Project Brief
About the company
RTik Adventures is a start-up travel agency based in Fairbanks, Alaska. The company offers vacation planning services and unique experiences in the Artic region at best rates.
Target Audience
High-end travelers who prefer private tours, upscale accommodations and one-of-a-kind experiences
Deliverable
A desktop homepage UI design that is clean, modern and user-friendly
Things to remember while designing
- Use cool-toned brand colors to fit the vibe of cold locations
- Incorporate high-quality images and engaging content to inspire travel and exploration
- Develop a basic style guide that can be followed throughout the website
Research & Analysis
STEP 1
Gather high-quality images that can be used on the website.
STEP 2
Research on Alaska as a vacation destination. The activities it offers, best time to visit, best accommodations, local culture and so on.
STEP 3
In-depth research on other websites and their UI that became my inspiration.
LOW-FI DESIGNS
Like any other design, my final design also went through a lot of changes, especially in the wireframing stage. The image to the left is the first draft of the homepage I set out to create and one on the right is what I ended up picking.
USER INTERFACE COMPONENTS
One of the main reasons to have 2 sets of buttons on the website are to differentiate between the more important and regular calls-to-action. The one in blue is for the regular CTAs like ‘Log In’ or ‘Submit’ or ‘Next’, whereas the one in yellow is for CTAs that will urge users to take an action like ‘N
The first set of icons will be used with the buttons and the one below are icons that will be used throughout the website.
The curves on two ends of this card signify that the company does offer a well-rounded trip that is customizable, not too restricted and also edgy.
COLORS AND TYPOGRAPHY
While I also ensured that I am sticking to the client’s requirement of having cool-toned colors, I was also given the liberty to add a dash of contrast wherever necessary. The CTA Buttons and Hover effect add the contrast and immediately grab your attention.
I chose Georgia as the H2 font as it provides a differentiating element between two Sans fonts.
FINAL PROTOTYPE
During my research phase, I discovered that images play an important role to inspire or motivate anyone to plan a holiday, which is what drove my decision to have a full screen image on the landing page.
Considerations/Additions I would make:
- Add more user-friendly gamification elements (For e.g. an interactive map)
- An interactive chatbot
- Make the website more WCAG compliant
- Add business branding wherever necessary
- Add a Testimonials/Review section
- Change the H2 font for better readability
Personal Note
Creating this website has been a wonderful learning experience for me with quite a few hurdles. As someone who has never worked on a UX project alone before, learning how to use Figma and create components alone, without a team, was quite challenging but also exciting. This was a project that I worked on for my User Interface and Visual Design course at the University of Washington.
One of the most challenging tasks were to choose the final colors that make the website and which fonts would not only look modern and stylish but also provide better readability. Thankfully, I had a professor who did not hesitate answering all of my questions and clearing my doubts. And of course, there’s always Google! There are a lot of concepts that I am still learning every day, especially about design and accessibility.
This is one project that I am extremely proud of since it gave me confidence to keep exploring the design space. Hope you like it, too! Thanks for checking it out.
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