Richly Stampd
2026
Future of Travel Planning
Designing a social travel platform that transforms inspiration into actionable itineraries.
At a glance
Team
1x Product Designer
3x Engineers
1x Brand Manager
Scope
Product Strategy
UX Research
Information Architecture
Design Systems
Prototyping
User Testing
AI-Assisted Development
Timeline
6 months
Opportunity
Inspired to travel, overwhelmed to plan
Travel inspiration is abundant, but trip planning remains fragmented across multiple tools. This creates unnecessary friction, forcing travelers to manually organize information before they can take action.
I saw an opportunity to transform scattered inspiration into structured, actionable itineraries.
Current state of travel planning
Paint points
Opportunity insight
The opportunity wasn't creating more travel content, it was helping travelers transform the inspiration they've already discovered into structured, actionable itineraries.
How Might We…
transform scattered travel inspiration into structured, actionable itineraries?
Strategic direction
To answer this challenge, I designed a travel ecosystem centered around a single object: the itinerary.
By connecting discovery, planning, travel, and sharing through one structured experience, travelers could move from inspiration to action without leaving the platform.
Product Strategy
Turning travel inspiration into a complete planning ecosystem
The opportunity was not to create more travel content, but to create a system that helps travelers act on the content they already consume. This strategy positioned the itinerary as the core object of the product, connecting discovery, planning, travel, and community sharing within a single experience.
Key insight
Travelers think about trips as a single journey, but the products they use are fragmented. The opportunity was to unify discovery, planning, and sharing into one connected experience.
Product objective
Help travelers move from "I want to go there" to "my trip is planned."
The itinerary lifecycle
Transforming travel inspiration into structured plans, memorable experiences and shared travel knowledge.
View Figma file
Strategic bet
If travelers could discover complete itineraries instead of fragmented travel content, planning would become significantly faster and more actionable.
The discovery ecosystem
Enabling travelers to discover destinations, explore structured itineraries, and learn from a community of experienced travelers.
Experience Design
Designing the itinerary as the center of the experience
The itinerary became the core object of the product, connecting discovery, planning, travel, and sharing within a single experience. My goal was to help travelers quickly understand complex trip information without overwhelming them with detail.
Itinerary flow
Illustrating the information architecture and interaction patterns that enable travelers to move seamlessly from discovery to planning.
Information hierarchy
To reduce cognitive load, I progressively disclosed information, allowing travelers to move from a high-level trip summary into increasingly detailed planning layers.
Design decision
Core design principle
Every major action in Richly Stampd begins with the itinerary. Rather than separating discovery, planning, budgeting, and sharing into different experiences, I centered them around a single source of truth: the trip itinerary.
Design System
Building a scalable system for travel planning
To support a rapidly expanding product ecosystem, I transitioned from screen-level design to system-level thinking. A shared library of components, patterns, and design principles ensured consistency across experiences while increasing design and development efficiency.
Design system foundation
Establishing the patterns, components, and standards that scale across the platform.
AI-assisted system design
AI accelerated component creation and pattern exploration, while system architecture, interaction design, accessibility, and product decisions remained human-led.
Design system
Design Outcome
A shared system reduced duplication, accelerated iteration, and ensured a consistent experience across discovery, planning, calendars, profiles, and sharing.
Validation
Testing whether travelers could move from inspiration to action
I conducted user testing to evaluate whether travelers could successfully move from discovering itineraries to planning their own trips. These sessions helped uncover gaps between how the product was intended to work and how users actually perceived its value.
I tested three assumptions:
Could users quickly understand what the platform does?
Could users scan a detailed itinerary?
Could users identify how to start planning their own trip?
Figma prototypes
Validating user flows and interactions.
Key finding
Validation uncovered a gap between perceived and intended product value: users viewed itineraries as content to consume rather than tools to plan with, informing changes that reinforced planning behaviors throughout the experience.
Design response
To reinforce itineraries as planning tools rather than content, I focused on making the next step visible at the moment of discovery.
Solution
Testing revealed that users saw itineraries as inspiration rather than planning tools. To bridge this gap, I introduced clearer planning actions such as "Template This Itinerary", making it easier for travelers to transform existing itineraries into starting points for their own trips.
Outcome
Making planning actions more prominent helped reposition itineraries from inspirational content to reusable planning frameworks, reinforcing Richly Stampd's core value proposition.
Design to Code
Using AI to accelerate the journey from Figma to production
I explored how AI could streamline the design-to-development workflow without compromising quality. Using Cursor as an implementation partner, I converted high-fidelity Figma designs into scalable React components while maintaining consistency, responsiveness and design intent across the experience.
Experience design
Designing and validating the experience through prototyping.
AI-Assisted Development
Accelerating the journey from design to code.
Design-to-code decision
Not every component was built from scratch. Where mature solutions existed, such as the shadcn/ui calendar, I leveraged proven patterns and focused design effort on experiences that created unique value for travelers.
Adapting existing components
Leveraging shadcn/ui to accelerate development without compromising the user experience.
Live prototype
Testing the experience beyond the design file.
Key highlight
AI accelerated the build process, but the responsibility for architecture, usability, responsiveness, and product quality remained entirely mine.
Check out the live website 🎉
Ship & Validate
From prototype to real user behavior
While Figma validated user flows and interactions, a functional prototype revealed how people actually navigated, explored, and planned trips. Testing the live product uncovered opportunities that static screens alone could not reveal.
Shipping the prototype
Continuous deployment enabled rapid iteration and real-world validation.
Iterative development
Each iteration brought the product closer to a production-ready experience.
NYC Vibe Code Saturdays
I brought Richly Stampd to NYC Vibe Code Saturdays to gather feedback from designers, developers, and potential users interacting with a live prototype.
Testing the live prototype in a collaborative environment revealed behavioral insights that static prototypes couldn't capture.
Kickoff meeting
Setting Expectations for the Session
Collaboration
Refining ideas through feedback
Presentation
Presenting the product vision
View Instagram post
Product insight
Testing revealed that travelers saw the greatest value in discovering complete itineraries from people who had already taken similar trips. Rather than seeking more travel content, users wanted a faster path from inspiration to a plan they could adapt and make their own.
What's Next
Moving from a frontend prototype to a connected platform
The prototype validated a strong demand for structured, community-driven travel planning. The next phase focuses on building the systems that power real-world usage, enabling travelers to create, save, collaborate on, and personalize itineraries at scale.
My goal is not simply to help people plan trips, but to create a platform where travel knowledge becomes discoverable, reusable, and continuously enriched by the community.
Engineering collaboration
Partnering with engineers to define the next phase of the platform and bring the product vision to life.
