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Introduction/ Project Overview:
Pilgrimage Hub A spiritual travel app designed to simplify and enrich pilgrim journeys by addressing common challenges. Travelers often struggle with navigating crowded sites, accessing accurate historical and cultural insights, and locating essential facilities like food, rest areas, and transportation. These obstacles hinder their ability to fully experience the spiritual and cultural essence of their travels, leaving them frustrated and dissatisfied. As the sole designer for Pilgrimage Hub, I was responsible for the entire design process.
The Pilgrimage Hub aims to identify and address these challenges by offering a solution that provides pilgrims with a seamless and enriching travel experience they truly deserve.
As a part of a 3-month UX/UI Design from Scratch course at Designers Academy, I worked on this project. The problem brief was provided by Designers, and I completed it under the guidance of a mentor.
Challenge/ Problem:
Our pilgrims face a challenge: Many travelers struggle with navigating crowded pilgrimage sites, finding reliable information about the history and cultural significance of their destinations, and locating essential amenities like food, rest areas, and transportation. These difficulties often make their journey stressful and take away from the spiritual experience they seek.
Our solution delivers: Pilgrimage Hub provides a one-stop platform that empowers pilgrims with real-time navigation, trusted historical and cultural insights, and seamless access to essential services. This ensures a smooth and enriching journey, allowing travelers to focus on their spiritual and cultural connection without stress or frustration.
UX Process:
I conducted user interviews to understand the key challenges and needs travelers face during pilgrimages. These insights helped me design the Pilgrimage Hub, ensuring the experience is practical, seamless, and spiritually fulfilling.
During my research, I focused on two key objectives:
1. What are the most common challenges pilgrims encounter while planning and traveling?
2. How can I design an app that simplifies challenges and enhances their spiritual journey?
The key findings that stood out were:
1. It is difficult to find affordable and convenient accommodations, restaurants.
2. Understanding local customs and traditions adds meaning to the experience.
3. Booking transportations, Darshan tickets, Guides and Searching for events takes too much time and effort.
4. Having a supportive and like-minded community enhances the overall journey.
Design Thinking Process:
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Empathize:
To design the best possible solution for travelers and pilgrims, I started by understanding their needs, goals, and pain points through a user-centric design process. I conducted both secondary and primary research
Secondary Research Gathering insights from online sources, studies, and forums to identify existing challenges faced by pilgrims.
Primary Research Engaging directly with users through interviews to uncover their real experiences, expectations, and struggles.
The combination of these methods allowed me to empathize with users effectively and gain a holistic understanding of their journey.
1.Secondary Research
Before gathering insights, I defined the following goals for my research:
1. Understanding user needs during pilgrimage journeys.
2. Identifying common pain points travelers face at spiritual destinations.
3. Analyzing travelers behavior around temple premises, accommodations, and navigation challenges.
I explored online articles, travel forums, research studies, and case studies on pilgrimage experiences to understand key themes.
Secondary Research Insights
1. Navigation Challenges: Pilgrims often struggle to locate temple entrances, prasad counters, darshan queues, toilets, and parking areas, especially in crowded premises.
2. Uncertainty Creates Stress: Blocked routes and lack of real-time updates cause anxiety. Pilgrims desire real-time updates for a smoother experience.
3. Accommodation Struggles: Finding affordable and trusted places to stay near spiritual sites is a common pain point, especially during peak pilgrimage seasons.
4. Community Support: Pilgrims feel comforted by sharing experiences and seeking advice from fellow travelers.
2. Primary Research
To further understand the challenges and needs of pilgrims, I conducted interviews with 5 individuals who had experience with pilgrimage journeys. The goal was to gather qualitative data on their experiences, pain points, and expectations. The interviews were semi-structured, allowing participants to freely express their thoughts and provide detailed insights into their needs during pilgrimages.
Some Questions that I asked the user’s are :
1. What are the common issues you encounter during your pilgrimage?
2. How you navigate the whole journey?
3. What applications do you use to know the information about the events when you are travelling?
4. What are some tasks you find time consuming while planning a trip?
5. What type of information or resources would you find most valuable during your pilgrimage?
6. What makes you to visit spiritual places?
7. How do you manage your food and dietary needs during a pilgrimage?
8. What a successful pilgrimage look like to you?
Some of the Statements by User’s are
1. “Navigating crowded temple areas is tough — I struggle to find entrances, restrooms, and food stalls. Booking transport and accommodations is also a hassle.”
