Road Trippit
Group Members
- Zachary Tribbett
- Cameron Froehlich
- TA: Tsung-Hsiang (Sean) Chang
Problem Statement
College is a time of making friends and a budding and blooming social network. College is also about traveling and gaining life experiences. However traveling is expensive and almost impossible to do on a college budget - but it doesn't have to be! Your social network spans the country: friends from home at colleges all over the nation and friends at your college from all over the nation. Do you want to travel on a college-budget across the country? Let's Road Trippit!
Road Trippit is a Facebook application that aims to solve the problem of affordable traveling for college students, leveraging a students social network to alleviate the cost of lodging. We identify the problem as:
1. The United States is a large nation that can be very expensive to travel through, resulting in many people to never experiencing the different cultures and people scattered throughout this country.
2. Travel in the United States is very expensive:
a. Flights are beyond the budget of most college students.
b. Large train systems, such as Amtrak, have high prices comparable to flights.
c. Inexpensive hotels and motels average $70+ a night.
3. The largest aspect of the total cost is lodging, including a place to sleep, bathe, eat, etc.
Road Trippit will solve these problems by allowing people to plan road trips with their friends, designing a route based on the user's "desired cities" and the user's friends locations.
GR1 - Task Analysis
User analysis
We realize that every one enjoys a good road trip. However, in our initial design we will be focusing on college students while still providing an infrastructure for extensibility and growth to future user types.
Our target users will be college students, attending an American University, fluent in English and aged between 18 - 23. There is no specificity for gender, culture, or ethnicity. It is important to note the caliber of request messages. One user representative mentioned that they would be less likely to host a friend if the message was generic.
Personas
Mary: Mary is an MIT Junior from Chicago, Illinois. Currently, school is in session but Spring Break is quickly approaching. Mary and a few of her friends really want to travel down to Washington D.C. for Spring Beak. They have been looking for hotel information but to there dismay, hotels in the city of D.C. are too expensive and they cannot afford it.
Jake: Jake is a Drexel Sophomore. He is from London and doesn't plan on going home for Spring Break. He plans on staying on campus. However, he is friends with Mary, after interning together last summer. He is also a willing host for friends that would like to stay with him for a night.
Santiago: Santiago is a freshman at UCSF from Brazil. He is living with his Uncle in San Francisco. He speaks English fairly well but understands it very well. He really want to go home for the summer but cannot afford it. However, his network of friends extends through Central America and into Brazil.
Blake: Blake is a senior at Villanova in Philadelphia. He doesn't have much money saved up but wants to get away. He doesn't care where. He just wants a random trip for as cheap as possible for the duration of his two-week spring break. He does want to go somewhere warm and with a beach.
Note: Have to consider what to send in a message requesting a place to stay. Cannot be impersonal and should prioritize the user's "top" friends first.
Task analysis
Goal 1: Design a Road Trip Itinerary
1. login
precondition: have facebook
subtask: login via facebook
2. Specify locations
precondition: signed in
subtask: specify starting location
subtask: specify ending location
subtask: specify intermediate locations
3. Specify dates:
precondition: signed in
subtask: specify start date
subtask: specify end date
3. Create road trip
precondition: Specify locations, specify dates, signed in
subtask: Refine result
4. Refine result
precondition: Road trip generated
subtask: Add/Remove stop
subtask: Pick host at each stop
subtask: Increase/Decrease length of stay
Goal 2: Contact Hosts and Get Permission to Stay
5. Contact hosts
precondition: Road trip generated
subtask: Create personalized messages/responses
subtask: Send messages
6. Update trip based on responses
a. If necessary, edit the trip destinations and send new messages
Goal 3: Finalize the Trip and go!
7. Get directions
precondition: Road trip generated
8. Get local advice and sites to see / things to do in each destination
precondition: finalize each destination and pull data based on preferences
