Traveler App - Condé Nast
Reinventing the new Traveler magazine; a digital platform that guides the user into an immersive experience of storytelling using interactional video articles and virtual networks that allows people to create, share, personalize experiences, and exchange interests and ideas related to travel, dining and other activities.
Project Brief: To create the magazine of the future.
This project was the first prize winner of the Condé Nast Scholarship for Domus Academy.
Art direction - Monica Calmet
UI/UX design - Monica Calmet
The Concept
Prior to beginning this month-long challenge, I was involved in a virtual reality project at work which inspired the concept of this magazine. The challenge was to innovate the way physical magazines inform and entertain people. After a week of analyzing the concept and researching current trends in design and technology, the Traveler magazine was born.
This magazine is a digital travel guide that enhances the experience of storytelling by making articles come to life through personalized videos. This unique tool gives the user a choice whether to read an article or to become virtually involved through a documentary style video. Articles can be shared, personalized (by selecting your choice of interest within an article) or even bookmarked as a favorite. Beyond being an article-only magazine, this platform allows people to create, share, and exchange interests and ideas related to travel, dining and other activities. This digital platform becomes a personal guide and companion for travel.
This magazine is unique as it has the best tools to enhance travel destinations and also acts as a virtual tour guide by making the user personalize their interests as well as comment, share and exchange experiences with those around them and making the best out of their travel destinations.
App Ecosystem & Wireframes
Before developing the app, to understand the entire platform, I created a detailed user ecosystem for both non-registered and registered users. This ecosystem helped me determine opportunities and key aspects of the user's journey through the app. Following the user ecosystem, I created wireframes prior visual designs.
Project Details
A Journey through the Magazine
When entering the new Traveler app, the user encounters a sign-in/register welcome screen.
The purpose of this screen is to engage the user into registering their information, which includes their social platforms and preferences. Once they sign-in, the person will undergo a simple questionnaire so the app can understand their preferences when traveling, eating, and other activities. This will provide them with personalized content on their home screen, specifically curated to their personality.
Once the user has registered and answered the questionnaire, they will be directed to the home page. If users have registered previously they will enter this page directly once the app is opened. The Traveler Home features visual imagery that acts as representations of articles related to travel, activities and services. Once the user taps on an image, an article preview will appear. The reason behind the visual approach is because most users who are travelers themselves are explorers, so when they see beautiful imagery they tend to be drawn to explore even more.
When the user selects the article of interest, they will have a unique experience.
The article will provide the traveler two choices:
To read the article normally and see a slide show of images with captions,
or to tap the screen to begin the interactive video article.
Once the user taps on the screen, the interactive video article starts with predetermined content. The unique feature of this video is its interactivity and personalization. At a certain point, the video will pause and ask the user if they would like to see other features within the article. This will provide the user to pick and determine what they want to see instead of viewing the entire predetermined video. Some people are interested in specific topics, so this interactivity point will allow them to quickly access what they want to view.
An important feature of this app, besides the article, is the user’s profile. This area of the platform
allows the person to connect, share and network their experiences of the articles, travel, and other activities.
The profile has three important features: Favorites, Posts and Map.
The Favorites section is the area where the user’s favorite articles are stored, so they can easily access the articles that are of interest. The Posts section acts as a travel blog, where the user can post pictures and their travel journals and share them with their friends and/or followers. The Map section is an interactive world map that shows the user the places they have visited, their friends’ location in the world and where their favorite articles are located which are useful when planning a new adventure. The messaging system allows longer conversations to exchange interests, ideas, articles and future travel destinations.
Since the Home section has predetermined articles based on the user’s preferences, the Explore section will provide the user with the ability to search or find articles within specific categories based on their interests. There will also be a search bar if they know what they are specifically looking for.
Since this is a travel app, most users tend to enjoy taking photographs and videos of the places they have visited. The camera feature allows users to take photos and videos, edit them and save the content in a library within the app.
Further Considerations
Apart from the design of the digital platform, I also thought about ways of making profit through memberships, advertising, and other business models, as well as the type of professionals needed to create this app. The needed professionals are a writer, camera man, visual designer, interaction designer, coder, account liaison and a production team.
Since there was a limited amount of time for this project, the user testing was done with two ideal target personas which helped improve the design and structure of this platform. Currently, I am thinking of many ways to improve this magazine! There's always room for improvement and redesign!
Special thanks to Nicole Camet and Natalie Pardo for user feedback and testing.