Enabling travelers to relive their memories, not just document them
Returning from a trip often leaves travelers with a mass of disorganized photos and videos. Despite capturing everything, users struggle to remember the story behind the photos, often overwhelmed by the sheer volume of media.
The challenge wasn’t just creating a better organizational tool—it was crafting a system that allowed users to relive their journeys as vividly as they experienced them.
The fundamental questions that guided me were:
Question #1
How can we turn cluttered photo collections into meaningful narratives?
Question #2
How can we capture not just the visuals but the emotions and experiences of travel?
Question #3
How can this process fit naturally into the flow of travel, rather than adding another task?
Understanding user challenges in travel memory preservation
To design a solution that resonated with users, we first had to understand how people currently capture and preserve their travel memories. We conducted 102 surveys and 11 in-depth interviews, gaining rich insights into user behaviors and pain points.
Insight #1
Photo clutter was the most significant barrier.
Travelers often take dozens of similar photos, but sorting through them later is overwhelming.
Insight #2
Memory recall is surprisingly hard.
Users struggle to remember the context behind their photos—where they were, what they felt, or why the moment mattered.
Insight #3
Multimedia moments go uncaptured.
Many users mentioned that photos don’t tell the full story. They wanted ways to document sounds, feelings, and stories alongside their images, creating a more immersive memory.
Turning fragmented moments into stories
Armed with these insights, I asked myself a crucial question:
We needed an app that was intuitive, light, and didn’t distract travelers from living in the moment, but would allow them to relive those moments later in a way that felt immersive and effortless.
Putting users at the heart
As a product design lead, my role was to translate the challenges and insights from our research into a tangible user experience. We knew that simplicity and ease of use were key to ensure Pinned felt like a natural extension of the user’s travel routine.
Transforming insights into solutions
With the research insights in hand, we held several feature brainstorming sessions to determine how to best address these challenges.
Focusing on what matters the most
After brainstorming, we needed to prioritize the features that would provide the most value to users. We created a prioritization map that helped us evaluate features based on impact and feasibility.
From site map to low-fidelity prototypes
With the features prioritized, we moved into the design phase. We started by creating a site map to structure the app’s core navigation, ensuring users could seamlessly access their travel photos, videos, and journal entries without feeling overwhelmed.
Once the structure was clear, we developed low-fidelity wireframes to test our ideas. This early stage of prototyping allowed us to quickly iterate on the layout and user flows, ensuring that key features like geotagging and multimedia journaling felt intuitive.
Refining the experience through feedback
After creating the first low-fidelity prototypes, we conducted usability tests to gather feedback. These tests helped us refine key aspects of the design, such as the flow of the geotagging feature and the usability of the multimedia journaling tool. Users appreciated the auto-organized albums, but they also wanted the ability to customize some aspects of their albums. This led us to incorporate light customization options while maintaining simplicity.By continuously iterating based on user feedback, we ensured that Pinned remained user-centered, balancing ease of use with the ability to create meaningful, immersive travel memories.
What I learned
Leading the design of Pinned was an incredibly rewarding experience. I learned that while frameworks and methodologies are important, being flexible in how you approach a problem is key. Research, ideation, and prototyping were woven throughout the process—each new insight guided the next design decision.
One of the most profound lessons came from observing how deeply design can impact user emotion. While we focused on creating a tool that improved functionality, what we truly achieved was helping people relive their happiest memories. It’s a reminder that design is not just about solving problems—it’s about enhancing life experiences.
These experiences have not only improved our final product but also strengthened my skills as a design leader. Thanks to my team for supporting me during the process.
.jpg)
