From inspiration
to a real plan.
Travelers found ideas across blogs, social posts, and recommendations, but turning those ideas into a trip required switching between disconnected tools. Trecco brought discovery, saved places, and shared travel experiences into one product. My design work connected that inspiration to the practical work of planning.
Turning travel inspiration into a usable plan
Trecco
Consumer mobile app · Social discovery · Travel planning
Travelers found ideas across blogs, social posts, and recommendations, but turning those ideas into a trip required switching between disconnected tools. Trecco brought discovery, saved places, and shared travel experiences into one product. My design work connected that inspiration to the practical work of planning.
Platforms
iOS
Android
Web
My contribution
Product and interaction design
Information architecture
Data flows and planning journeys
Client and team collaboration
The problem and design priorities
The product needed to serve both discovery and planning. A lively feed could encourage exploration, but it also risked burying useful recommendations. Detailed planning tools could help organize a trip, but added effort before users saw value.
I focused the experience on a clear journey: discover a place, save it, organize it, and share it. The design had to make community content useful to a traveler with a specific decision to make.
Research that informed the design
Traveler surveys: Research surfaced fragmented information, difficulty judging recommendations, and the effort required to organize a trip.
Competitive analysis: Reviewing travel and social products helped identify the gap between engaging content and useful planning tools.
Prototype testing: Observing travelers use early flows revealed where navigation, filtering, and planning demanded too much effort.
Community behavior: Travel forums and shared stories helped the team understand how people contributed recommendations and returned to them later.
Design decisions and iteration
Structure the inspiration: An early social feed made relevant recommendations difficult to find. The design shifted toward curated lists that gave travelers a more useful starting point.
Simplify discovery: A comprehensive filter set introduced too many decisions. Tagging and contextual filters reduced that complexity and kept the discovery flow understandable.
Connect saving and planning: Manually constructing an itinerary felt laborious in testing. The planner evolved around saving, organizing, and sharing places, with support for individual and collaborative trips.
These iterations connected the social experience to a practical task. Feedback changed the product structure, rather than only refining the appearance of individual screens.
The resulting experience
Trecco brought travel content and planning into a connected mobile experience. Curated discovery gave recommendations structure; saving and organizing places gave that content a purpose beyond the feed; shared planning supported travelers making decisions together.
The work demonstrates a product design approach that balances engagement with task completion. The design’s intent was to help people move from an interesting recommendation to a plan they could use.
What this work demonstrates
The key design challenge was choosing a coherent product model for discovery and planning. A social interaction only helped when travelers could find it again and act on it.
My contribution connected product design, information architecture, and data flows. Iterative feedback helped the team reduce unnecessary complexity and make the planning journey clearer across the product.
Awards and recognition
2022 Hermes Creative Awards: Platinum, Mobile App
2021 Davey Awards: Best in Show, Mobile Features: Best Visual Design, Aesthetic
2021 Davey Awards: Gold, Mobile Features: Best User Interface
2021 Davey Awards: Silver, Mobile Apps/Sites: Travel
These recognitions reflect the product’s visual and interaction craft alongside the practical planning experience.