2. “Planning trips takes too much time, with transport, stays, and events spread across different platforms.”
3. “Real-time updates on guides, food, events, and detailed temple maps would make things so much easier.”
Through secondary research, i identified challenges like difficulty navigating temple areas, long wait times, and the need for a unified platform for bookings. Primary research reinforced these findings, with users expressing frustration over time-consuming planning and a lack of real-time information.
Define
And in Define stage, i use these insights to clarify the key problems, set specific goals, and shape the features of the app to effectively address user needs.
3. Affinity Diagram
After conducting user interviews, I collected all the statements and organized them into groups based on their natural relationships. The data was divided into Navigation and route planning, Accommodation issues, Manage food, Transportation problems, Lack of information
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Affinity Diagram Insights
Navigation and Route Planning: Pilgrims struggle to navigate crowded temple areas and find key facilities like entrances, restrooms, and food stalls. A navigation feature would help users easily locate these essential spots.
Accommodation Issues: Booking accommodation is time-consuming and uncertain. Pilgrims often rely on last-minute decisions. A streamlined booking system with trusted options would enhance the experience.
Transportation Problems: Pilgrims face challenges booking reliable transportation across multiple apps. Integrating transportation booking into the app would simplify the process and save time.
Manage Food: Managing food and dietary needs is tough, especially in remote areas with limited options. A feature listing trusted food choices with dietary details would help pilgrims make informed decisions.
Lack of Information: Pilgrims often lack real-time updates on events, guides, and available services. Providing accurate, live information would reduce uncertainty and improve planning.
4. User Persona
Creating personas helped me better understand the needs, motivations, and pain points of potential users. Based on the research insights, I created two personas that represent the core user groups for the app.
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5. User Experience map
To gain a deeper understanding of the user journey during a pilgrimage, I created a User Experience Map that outlines the various phases of a pilgrim’s experience. This map helped me visualize how users interact with the journey and uncover pain points, emotions, and opportunities for improvement across each phase
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Why I Created the Experience Map
The User Experience Map allowed me to:
1. Identify user touchpoints, challenges, and needs at each stage of their pilgrimage.
2. Understand their emotions, behaviors, and goals across the journey.
3. Highlight opportunities where the app could simplify the experience and add value.
This visualization was critical in ensuring that the app addresses user problems effectively and provides a seamless experience.
Phases of the User Journey:
Research Phase
What Happens: Users search for pilgrimage destinations, temple information, and travel plans.
Pain Points: Scattered and unreliable information across different platforms.
Insights: Users need accurate, consolidated information about destinations, rituals, and events in one place.
Planning Phase
What Happens: Users plan their trip, including transportation, accommodation, and event bookings.
Pain Points: Using multiple apps for transport and accommodation creates confusion.
Insights: Users need an integrated booking feature to simplify trip planning.
Preparation Phase
What Happens: Users prepare for the trip by packing essentials and ensuring logistics are in place.
Pain Points: Lack of checklists or reminders leads to last-minute stress.
Insights: A feature with packing lists, tips, and reminders would help users stay organized.
Travel Phase
What Happens: Users travel to the pilgrimage destination and navigate to key locations.
Pain Points: Difficulty finding transportation options and navigating crowded temple premises.
Insights: Navigation features and integrated transport booking can make this phase smoother.
Experience Phase
What Happens: Users attend temple rituals, events, and explore local areas.
Pain Points: Uncertainty about wait times, event schedules, and food availability disrupts the experience.
Insights: Real-time updates, event schedules, and food options are essential for a better experience.
Post-Visit Phase
What Happens: Users share experiences, leave reviews, and reflect on their journey.
Pain Points: Limited platforms to share experiences or connect with other pilgrims.
Insights: A feature for community sharing, reviews, and discussions can enhance user satisfaction and engagement.
How It Helped My Process
Creating the User Experience Map provided clarity on:
Key Pain Points: Understanding where users face the most challenges and need support.
Opportunities: Identifying areas where the app can add value, such as integrating navigation, bookings, and real-time updates.
User Goals: Ensuring the app aligns with user expectations for a smooth, stress-free pilgrimage.
