Trado — A Calendar app for a Traveling Saleswoman
By: Komal Singh
Tags: Travel, App, Design, Ui Ux Design, Product

An app to manage meetings for people who travel often

Problem Statement :

How might we help the user to keep up with the calendar to show up to the right places at the right time.

Goal:

To create a meeting reminder app for users who travel frequently across different time zones so that the user reaches location at the right time.

Thought Process

Brainstorming — Initial questions and the key areas

How does time adjustment take place in phones, when a person travels across different time zones?

How does one set reminders and what all information needs to be considered in the reminder?

Which are the current apps which work on similar lines?

What if someone else invites for an event?

What would the user journey look like?

Assumptions:

I have assumed that the user is using an Android smartphone.

The app would sync with the default calendar used by the user

The user is accustomed to google maps and basic phone interactions.

Challenges

The main challenge is to counter the problem of different time zones, the app should keep the user updated with the timezones and its effect on the meeting times.

With required communication happening between both the parties while considering the time differences between the two countries

Creating meeting appointments easily within the app.

To simplify the visual and functional aspect of the app.

Empathy and problems faced by the users

(For empathizing, I spoke to a small sample set who are into sales/business development and need to travel often)

Updating events/reminders in the calendar

Booking cab

Jet lag

Constantly checking phone

Hectic Schedule and very busy

Confused between time zones

Packing each time

Keeping a track of meetings, might forget sometimes

various bookings — cab, hotel, flight

How does mobile time zone work in mobile?

I checked up with my friends who are engineers to understand how does time zone work in our handset. We can either change the time zone manually or the phone automatically corrects the time by matching time with the network provider

In almost all cases this time zone difference is taken care of by default, although there is always an option of setting the time manually.

In this case, I would like to assume that the time in the handset automatically changes according to the location and the app would sync with the time of the current location.

Understanding time zones:

There are more than 24 time zones, one country can have different time zones, so we need to consider that a person can travel within the country, across different cities having different time zones.

Understood time zones by the help of this link:

https://www.timeanddate.com/time/current-number-time-zones.html

Basic Features

If one is setting reminders, the following are the different features which might be considered in the reminder calendar app:

- event name

- location

- time and duration of the meeting (according to zone)

- date

- notes

- location map for navigation

Why would one use the app, how is it different from google calendar?

Google calendar considers all events holidays, flights, bdays etc. it is a complete calendar for all the life events. The app which is to be designed would only cater to the meetings and would especially be crafted for the people who travel often to different time zones.

This app would remove the clutter and confusion and would only focus on meetings and flights — date and time reminder. Google calendars give the time zone as an additional option but here we would keep the time zone in focus.

Technical Possibilities

Since we are assuming that the user is using google calendar, we would sync the app with the google calendar so that any event/meeting invite is reflected in the calendar app we are going to make. The app would only consider the events and meetings, no other holidays.

Notifying the user

We can notify the user by using push notification or email, but in that case, the user would have to keep checking his/her phone. We can also provide an option for the user to set an alarm, whereby the user would not have to keep a check on the calendar.

For small user research, I asked my friends who travel frequently how would they like to be reminded of a meeting. I got mixed answers where some suggested that constant buzzing of phone might irritate them, whereas some said that it would be helpful since they would not have to keep a check on their calendar all the time, psychologically they would be at ease.

User Persona

Solution

The app is very similar to the other calendar apps, but the only difference is that while creating an event if the user sets meeting time according to a different time zone (different from his current location) The event would also tell the time of his current location. Time zone preference would be given upfront as the motive of this app is to solve the problem of a user who travels frequently

Time of any event would reflect according to the current time zone of the user's location. When the user opens the event, user can view the time of the event at the event’s location. Alternately the user would have an option to change the time zone manually

Example: