We designed a first-of-its kind travel planning app designed to make trip planning effortless, personalized, and collaborative. We led the 0 → 1 business strategy, product design & branding as well as helped develop the recommendation algorithm.
Product Strategy, UX Research, UX/UI Design, Branding, AI & Data Analysis, Business Strategy & Monetization
Planning travel can be overwhelming. The process of booking hotels, events, and restaurants is fragmented, forcing users to navigate multiple platforms in a disjointed manner. This experience creates "options paralysis," where too many choices make it difficult to make informed decisions. Many existing solutions fail to offer the personalization needed to make trip planning seamless and tailored to individual preferences, resulting in wasted time and money.
Sayl, an AI-powered travel planning app, addresses these challenges by automating the trip planning process. A key part of Sayl's development is extensive user research conducted across varying age groups, involving n = 107 participants. Particular focus is given to college students, as the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is designed with them in mind, targeting trips like spring break or senior vacations.
Sayl delivers a personalized and collaborative travel planning experience, empowering users to co-plan trips with their fellow “Saylers.” The app uses user profiles to curate personalized travel plans, enabling travelers to save both time and money without compromising the quality of their experience. Through its innovative "Tinder"-style interface, Sayl not only helps users discover new activities but also collects valuable data to further refine its recommendation engine. The app’s revenue model focuses on charging vendors for customer referrals, as well as monetizing ad placements within the app. This approach ensures a balance between delivering value to users and driving revenue from partners. The app’s brand identity is meticulously designed to evoke the excitement of exploration, with a welcoming interface inspired by sunrise and sunset gradients to create a sense of comfort and anticipation. Despite strong market validation and potential for high user engagement, the project was put on hold due to resource constraints and changes in Google’s Places API policies, which limited data usage. Nevertheless, the endeavor highlighted the importance of end-to-end systems thinking, from branding to technical architecture, while also underscoring the need to adapt business models in response to evolving technological landscapes.
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