Self-initiated concept
Rally: Designing collaborative trip planning for groups
A mobile-first concept that brings scattered ideas, decisions, and details into one shared plan.
Role
Senior Product Designer
Tools
Figma, Figma Agent, ChatGPT
Platform
iOS app
Current scope
MVP product and visual design
Overview
Project at a glance
TL;DR
Designing the space between the group chat and the final plan
Group travel planning rarely happens in one place. Ideas start in a text thread, links get saved across apps, and details end up with whoever becomes the unofficial planner. Rather than replacing the tools people already use to book, message, or discover places, I designed Rally to connect the planning moments between them in one shared space.
Goal
Create a shared experience that keeps ideas, people, and trip details organized without making planning feel like project management.
Strategy
Product strategy
Defining Rally’s role
Group planning tends to break down at a few predictable moments: starting the trip, collecting ideas, deciding together, and keeping confirmed details easy to find. I focused Rally on those moments and left everything else to the tools people already use.
Key insight: The opportunity wasn’t just to build an itinerary. It was to help groups move from scattered ideas to shared decisions.
Design decision: Keep inspiration lightweight until the group is ready to commit, so exploring never feels like locking in a plan.
Connecting the tools groups already use
Rather than recreating what existing tools do well, Rally connects the planning moments that fall between them.
Scope
MVP scope
Focusing on the planning foundation
With Rally’s role defined, the next step was deciding what the first version had to do well, and what it could leave out.
Key insight: The MVP needed to support the core planning loop of collecting ideas, deciding together, and turning decisions into a shared plan, without trying to solve every travel need.
Design decision: I prioritized shared ideas, lightweight decision-making, and itinerary building, and deferred booking, payments, expense splitting, and full messaging, since none of them strengthened that loop.
Four needs, one shared plan
Each screen in the MVP answers one core planning need, and each one adds to the group’s shared plan.
Create a trip
Start the trip
Capture the basics so planning can begin
Trip dashboard
Bring the group together
One shared place to reference the trip
Idea board
Collect ideas
Save inspiration before decisions are final
Itinerary
Keep plans organized
Confirmed details in one place
Shared plan
Everyone stays aligned
Not in the MVP
Booking
Payments
Expense splitting
Full messaging
Experience
Building the experience
Designing each planning moment
Each screen supports one moment in the planning loop. I gave each one a guiding principle to keep decisions consistent as the experience grew.
From a new trip to a shared plan
Six screens across the core MVP journey, from the homepage to a confirmed itinerary.
Homepage
Create a trip
Trip dashboard
Idea board
Idea detail
Itinerary (collapsed)
Start the trip
Design principle: Start with what’s known
Trip setup asks only for what a group is likely to know upfront: name, destination, dates, and travelers. From there, the trip dashboard becomes the place to add and update details, so planning can begin before every detail is decided.
Keep attention on the trip
Design principle: Surface action without clutter
The dashboard keeps upcoming trips visually dominant, while polls, tasks, and decisions appear only when they need attention. Planning stays visible without turning Rally into a task manager.
Give ideas a home
Design principle: Preserve inspiration, add structure
Ideas arrive as links, screenshots, recommendations, or half-formed suggestions. The idea board gives them a persistent visual home, and each card keeps enough context, like who added it and where it came from, for the group to compare options later. Keeping ideas separate from the itinerary lets groups explore without locking anything in too early.
Keep the plan easy to reference
Design principle: Scannable first, detailed second
Once decisions are confirmed, Rally shifts from exploring to organizing. Travel, accommodations, reservations, and activities come together in one shared itinerary that’s quick to scan, with more detail a tap away. The structure keeps the group aligned without making the plan feel fixed.
Visuals
Visual direction
Making planning feel organized without losing the excitement
Rally needed to support dense planning information without feeling like productivity software. A warm, image-led system keeps the trip emotionally present, while clear hierarchy and repeatable patterns make logistics easy to scan.
Brand foundations
Color, typography, imagery, and shape give Rally a social feel, while the interface stays restrained enough to support detailed planning content.
Visual principles
Four principles guided how the visual system balanced personality with clarity.
01
Let the trip lead
Travel imagery keeps the destination visually prominent, so the product never reduces to tasks and logistics.
02
Create hierarchy through contrast
Bold indigo headings, quieter supporting text, and generous spacing separate primary actions from secondary planning details.
03
Use soft structure for dense information
Collapsible days, category icons, light dividers, and indented notes organize detailed logistics without making Rally feel rigid or enterprise-focused.
04
Keep collaboration present
Avatars, comments, polls, travelers, and shared tasks remind users that planning is happening with other people.
System
Design system and accessibility
Building consistency into a flexible product
As Rally expanded across trip setup, dashboards, ideas, and itineraries, I built a reusable UI system for hierarchy, spacing, cards, forms, status, and navigation. It creates consistency without making every screen feel identical.
I used native iOS patterns like the Liquid Glass tab bar as a foundation, then built Rally’s visual system on top so the app feels familiar but still distinct.
Core system
The core system defines the type, color, components, and layout rules that keep Rally consistent across every screen.
Color
Rally indigo anchors the brand, with sage, marigold, and warm rose as supporting accents and warm neutrals for surfaces, so color organizes information without competing with photography.
Designing accessibility into the system
Accessibility principle: Collaboration only works when people can quickly understand what’s selected, what’s changed, and what they can do next.
Accessibility was part of the system from the start, not a pass at the end.
Contrast and readability: Text, actions, and status treatments meet WCAG AA contrast requirements against Rally’s warm background and image-led surfaces.
Clear interaction states: Buttons, links, filters, and form controls share consistent treatments, so interactive elements are easy to recognize.
Touch-friendly controls: Primary actions and form elements use appropriately sized touch targets with enough spacing to prevent accidental taps.
More than color alone: Labels, icons, text, and positioning reinforce meaning, so status never depends on color alone.
Scannable hierarchy: Heading scale, spacing, grouping, and progressive disclosure help users move through dense trip information without unnecessary effort.
Outcomes
Outcomes and reflection
Outcomes
Owned the product end to end, from problem definition and MVP scope through interaction design, visual direction, and accessibility.
Designed a mobile-first MVP covering the core journey from trip creation to a confirmed itinerary.
Built a reusable UI system with a seven-level type scale, a defined color palette, and components with clear states.
Designed accessibility in from the start, with every color pair checked against WCAG AA.
What I’d measure
If Rally launched, I’d measure whether it spreads planning across the group, not just whether trips get created.
Participation
How often invited travelers contribute ideas, respond to polls, or complete assigned tasks.
Shared ownership
How often people other than the trip creator contribute to planning.
Planning completion
How often trips progress from setup to a populated itinerary with confirmed details.
What I’d test next
The next phase would validate deeper collaboration through comparison and voting, richer availability planning, motion and interaction details, and whether contextual AI could reduce planning effort without taking control away from the group.
Reflection
Rally let me explore a different kind of complexity from my enterprise work: balancing structure with personality. The challenge was organizing a lot of planning information without making it feel administrative, and it pushed my work in mobile UI, image-led design, and reusable product patterns.
I used ChatGPT and Figma Agent to speed up exploration, content structuring, and prototyping, while I owned the product strategy and design direction.
The biggest lesson was the value of a focused foundation. Keeping Rally’s role narrow let every screen do one job well: helping groups move from scattered ideas to a shared plan.
