Packing Calculator
This project began with a problem: I have no idea what to pack for my upcoming family vacation. I’ve never been to our destination before, I don’t know what the weather will be like or how to appropriately dress for activities there. I can find out through skimming through travel blogs and a lot of googling, but it would really be ideal if all that information was in a single location.
I had a pretty clear vision of what I wanted to create. A simple process where a user can quickly enter the information about their trip and get a personalized packing list. The first things that I knew the tool needed to know were:
- the start and end dates
- the destination
This information would allow the tool to provide the user with clothing type recommendations based on average weather from past years' data, the overall amount of clothing they should bring to last the whole trip, and any regional clothing suggestions. This leaves a lot of room to further tailor the users packing list, what if they have access to laundry? what if they are backpacking? what if they have formal events to attend? To get a more precise recommendation the tool needed to know:
- the planned activity types
- single vs multi-wear packing
- the target packing weight
While still being relatively little information to collect from a user, it would provide enough for the packing calculator to give a customized packing list to fit the exact needs of the user's trip. It allows the user to add the start and end dates of their trip, the locations they will be going, if they are able to re-wear what they pack, a slider to indicate how much they want to pack, and a checklist of activities the user will be doing on the trip.
Once the information is collected the tool provides the predicted weather report for the given dates and locations and a packing list based on the weather, the length of the trip, and the activities the user plans on doing. This page and its pop-ups show the user what they should probably pack and why. It also asks for feedback to better refine the recommendation given. This information will give them confidence in their travel preperations.
Once the packing list seems to cover all the clothing options the user needs, they can set a packing reminder. This is auto set to one week before their departure date (but can be modified to reflect their needs). In addition to providing the same customized clothing packing list, this reminder would also include non-clothing ‘essentials’ to pack such as a toothbrush and passport.
While this could stand on its own, I envisioned this being a feature that could be incorporated into a larger application. The two types of apps it would work the best with would be a travel management application or a closet management application.
Travel Management
This feature would fit nicely into a travel management application that centered on all of the many things to keep track of while planning and going on a trip. If it was within an application like this, it would streamline the first ‘question-asking’ step significantly as that information would already be stored in the application.
Closet Management
With this feature existing within a closet application, you would be able to get packing recommendations from exactly the clothes you have to work with.
Throughout this design I wanted to keep a casual feeling, so to convey this I used bright colors, lower case text, and a conversational tone in the copy.
Clothing and Suitcase Icons sourced from Freepik and srip from www.flaticon.com
Originally published at https://sierramatice.wixsite.com on August 21, 2019.
