Let it fly.

The Power and Fun in Chasing the Random Little Ideas We Have Every Day

We can all relate to the feeling of having an idea for a little project of sorts. Sometimes it comes from an inconvenience, a chance encounter or a thought of something that could be fun. Seldom, however, do we really follow through on them. This is not a preachy blog post about actually executing; don't worry, I won't put you through that. What I will do is tell you about a recent idea I had that I did execute on, and the simple joy I found in doing it for nothing more than feeling creative and productive. For me it came from a frustration I experienced.

A few weeks ago, my roommate and I were making a trip to Salt Lake for game 3 of the Jazz vs. Rockets series. We knew flights were quite cheap and were determined to make it out for the game. We ended up so frustrated with Frontier’s website that we opted to drive instead.

This wasn’t the end of my online ticketing frustrations, however. With a another flight a few weeks later, I spent over a half hour searching for a flight that worked with a hectic end of the week schedule and was with an airline that I had a frequent flier account with.

This got me thinking; Google already has a flights database, and for Chrome users, keeps you logged in to your Gmail, Calendar and frequent flier accounts on one browser. Why couldn’t I plan my whole trip in one place. 

My goal was to create a travel booking experience that is integrated with scheduling, payments, rewards and travel information from start to finish, making booking as streamlined as possible.

I started off by finding some wireframes for mobile profiles, commerce and booking systems for Sketch, then took some notes on the UX for Google flights.

This is a mockup of a conceptual Google Flights app. It features an interactive map for picking your route and a simple interface for editing travel information. When a user searches for flights, they are first showed options from their preferred airlines and are notified if there are scheduling conflicts. The app stores your preferred airlines and frequent flier accounts, payment methods, and known traveler number so you can immediately check out when you find a flight and have an e-ticket delivered to your Gmail. It also accounts for scheduling conflicts via Google Calendar and has the option to schedule a ride through Uber or Lyft when you will need to leave according to traffic data via Google Maps. 

I don’t do a ton of UI/UX work directly, so this was really fun to do and I’m happy with the final product. It’s not fantastic, but I really felt good about executing on a little idea. The crazy thing is it only took me a few hours and didn’t feel like work. These mockups felt like leisure time and I’m walking away feeling more confident using Sketch.

I’ve been so busy lately I haven’t picked up a side project in a while, and this felt really good to do. This summer, I will be making it a goal to continue doing something about the small ideas that spontaneously come about, and its going to be real fun.