I spent three months alongside Georgia Tech’s iOS Club designing and launching a budget-friendly, AI-powered navigation and itinerary-planning app for roadtrips and long drives.
Role & Timeline:
User Experience Designer
September-November 2024
Scope and Deliverables
Designed several iterations of wireframes, created a high-fidelity prototype used for the final demo, tinkered with interactions, and created Nomad’s branding. I was also primarily responsible for the Itinerary Planning feature.
I created detailed mobile designs in short iterative sprints, from low-to-high fidelity wireframes. I also designed interactions between components to create a final prototype, consistently collaborating with my team and incorporating their feedback into my work. For context, Georgia Tech’s iOS Club launches several apps to the App Store every semester— including Nomad. In order to successfully launch the application to the App Store, I ensured my designs were compliant with Apple’s technical requirements.
I worked alongside two other incredible designers, Hiba and Ross, to bring Nomad to life!
As a User Experience Designer...
When was the last time you planned a roadtrip, or a car drive longer than just two or three hours? Finding the quickest route is simple enough using Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze, or your preferred navigation app. But what if you’d like to drive through a particular area, taking a “scenic” route? Or what if you’d like suggestions regarding restaurants, shops, hotels, or landmarks along your route? How do you know exactly where you’ll be along your route when you’d like to stop? What if you have particular preferences, such as budget or ratings?
This is where Nomad comes in. It has three key features: navigation, itinerary planning, and recaps, all supported by a built-in AI assistant. I was primarily responsible for the itinerary planning feature as well as the skeleton of the navigation feature.
Challenge: Manually planning a roadtrip is tedious, confusing, and time-consuming
Within Nomad, users have the ability to plan their own roadtrip itineraries, with or without the assistance of artificial intelligence tool named Atlas.
When planning their roadtrip, they first insert their dates as well as their start location, end destination, and any location area that they’d like to pass through. Then, they have the ability to explore various types of stops along their route, including activities, dining, hotels, tours and landmarks, entertainment, and scenic views. They have the option to filter these stops by price, distance along the route, type of cuisine (in the case of dining), and rating. Once they have crafted the perfect itinerary, they are able to preview and finalize their route.
Designs: Planning an Itinerary
Screen 1: Route & Dates
Screen 2: Exploring Stops
Screen 3: Filter Menu
Screen 4: Route Preview
When users first open the Nomad app, they are taken to the welcome screen, where they can begin navigating to a desired location or begin a pre-planned itinerary.
On the navigation screen, users can view their saved itineraries, favorite locations, and recent locations. Then, on the itinerary planning home screen, users can view their upcoming itineraries, previously completed itineraries, and community favorites. To view all itineraries within a particular category, they can click the “view all” button. Then, when they select an itinerary, they can view the route overview that contains details of the time, distance, and details of the route.
Designs: Navigating & Starting an Itinerary
Throughout the development of Nomad, as my designs transitioned from mid to high-fidelity, I began designing branding alongside the rest of the team. As we made brand decisions, we decided which colors and fonts would be used throughout the application, and how they should be used. We decided on fonts and brand colors as a team, and I gathered and designed components for buttons, fonts, filter types, tag types, and blocks for both itineraries and stops.
Design Details: Components and Buttons
Screen 1: Welcome
Screen 2: Itinerary Home
Screen 3: View All
Screen 4: Route Overview
Results and Reflections
Working on Nomad was an incredible experience, and such a fun project to work on during my final semester of my undergraduate career! More specifically, some key takeaways I gained from this experience were:
Designing for iOS
I had designed mobile applications before, but this was my first time making sure my designs were specifically compliant to iOS standards
I reviewed Apple’s iOS design system as well as utilized SF Symbols icons
Designing collaboratively and effectively
Considering the short timeline, I knew it was important to consistently collaborate with the other designers to create, iterate on, and incorporate feedback into our designs as efficiently as possible
Within my last few design projects, I was the sole designer— being able to collaborate with other designers, divide tasks based on our preferences and strengths, and work towards our shared goal of launching Nomad on the App Store was a joyful and enriching experience
In November 2024, at iOS Club’s Demo Day, the Nomad leadership team was able to present the Nomad app as a complete application to an audience of 100+ individuals as well as a panel of judges. We won not only the audience vote for Best App, but the judge’s choice as well! I am so grateful for this experience and excited for the future of Nomad and Georgia Tech’s iOS Club :)
