How will you design a travel feature for Pinterest?

I would start of by making some assumptions (or clarifying):

• Travel feature is meant to be integrated with current Pinterest app (assuming yes)
• Assuming currently there is not travel feature on Pinterest

I would now like to discuss the feature goal and make sure it aligns with overall Pinterest goal. 

Goal of travel feature:

• promote travel for current users & attract new users
• create additional content that can be shared with Pinterest users and outside the app

Overall, Pinterest is about idea sharing and inspiration for its users through the usage of images, gifs, and small videos. I think adding a travel feature will be a great add to the app as it fits well with the overall goal, can be aesthetically appealing, and compliments the current features on Pinterest. 

Now that we know this would be a great feature, I would like to figure out the target users. Once we do that then I will go into the pain points these users might have and figure out which are the most important ones. From there I would think of solutions that will be important when designing this feature.

Target users:

1.   Young professionals: Have the money and independence to travel

2.   Newly Weds/Couples: Honeymoon or frequent vacations

3.   College/University Students: Usually travel after semester/exams end

4.   Retired people: Won’t be as active on Pinterest but have more flexibility to travel

Pain Points:

1.   Many people may not know where to travel to

2.   Many people may not know what places look like/ things to do when traveling in certain cities

3.   May not know how far certain places are from other places and logistics of traveling

4.   May not know how much traveling would cost if on a budget

Now that we have looked into our users and pain points, I would like to rank them in terms of priorities for the user in terms of benefit. I would rank pain points as: 2, 1, 4, 3

Focusing on primarily the first two pain points, I would think of the following solutions for our travel feature:

·    Vacation recommender: We can use history and nlp to see what types of vacation spots the user might like and have them pop up in a suggested box on main Pinterest page. The images/gifs would have to be aesthetically appealing to get the user engaged. We would also need to make sure user can easily save (‘pin’) their liked locations.

·    Travel preference filters: Allow users to filter by specific terms such as “romantic getaway”, “beach”, “popular hikes”. Popular destinations of similar qualities should allow users to easily find their ideal vacation destination.

·    Friend recommendation/preference: Allow users to see what friends have saved and types of vacation content they prefer; we should have easy option to send friends/followers in Pinterest your travel preferences

After these features launched into our app, I would use metrics/data to see if it has been successful. I would end up measuring the number of times travel content has be searched/shared/saved vs. non-travel content.