Author Topic: UI developer thinking of building a trip planning app  (Read 2369 times)

jaysee

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UI developer thinking of building a trip planning app
« on: January 26, 2020, 02:13:57 PM »
Hey everyone,

So as the title indicates, I'm a UI developer looking to build a new trip planning app.

The incumbent: TripIt

You may have already used a trip planning app such a 'TripIt'.

TripIt has screens that lets you plan your holiday over time, adding flights, stays, activities, etc. You can then refer to this plan by browsing on your phone. It also has an import function, where you can get it to scan your emails after you book a flight, accommodation, etc. and automatically add those entries to your plan.

See screenshots of TripIt attached.

My alternative: A new trip planner

I want to build a better version of 'TripIt'. Much better. B)

Rather than forcing you to first book your flights/accommodation/etc then enter them into the app (as TripIt does) I want to make an app that lets you design your trip ahead-of-time, before booking anything.

Basically you create 'slots' - date ranges during which you want to travel. In those slots, you list out one or more destinations that you're interested in visiting.

For example you could plan to travel between February and May this year, and list Vanuatu and Fiji as destinations.

Then the trip planning app goes away and automatically searches the web for every possible combination of flights and accommodation fitting your date range and destinations list and comes back with the cheapest, fastest, most convenient plan it can find.

For example, it might find a cheap return flight to Vanuatu on February 15th, returning on May 20th, along with some cheap accommodation that fits the dates of the flight, and give you back the result as a complete package costing, say, $500.

This should make it way easier for FIRE people (or anyone really) to plan their trips while keeping costs low.

Long-range vision

In fact, why just use it for holidays? If you're a digital nomad, it could even be used to plan your entire life!

Eventually it could integrate with many other apps and services. For example...

  • Job sites / gig providers to get you part-time work in your destination location,
  • Public transport networks, Uber drivers, etc to get you from airport to accommodation and anywhere else,
  • Apartment minding deals where you basically house-sit for someone and pay no rent or reduced rent,
  • Meetups / communities (FIRE or other) so you can have some fun socialising,
  • ... etc ...

I'm curious what you all think of the idea.

Would you find something like this useful?
What kinds of features would you want that I haven't listed?
Would you be interested to sign up for a Beta version of this, if/when I begin building it?

Thanks for reading!
« Last Edit: January 26, 2020, 02:18:53 PM by conwy »

BicycleB

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Re: UI developer thinking of building a trip planning app
« Reply #1 on: February 07, 2020, 08:37:09 PM »
If it works superbly, I'd love it, even though I rarely travel (red flag #1, right?).

I've wished for something reliable that works like that, but it seems difficult to produce. In particular, everyone seems to struggle on how to optimize "cheap, fast, convenient". I mean, the apps I've seen ask the user to sort by one criteria, not 3, even just to pick one flight. How will do all 3?

If you can make it satisfying for the user, and actually duplicate the thought process they'd have, you might get a lot of customers virally. Here are 2 ideas, send me on a free trip if they work:

1. Have sliders to weight the importance of the 3 factors. But, move one slider, it makes another one move. You can't have perfect everything, you have to choose. Maybe the slider have a combined weight of 12 out of 30, which the customer implicitly distributes. Then you plan accordingly.
2. Make profiles. The way you yourself think it might be done could be Frida Frugal, whose tastes are described, but somebody else might want a trip planned by Luxurious Lisa. Under the hood, each profile uses a different weighting algorithm to sort the options.


jaysee

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Re: UI developer thinking of building a trip planning app
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2020, 09:46:32 AM »
Thanks for your ideas, BicycleB! Very cool and interesting.

Yeah the slider sounds like a good idea. I could even try and make it show prices in real-time as you drag it (though that might be tricky on a mobile screen size).

I'll post up some initial sketches soon.