Mobile app
Wayfare
A trip planner for slow travellers that helps people plan fewer, better days on the road.
- Role
- Product designer
- Client
- Wayfare
- Year
- 2024
- Services
- User research, Mobile UX, Visual design
Overview
Wayfare is a travel app for people who would rather spend three days in one town than one day in three. The founding team had a strong point of view and a prototype full of features. I joined to shape it into a focused first release for iOS and Android.
The challenge
Most trip planners reward cramming: more stops, more bookings, more tabs. Our research with 18 slow travellers showed that they plan loosely, change their minds often and mostly want to remember the places friends recommended. The app had to support a gentle, flexible kind of planning without feeling empty.
What I did
- Ran diary studies during real trips to see how plans changed from day to day.
- Designed a day-by-day planner where each day holds a few ideas instead of a timetable.
- Created a saved places map that turns friends' recommendations into a personal guide.
- Defined a warm visual language with hand-drawn map details and a soft, readable palette.
The outcome
Wayfare launched in summer 2024 with a 4.8 star rating across both app stores. Six months later, people who saved places from friends were twice as likely to plan a second trip in the app.