users to personalize their maps with custom illustrations and notes.
Interactive Sharing: Interactive and visually appealing maps to enhance shareability.

Design

BUILDING

Task Flow

Visualizing the process and flow of each step in the app provided a clear roadmap and also helped account for different edge cases.

Understanding the app's structure and content backed the task flows. I mapped the features needed to create an illustrative map, which also helped guide my solution sketches.

SKETCHES

Bringing ideas to life

SMALL CHANGES = BIG RESULTS

Usability Testing & Iterations

Testing

It wasn’t that smooth right away. I put first iteration to the validation with usability testing and it uncovered a few hiccups.

I conducted two rounds of usability tests with five users each. Participants performed a task in the prototype, and were observed on:

Task completion
Understanding of content and task flow
Navigation within screen layout

The first round of testing was valuable.

Users found the interface was clear and engaging, but provided feedback on making buttons and action modals clearer and some minor issues with prototype clickability.