About

Resume

About

Resume

Odyssey

Spontaneous travel app

As my second designathon with UXL following Pomelo, I was excited to jump back into a challenging design event and create something new. This time, I wanted to lean into the full experience by incorporating more motion and pushing further with prototyping.

Problem

It's tedious to plan a trip and create a fully thought out itinerary. At the same time it's hard to find the best places to go, and get a real feel for a new area.

Solution

A spontaneous travel app that shares local recommendations and favourites near your person. Create spur-of-the-moment plans and change them as you discover more on the way.

Problem

It's tedious to plan a trip and create a fully thought out itinerary. At the same time it's hard to find the best places to go, and get a real feel for a new area.

Solution

A spontaneous travel app that shares local recommendations and favourites near your person. Create spur-of-the-moment plans and change them as you discover more on the way.

Role

Product designer

Team

3 designers

Timeline

36 hours, '23

"For the spontaneous traveller who thinks in the moment"

Final designs and prototypes

Final designs, showcasing major flows and features of our design.

Final designs and prototypes

Final designs, showcasing major flows and features of our design.

Discover as you go

From the home screen, travellers can start a new journey from anywhere in the world by choosing one final destination. As they walk toward it, Odyssey surfaces hidden gems and local favourites along their path, using crowd data from actual locals to help users explore more spontaneously without planning every stop ahead of time.

Adaptive routes

When users tap into a hidden gem on the map, Odyssey opens a detail page with photos, quick context, and signals from locals to help them decide if it’s worth exploring. They can add the spot to their trip with one tap, and the route updates automatically so their plans can keep changing as they discover new places along the way.

Ideation

We were given the prompt: “How might we design an experience that sparks curiosity, self-reflection, and experimentation to enhance learning and discovery?” Drawing from our own experiences in Toronto, we realized we kept visiting the same places because finding new spots takes time, research, and planning we were too lazy to do. This led us to an app that removes that friction by surfacing local favourites nearby and encouraging people to explore something new.

Ideation

We were given the prompt: “How might we design an experience that sparks curiosity, self-reflection, and experimentation to enhance learning and discovery?” Drawing from our own experiences in Toronto, we realized we kept visiting the same places because finding new spots takes time, research, and planning we were too lazy to do. This led us to an app that removes that friction by surfacing local favourites nearby and encouraging people to explore something new.

Analysis

From there I planned out the most critical screens to begin working on and the main journeys the users may take. I also formed a creative brief to help guide the team during designing and to stay on track.

Main hypothesis

"If we allow travellers to discover local favourites, it would enhance their learning and exploration of a new place, and engage them in a way a planned trip couldn’t."

Main scenorios

You're travelling and I don't know what to do. You want a less "touristy" experience. You're interested in the local food scene and want to support small businesses.

Business opportunities

Provide places popular recommendation sites would have a hard time knowing of. Provide an engaging, adventure-like way of exploring and learning somewhere new. Access past trips and share them with friends.

Principles

Encourage discovery. Facilitate learning. Playful and interactive.

Analysis

From there I planned out the most critical screens to begin working on and the main journeys the users may take. I also formed a creative brief to help guide the team during designing and to stay on track.

Main hypothesis

"If we allow travellers to discover local favourites, it would enhance their learning and exploration of a new place, and engage them in a way a planned trip couldn’t."

Main scenorios

You're travelling and I don't know what to do. You want a less "touristy" experience. You're interested in the local food scene and want to support small businesses.

Business opportunities

Provide places popular recommendation sites would have a hard time knowing of. Provide an engaging, adventure-like way of exploring and learning somewhere new. Access past trips and share them with friends.

Principles

Encourage discovery. Facilitate learning. Playful and interactive.

Reflection and takeaways

What I learned from this project.

Fleshing it out

Since the timeline was so short, we had to focus on the most vital parts of the app, which meant we had to scrap a lot of our ideas. The next step would be to explore how we could incentivize locals to crowdsource the data the app would use and contribute to the system, as well as conduct more research to back up our designs.

Motion engages

I had the opportunity to apply a lot of the animation skills I learned from my previous project JamParty to this. From the responses, it seemed to really excite and captivate them, helping to set us apart from the crowd.

Zzzzz.

Sleep more.

Reflection and takeaways

What I learned from this project.

Fleshing it out

Since the timeline was so short, we had to focus on the most vital parts of the app, which meant we had to scrap a lot of our ideas. The next step would be to explore how we could incentivize locals to crowdsource the data the app would use and contribute to the system, as well as conduct more research to back up our designs.

Motion engages

I had the opportunity to apply a lot of the animation skills I learned from my previous project JamParty to this. From the responses, it seemed to really excite and captivate them, helping to set us apart from the crowd.

Zzzzz.

Sleep more.

Thanks for visiting my portfolio!

Best viewed on desktop.

© 2026 Chris Pan.

Thanks for visiting my portfolio!

Best viewed on desktop.

© 2026 Chris Pan.