This map served as a guide for prioritizing features and designing a user-centric experience that addresses the needs and emotions of pilgrims across their journey.
Ideate
In the Ideate Phase, I translated research insights into structured solutions by creating task flows, user flows, and site maps. for the various features of the app. These include destination information and premises map, transportation booking, accommodation booking, darshan booking, restaurant and event information, booking of guides, and the community section. Each of these components was carefully mapped out to ensure seamless user navigation and an intuitive journey, keeping user needs and pain points at the center of our design process. This helped us visualize the user’s journey and further refine the app’s features.
Task Flows: I created task flows to map the step-by-step processes for key actions within the app. This helped ensure a smooth and intuitive user experience by identifying potential friction points and optimizing the user journey. Here are some task flows
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The accommodation booking task flow begins with the user searching for accommodations based on their desired location. Next, they select travel dates and the number of guests to filter relevant options. The user then browses the accommodation listings and views detailed information for a specific selection, such as amenities, pricing, and images. After choosing an accommodation, the user provides guest details, proceeds to the payment step to complete the transaction, and finally receives a booking confirmation with all relevant reservation details. This streamlined flow ensures a seamless booking experience for the user.
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The temple booking task flow begins with the user searching for a temple of interest, followed by selecting the desired dates and the number of members for the visit. Next, the user chooses a specific time slot for the darshan. They then provide pilgrim-related information, such as names and details of the attendees. After completing this, the user proceeds to the payment step to finalize the booking. Finally, a ticket confirmation is generated, providing all the essential details for the temple visit. This flow ensures a smooth and organized experience for pilgrims.
User Flows: I created user flows to visualize the paths users take to accomplish specific goals within the app. This helped ensure a seamless and intuitive experience by understanding user decision points and optimizing navigation.
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The user starts by searching for a destination in the app. If options are available, they select dates, members, and accommodation, then provide guest details and proceed to payment. Upon successful payment, the booking is confirmed; otherwise, they can retry, or see “No Results” if no options are available.
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The user starts by searching for a temple in the app. If options are available, they select dates, members, and darshan type, then provide pilgrim details and proceed to payment. Upon successful payment, the booking is confirmed; otherwise, they can retry, or see “No Results” if no options are available.
6. Site Map
Observing the user flow, I identified the main entry point screens and used them as a foundation to create a sitemap for the app. The sitemap helped me visualize the overall structure and flow of the application, providing a clear understanding of how users navigate through the app.
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Design
In the design stage of my project, I focused on translating the insights from the previous phases into tangible solutions. I began by creating low-fidelity wireframes to sketch out the core structure and functionality of the app. After several iterations, I finalized a version that best aligned with the user needs and project goals. These wireframes were then refined into high-fidelity versions, and after selecting color scheme, fonts, and visual elements, offering a clearer view of the app’s look and feel.
7. Wireframes (Low fi — High fi)
Low-Fidelity Wireframes:
After completing the ideate phase, I created low-fidelity wireframes for the app to visualize the app’s structure and flow. Incorporating insights from earlier phases, I focused on addressing user pain points and improving clarity for a seamless experience. Here, I showcase the initial and final designs of the darshan ticket booking screen, highlighting improvements that make the layout cleaner, more organized, and user-friendly.
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The first design is cluttered and overwhelming, with poor spacing and hierarchy, making it hard for users to focus and navigate.
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The final design is clean, organized, and intuitive, with proper spacing and hierarchy, improving navigation and making the booking process user-friendly and visually appealing.
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High-Fidelity Wireframes:
After creating low-fidelity wireframes for the app to visualize the structure and flow, I moved on to high-fidelity wireframes to refine the design. This phase focused on adding visual details like colors, fonts, and images to create a polished and intuitive user interface.
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8. UI Style Guide
Color Palette:
To create a color palette that evokes a sense of spirituality and calm for users of the app, I created a mood board featuring images of temples, sacred sites, families and peaceful landscapes. The colors extracted were primarily purple (BC96E6) for the primary UI elements, symbolizing spirituality and calm, and yellow (FFD966) for the secondary buttons, representing warmth and positivity. These colors form a complementary color scheme, as purple and yellow are opposite each other on the color wheel, creating a harmonious and balanced contrast. The background is kept white to ensure clarity and focus. This color scheme was carefully selected to reflect the app’s purpose.
