Cairn
Development Case Study 01 / January 2025
A trip scheduling platform for travelers who want to get the most out of their vacation, without foregoing their commitments and travel constraints.
React
Typescript
tailwind
express
vite
figma
adobe cc
azure
linear
notion
Personal Project
Designer/Developer
The Problem
Travelers find it hard to plan fulfilling trips according to pre-existing schedules. Ensuring that their events match up takes time, and mistakes could be costly and even more time consuming to resolve.
The Solution
Cairn allows its users to schedule events they find interesting while recommending a schedule that works around their current constraints, finding attractions that match their interests, offering suggested times for those activities, and easily incorporating them into a personalized schedule— saving users time and reducing the mental load of trip planning.
USER RESEARCH
In October 2024, Talker Research conducted a random double-opt-in survey of 2,000 U.S. residents who have traveled either domestically or internationally at least three times per year. Respondents' ages varied from 18-85, with an average age of 45. 45% identified as female, 56% identified as male, and 1% identified as other.
Key Design Decisions
01. Ephemeral Scheduling
Cairn enables a start-to-end workflow that begins with a schedule of user commitments, and ends with a trip itinerary with events scheduled around those commitments— without storing any user data.
02. Speed
The transient nature of Cairn encourages quick scheduling rather than hours poured into research as they survey findings suggest.
03. Tailored Recommendations
Affordability and overspending were credited as the two largest pain points among user groups. Therefore Cairn builds off of a comprehensive onboarding flow to ensure recommendations fit user interests, budget, and lifestyle habits.
User Research
Iteration
Feedback & Takeaways
01.
Gained exposure to new technologies: TypeScript + Azure Container Apps
02.
Experienced rapid iteration cycle from UXR to Design to Development in team environment
03.
Applied Agile methodology in team-based development process
04.
Found alternative UXR strategies considering lack of access to concrete user base for research and testing validation
05.
In the future, consider implementing user profiles and database integration for users wanting to maintain trips within interface