Previous UX/UI Design Internship

(Currently Editing this Page!)

Internship Overview

December 2024 – May 2025

At Let’s Jetty, a travel planning app designed to help groups coordinate trips seamlessly, I worked as a UX/UI Design Intern on two core projects that aimed to improve user experience and engagement across the platform.

  • Trip Hub Redesign: I redesigned the Trip Hub page to improve clarity, accessibility, and visual hierarchy. The updated layout made it easier for users to view key trip details, access shared documents, and understand group responsibilities at a glance.

  • Group Chat Feature: I designed a new in-app group chat system that enabled users to message within their travel groups. This reduced the need for external communication tools and helped centralize trip planning within the app.

Both projects involved working closely with the product and marketing teams, exploring user pain points, wireframing and prototyping in Figma, and iterating based on team feedback. This internship strengthened my ability to design for real-world constraints while maintaining a consistent and user-friendly interface.

Trip Hub Redesign

Sketches & Early Ideas
 I explored multiple layout concepts for the redesign:

  • A minimal layout with reorganized content

  • A drop-down tab system for organizing sections

  • A tile-based layout that visually groups features

Wireframes
 After discussions with my team, my tile-based layout was selected as the most effective. I then created wireframes that organized key features like invitations, itinerary, and trip stats into visually distinct tiles.

Iterations
 I designed several variations of the tile layout, experimenting with:

  • Different iconography and label combinations

  • Varying visual emphasis for action items (like sending invites)

  • Layout reordering to improve user flow

Project Overview

The Trip Hub is the central dashboard within Let’s Jetty, where users manage key aspects of their group trips, like inviting friends, viewing itineraries, and tracking plans. During my internship, I was tasked with redesigning the Trip Hub page to address usability issues and improve how information was structured and accessed.

Users were frequently overlooking important features like the invite and itinerary buttons, which were either poorly labeled or inconsistently placed. My goal was to improve the visual hierarchy and discoverability of core actions, making the Trip Hub more intuitive and user-friendly. Through iterative design and feedback from the team, I introduced a tile-based layout that better organized content and streamlined the planning experience for users.

The Problem

Although the original Trip Hub was colorful and eye-catching, it lacked functional clarity. Users struggled to complete essential tasks, and the information layout often caused confusion. I focused on solving two key user pain points:

Issue 1: Difficulty Sending Invites
 The “Crew and Invites” section, which allows users to invite travel companions, was unclear and visually buried.

  • The button lacked prominence and the label implied that invites had already been sent, rather than prompting action.

  • Users frequently overlooked it, delaying the trip setup process.

Proposed Solutions:

  • Separate the functionality into two distinct buttons: “Send Invites” and “View Crew”

  • Or, relabel the existing button as “Invite Your Crew” to clarify its purpose

Issue 2: Difficulty Finding the Itinerary
 The Itinerary button was hard to find because of its placement above the Notes section, separated from related trip details.

  • This disrupted the visual flow and created cognitive friction.

Proposed Solutions:

  • Reposition the itinerary button alongside related trip content

Research and Discovery

To better understand the usability issues, I combined user feedback with competitive research:

  • Several users mentioned they didn't realize the invite button existed or couldn’t tell what it did.

  • Others had trouble locating the itinerary, leading to confusion during trip planning.

I also conducted competitive analysis of apps like Garmin, Facebook Events, Batch, and Expedia, focusing on how they organize group information. Garmin’s structured tile-based interface stood out and aligned closely with Let’s Jetty’s visual identity. This inspired a shift toward a tile-centered layout to improve scannability and feature discoverability.

Design Process

The Solution

The final design adopted a tile-based Trip Hub, with clear modular groupings for:

  • Inviting Crew Members

  • Viewing the Itinerary

  • Tracking Trip Stats and Tasks

This approach improved scannability, highlighted key actions, and brought visual consistency to the Trip Hub. The new layout creates a more intuitive and action-driven user experience.

Results and Takeaways

While the redesign has not yet been fully implemented in the live app, the project received positive feedback from both my supervisor and the broader team. I learned how to:

  • Translate vague usability issues into actionable design changes

  • Balance visual design with functional clarity

  • Collaborate in a fast-paced, iterative product environment

This project helped me grow significantly as a designer and gave me hands-on experience improving real-world UX flows.

Group Chat Feature

In the second half of my internship at Let’s Jetty, I was tasked with designing a brand-new Group Chat feature, a major addition to the app that would allow users to communicate directly within their travel groups. The goal was to eliminate the need for external messaging apps and streamline communication for trip planning, all in one unified platform.

While the app already handled logistical planning (like trip details and itineraries), the absence of a native chat made collaboration fragmented and inconvenient. This project required me to think beyond layout, considering how messaging features should behave, how users interact with chats in real life, and how the design could scale over time.

Project Overview

The Problem

Let’s Jetty offered a space for users to organize travel plans with their friends, but it lacked a built-in messaging system, forcing users to rely on outside apps like iMessage or WhatsApp for communication.
This disconnect:

  • Made it harder to keep conversations and planning in one place

  • Led to confusion, scattered information, and reduced user retention

The challenge was to design a messaging interface that felt familiar, functional, and integrated with the rest of the app’s experience.

Research and Discovery

I conducted competitive analysis across a range of popular messaging platforms including:

  • Instagram

  • Facebook Messenger

  • Snapchat

  • iMessage

  • WhatsApp

  • KakaoTalk

From this research, I identified several core features users expect in a modern group chat experience:

  • Message reactions

  • Timestamps

  • User profile pictures

  • Read receipts

  • Pinned or saved messages

  • Muting or notification settings

  • Group member management

These insights helped define the baseline functionality and guided early decision-making around user flow and feature prioritization.

Design Process

Sketches & Early Ideas
 I began with low-fidelity sketches to explore layout ideas based on common messaging conventions. I focused on small UX details such as:

  • The positioning of reactions

  • The visibility of group member info

  • How timestamps and read receipts appear

Wireframes
 I built mid-fidelity wireframes in Figma, keeping the visual language aligned with Let’s Jetty’s brand while mapping out how each feature would function within the chat interface.

Iterations
 Though the core layout remained simple, I went through multiple iterations refining:

  • Reaction placement and interaction

  • The design of pinned messages

  • The display of group member avatars and status

  • Message spacing, timestamp alignment, and scrolling behavior

Each round incorporated feedback from my team to ensure the feature felt intuitive and scalable.

The Solution

The final design of the Group Chat mirrors the clean and familiar feel of apps like iMessage and Instagram, while incorporating Let’s Jetty’s aesthetic and functionality. Key highlights include:

  • A streamlined chat interface with clear message bubbles and timestamps

  • Tap-and-hold interactions for reactions and pinning

  • An info panel for viewing group members and adjusting chat settings

  • Seamless integration with trip content for referencing shared plans

Results and Takeaways

Although the Group Chat feature hasn’t been launched yet, the prototype received positive feedback from my team for its practicality and cohesiveness with the overall app.

This project deepened my understanding of feature planning, micro-interactions, and how to balance user expectations with platform constraints. It also taught me the importance of small details in shaping the quality of everyday user experiences.