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Typography:
The typeface had to be highly readable and reflect a calm, welcoming vibe. After exploring various options, the sans-serif typeface Outfit was chosen for headings due to its clean, modern look and strong presence, while DM Sans was selected for body text because of its excellent legibility and simple letterforms. The text in the app needed to be easily readable for users across a wide age range (15–54).
Heading 1: Outfit 16, Semi bold
Heading 2: Outfit 14, Medium
Heading 3: Outfit 13, Regular
Body 1: DM Sans 14, Regular
Body 2: DM Sans 14, Medium
Body 3: DM Sans 12, Regular
Body 4: DM Sans 12, Medium
9. Usability Testing
To validate the usability of the app, I conducted a moderated usability testing session with 5 participants who fit my target audience. The goal was to observe how users interact with the app’s core features and uncover any usability issues that might hinder a seamless experience.
After finalizing the prototype, I designed tasks focused on key features of the app, including:
1. Navigating temple premises using maps
2. Booking accommodations and transportation
3. Exploring restaurants and events
4. Booking darshan tickets and guides
5. Exploring the community section
To ensure realistic evaluation, I provided participants with scenarios to perform during the testing session. Here are some scenarios.
Test Scenarios:
1. Book a train to Tirupati from Hyderabad on oct 1 for one passenger in Krishan Express in class 2s and do payment by using phone pe. And book accommodation from Oct 2 to 4 in a hotel by checking reviews and also write a review and do payment by using phone pe. And check the event called Brahmotsavam in Tirumala temple. By using the app.
2. You are going to Tirumala temple you have to check the information about the temple and book a flight from Hyderabad to Tirupati on oct 1 in economy class for one passenger in indigo flight and check details about flight select a seat 7E and do payment by using phone pe. And navigate the temple premises like laddu counter, temple entrance, toilets, parking and write a review about it by using the app.
Key Insights from Usability Testing:
The usability testing revealed several areas for improvement that were addressed to enhance the user experience:
Notification Screen Timing Issues:
Initially, notifications did not display a timestamp, which caused users to miss context on when notifications were received.
Solution: Added relative timestamps (e.g., “20 minutes ago”) to each notification, providing clarity and improving the overall usability of the notification screen.
Disabled Buttons in Initial Flows:
Some buttons appeared active but were non-functional at the beginning of certain flows, leading to confusion.
Solution: I reduced the opacity of disabled buttons to visually communicate their inactive state, making it clear to users that they are not yet functional.
Bottom Navigation Bar Overlap: Participants observed that the bottom navigation bar was blending into the screen content in some flows, causing confusion.
Solution: I added a subtle shadow effect to the bottom navigation bar, which visually separates it from the screen content, enhancing clarity and focus.
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10. Final Design & Prototype
The final design of the Pilgrimage Hub app presents a polished and cohesive user interface that takes users through their pilgrimage journey, from start to finish. Every screen has been designed with attention to detail, ensuring a seamless flow of interactions. The app’s overall design prioritizes clarity, ease of use, and accessibility, allowing users to effortlessly navigate through features such as booking darshan tickets, exploring restaurants, viewing temple maps, and engaging with the community. This final UI design integrates all feedback and testing insights to offer an intuitive, smooth, and enriching user experience.
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Total final design’s:
Prototype:
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Out comes and lessons learned:
Working on the Pilgrimage Hub app was an eye-opening experience. I quickly realized how crucial it is to fully understand the users’ needs before jumping into designing solutions. One key lesson was that users tend to prioritize convenience. Focusing on the main pain points helped me create a design that addressed the most pressing user concerns first. This process also taught me the importance of keeping the design focused on the essential features, without getting distracted by extra, non-essential functionalities.
Throughout the project, I encountered several difficulties, especially with balancing the design scope and managing time effectively. There were moments when deciding between competing features was challenging, and prioritizing one aspect of the design over another felt like a difficult choice. And the usability testing provided valuable insights into how users interacted with the app and highlighted areas where improvements could be made. It made me realize the significance of refining and iterating the design continuously, based on user feedback. Ultimately, this project reinforced the importance of empathy, attention to detail, and balancing design priorities to ensure a seamless user experience.
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Spiritual Travel Companion was originally published in Dtalks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.