Hopper

 Challenge: Design a mobile iOS app that uses teleportation to transport you from one place to another, instantaneously

A bit of research & insights

I began with a bit of investigation, interviewing 3 friends in simple conversation format:

From these short conversations, I gathered some quick insights & high level takeaways

• Commute use case — everyone mentioned commuting to and from work. Two people mentioned "weirdness’ in “popping into meeting rooms”, would rather find a private place or personal desk. Commuting to work has some nuance in that going to a familiar place, people already know or “see” some good (or bad) teleportation spots

• Travel use case — everyone also mentioned traveling abroad for vacation, however a lot more unknowns on how to find or anticipate a safe landing

• Desire to understand an accurate condition of destination, including what it looks like, how busy it is, proximity to hazardous or dangerous situations, weather & general atmosphere

Identifying user problems

Using the quick interviews & insights, I established two user problems to solve for the imaginary iOS app called ‘Hopper’. I will be showing solutions that solve aspects of both of these problems.

Assumptions

Because safety and landing issues are very real, I make the assumption of being able to build & establish numerous “teleportation terminals” in major cities throughout the world. I also assume that there are outside integrations that can be built into the app that allow live surveillance at the terminals.

Brainstorming & overall app structure

I brainstormed a few different ways to design the app’s overall navigation considering the two use cases. Both “regular teleports” and “find new places to teleport to” are in many ways about building habit & reducing overhead. Thus saving places & viewing past & upcoming trips are top of mind, in addition to a concept of “quick teleport” and “explore”. I also aimed to simplify navigation as much as possible, choosing to optimize for quickly finding shortcuts (saves & past trips).

I eventually used ideas from Option 2 and Option 3 to come up with the overall structure of the app — a bottom tab navigation easily allowing users to access the main flow — Home/Explore, Trips, Saves, and my profile.

Use Case #1 — Commuting to Work/Regular spot

I began this use case with a quick wireframe of a the general flow starting from the home screen. A user can alternatively go to “saved places” to find regular spots. Because going to work is a daily habit however, I optimize for an entry that is easy & accessible.

Use Case #2 — Find a new place to travel (safely)

I began this use case with a broader user journey of finding & exploring places. My high-level takeaway here is that Hopper is more a utility app that should allow users to explore places, but is not necessarily the only or best option.

From the user journey, it’s easy to see that while Hopper would be really great at teleportation, it is not the only app in the “inspiration and exploration” space (competing against Instagram, Pinterest, etc). Thus, I opt instead to allow users to quickly access an editorial selection of curated, photo-heavy destination features that can only be found on Hopper.

Final thoughts

If I had more time, I’d focus on the “planning a trip” aspect of Hopper more. In the “travel for vacation” use case, finding a destination is one aspect, planning what to do during that trip is another use case. I’ve outlined an idea of the concept of having an “itinerary”.