TripWise
Project Type
UI/UX Design
Role
UX Designer
Industry
Travel
DURATION
6 Months
INTRODUCTION
The corporate travel industry is essential for business mobility, with global spending expected to hit $1.48 trillion by 2024 and exceed $2.0 trillion by 2028. As travel management shifts toward trust, transparency, and simplicity, expense tracking remains a challenge. This case study explores an AI-powered solution designed to streamline expense management for corporate travelers.
Problem
Despite fintech advancements, many corporate travelers still track expenses manually, causing inefficiencies, lost receipts, and compliance issues. The process is slow, leading to delayed reimbursements and policy violations. Limited multi-device access further complicates expense tracking and reporting.
– (Corporate Traveler, Research Interview)
“How might we leverage AI to streamline expense tracking and ensure seamless, compliant, and efficient management for corporate travelers across multiple devices?”
Enhance Efficiency: Automate expense tracking to reduce manual entry, saving time for corporate travelers and finance teams.
Reduce Compliance Risks: Ensure adherence to company policies and regulations through AI-driven validation and automated reporting.
Improve Expense Tracking: Provide seamless, multi-device accessibility for easy and accurate tracking across smartphones, tablets, and desktops.
To address these challenges, I proposed an AI-powered corporate travel app that automates expense tracking and management across devices, ensuring enhanced efficiency, improved expense tracking, reduced compliance risks, and lower business costs.
Features
The platform leverages AI to detect policy or budget violations, provide real-time alerts, and suggest compliant alternatives for seamless adjustments.
Features
Real-time multi-device sync for seamless trip management, expenses tracking, and updates across all devices.
Features
The platform automatically categorizes expenses, learning user behavior to improve accuracy, and flags non-compliant entries with real-time feedback to ensure policy adherence.
Features
The platform leverages AI to categorize expenses, detect anomalies, and ensure policy compliance—reducing manual effort and errors. Users can access visual analysis, generate customizable reports, and gain actionable insights to optimize spending.
Process
I took the Double Diamond framework approach for this project to provide a structured yet flexible method for addressing key challenges. This approach allowed me to deeply explore user needs, refine problem areas, and iteratively develop solutions. As a result, I ensured that the final solution is both user-centered and aligned with business goals.
RESEARCH
I began by conducting 35-minute semi-structured interviews with 4 corporate travelers to explore their expense tracking challenges. Participants were selected based on role diversity, travel frequency, and familiarity with digital tools, ensuring a well-rounded perspective for informed insights.
I also distributed online surveys to 20 corporate employees to quantify common issues and gather broader insights.
Participant One
Frequently travels for events, conferences, training and meetings.
Participant Three
Responsible for overseeing expense reports across departments.
Participant Two
Assist executives or team’s with trip planning, management and reporting.
Participant Four
Manages both their own and their team’s travel expenses.
data analysis
“I manually enter expenses at the end of my trip, but it’s a hassle matching receipts.” Kweku
“I prefer having being able to log expense on the go and not have to turn on my laptop all the time.” Kweku
“I prefer having being able to log expense on the go and not have to turn on my laptop all the time.” Kweku
“I prefer having being able to log expense on the go and not have to turn on my laptop all the time.” Kweku
I conducted a competitor analysis to understand the pros and cons of current corporate travel platforms, focusing on how their strengths and areas for improvement.
I also gathered secondary data on the corporate travel industry, including reports, case studies, and surveys, to understand broader trends, challenges and outlook.
SYNTHESIS
I conducted generative research to identify patterns, themes, and insights about user needs, motivations, and behavior to help come up with a truly helpful solution to user’s problems. I also reviewed the broader industry landscape to define the core problem, trends and outlook.
I developed an empathy map to understand corporate travelers’ expense management process, capturing their thoughts, feelings, actions, and frustrations to uncover key insights.
I created a user persona to define the ideal corporate traveler for TripWise, focusing on their goals, needs, and frustrations. This guided the design to effectively address their unique challenges.
The user journey map details Sonia’s expense tracking experience, highlighting pain points, key touchpoints, and improvement opportunities for a seamless, cross-platform design.
The task flow optimizes user experience by analyzing behaviors, minimizing friction, and streamlining interactions across devices.
IDEATION
I translated UX research, user journeys, and flows into low-fidelity sketches illustrate key scenarios, prioritize essential features, and highlight how the app solves pain points.
design
design
I conducted user testing during the mid-fidelity prototype stage to gather valuable insights and refine the design before progressing to the high-fidelity phase.
UI Design
Users felt the interface resembled a stock app rather than a travel app.
Navigation
Navigation was perceived as complex, primarily due to the limited number of screens designed.
Lack of Feedback
Users noted the design lacked feedback mechanisms and expressed interest in how AI could provide contextual feedback and insights, setting it apart from other apps.
Redesigned the visual elements to align with corporate travel app aesthetics, incorporating destination imagery, vibrant colors, and travel-related icons to create a more immersive experience.
Expanded the navigation flow by adding key screens and intuitive pathways, and added AI-driven features, including real-time recommendations, personalized expense tips, and contextual notifications.
Added feedback indicators such as success messages, visual cues, and interactive prompts to enhance user confidence and engagement. Also added explainability in to provide context for A.I generated insights.
design
User testing and feedback from my mid-fidelity prototypes were incorporated into the design process. I refined both the structure and visuals, introducing customized travel cards, larger touch points, and a more consistent color scheme ensuring the design enhances usability.
Desktop
Mobile + Watch
Reflections
User story statements is that they provide clear, actionable insights into user needs and motivations, helping to prioritize features.
Engaging users early in the design process provides actionable insights that can prevent costly design missteps later.
Users value features that cater to their specific needs and preferences. Incorporating personalization can enhance user satisfaction.
Reflections
Explore AI algorithms that analyze user spending patterns to provide tailored budgeting tips and proactive savings suggestions.
Incorporate predictive analytics to forecast future expenses based on historical data.
Integrate travel-specific recommendations, like converting currencies or tracking expenses per destination.