client project / product design
Oulala:
Transforming an app's main feature
ios app
travel & social
start-up b2c
role
Sole Product Designer collaborating with Software Engineer
team
Younes Biche
Nirel Manalili
tools
Figma, FigJam, Lyssna, OtterAI
when
January - April 2025
Picture your daughter traveling solo, or your mom finally taking that dream trip. You'd want her to feel safe, supported, and open to connectionβnot scrolling forums or messaging strangers just to feel less alone.
Oulala set out to solve this, but its original bulletin-board model was failing. Despite offering a connection platform for solo women travelers, user retention and engagement remained critically low post-signup.
User Problem:
Women traveling solo struggle to make safe and genuine connections β most apps feel impersonal or high-risk.
Business Problem:
Despite offering a connection platform, user retention and engagement remained low β especially post sign-up.
Solution
An itinerary planning and activity-buddy app that allows women to plan trips and connect with others based on shared interests, offers filters for alignment, and builds trust through context and validation.
β How might we foster safe, meaningful connections among women travelers?
Grounding Design in Real Women's Needs
I conducted in-depth interviews with 7 solo female travelers (ages 20sβ40s) to challenge the client's assumption that their forum-style posting system was simply underperforming. The client hypothesized using activities as a way to make meaningful connections, so I incorporated that into my interviews.
Strategic Research Goals:
Identify core pain points in solo travel connection
Understand trust factors for women travelers
Validate demand for contextual, itinerary-based features
After conducting interviews, I organized findings through affinity mapping to identify patterns and pain points that weren't immediately obvious.
Clustering interview insights revealed three core themes that became our design principles
Women want meaningful connections but hesitate due to uncertainty around safety and group dynamics
American women showed significantly higher safety concerns than international participants, making privacy controls critical for US market entry.
Women feel safer doing things in public or as a group
Current tools handle either planning OR socializing, requiring women to manage multiple apps
Validating the Opportunity & Sourcing UI Patterns
I analyzed the landscape to understand where existing solutions fell short and validate our opportunity space, while also identifying proven UI patterns we could leverage.
Analysis of Wanderlog, Stippl, TripAdvisor, and Bumble BFF revealing the opportunity gap while identifying successful UI patterns for trip planning and social discovery
No existing solution bridges real-time travel planning with interest-based, trustworthy social interaction designed specifically for solo women travelers
Each app excelled in specific areasβWanderlog's planning flows, Bumble BFF's social discovery patterns, TripAdvisor's activity browsingβproviding a blueprint for our integrated approach. I use these existing mental models in the UI & flow creation process.
The trip-first experience is rooted in user needs from the research.
The women who inspired the solution
Drawing inspiration from the unique characters and requirements of the ladies I conversed with, I fashioned two distinct personalities living contrasting lifestyles, illustrating how diverse the solution could appear.
Maria
(confident traveler)
Experienced traveler looking to connect with women through compatibility & interests
Jane
(new traveler)
New traveler looking to connect with women safely and feel comfortable with her travel decisions
Capturing the user experiences of fusing travel planning with social features
Opportunity
Areas
Reduce cognitive load by offering pre-filled suggestions.
Create trust through clean UI and progressive disclosure.
Streamline collaborative planning features.
Pain points included:
Difficulty in consolidating trip info from various sources.
Lack of trust in existing itinerary apps due to past bad UX.
Mental load from decision-making and coordination.
Translating Insights into Solutions
Design:
mid-fidelity wireframes of task
Flow 1: Creating a destination (with discovery features)
Flow 2: Itinerary planner (with social feature)
Testing with Women: Identifying Pain Points
Split-task testing with 5 participants.
Task 1 focused on destination creation and social discovery
Task 2 on activity planning and connection features.
#1 "Who's Going" unclear clickability
Enhanced UI affordances and women-only
Addressing the Safety Gap
Despite positive response to contextual connection, testing revealed need for additional privacy controls (feedback from american women). I designed enhanced profile features to address user concerns:
Granular privacy controls allowing users to choose what information to share
Optional social media linking for additional verification
AI-verified user badges via ID & selfie verification
Note: While these features were outside the original scope and planned for future implementation by the software engineer, creating these screens was essential for validating user attitudes toward privacy controls and ensuring the core itinerary feature would be adopted successfully.
final High-fidelity screens
Flow 1: Creating a destination (with discovery features)
Flow 2: Itinerary planner (with social feature)
*Profiles, quicky designed from user interview feedback about visualizing privacy
Success Metrics: Qualitative Validation
Ease of Use: 9/10
Excitement Score: 8.5/10
Safety Score: 7.1/10
Users found the planning flow intuitive and energizing, especially when discovering other women traveling to the same places. The visibility of fellow travelers added crucial social proofβinfluencing booking decisions and making the platform feel trustworthy and community-driven.
Overall Experience: 7.9/10
Interest-Based Discovery: 7.9/10
Safety Score: 7.1/10
Seeing other women interested in the same activities made the experience feel safer and more exciting.
Key insight: Users were more inclined to connect after shared experiences rather than beforeβvalidating our contextual, low-pressure approach to social connection.
8.5/10 ease of use rating validates intuitive design approach
8/10 excitement score demonstrates emotional engagement with planning + social features
7.1/10 safety score confirms contextual connection reduces anxiety while maintaining room for privacy feature enhancement
Solution drives both user engagement and booking conversion through integrated planning experience
π¬ Olivia, User Testing Participant
Real Quote from the Usability testing
What I Learned
Cultural context shapes safety requirements
When presenting privacy recommendations to the software engineer (non-American), he challenged the need for layered controlsβnoting international women are more open and less safety-concerned. This revealed a critical insight: American women's heightened safety needs require progressive disclosure that other markets might find excessive. Geographic context dictates feature priority.
Context beats pure social features
Women didn't want another social networkβthey wanted reasons to connect. Facebook groups already handle travel chatter. The breakthrough: shared activities and aligned interests reduce awkwardness and create natural bonding. Connection without context feels forced; planning without connection feels lonely.
Startup volatility tests adaptability
Midway through design, the client pivoted from women-only to all-gender accessβinvalidating my interview sample. I reframed findings as "women's perspectives" while advocating for their relevance. Frequent feature shifts required constant reprioritization and letting go of work that no longer served evolving business goals.
Next Steps
Validate privacy flows across markets
Test granular controls with American and international women to calibrate safety thresholds per region
Design post-trip connection mechanics
Women want to stay in touch after shared experiences; explore low-friction ways to maintain contact without obligation
Conduct international safety research
Interview non-American women to understand cultural trust-building differences and recalibrate privacy features for global scale