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UI Designer, Prototype
As the UI/UX designer for Tinh Hoa Bản Xứ, a class project focused on cultural tourism, I led the design of the user interface and delivered the final interactive prototype. Tinh Hoa Bản Xứ is a travel application inspired by platforms like TripAdvisor, but built with a deeper emphasis on cultural storytelling. The goal of the product is to help travelers explore Vietnam through meaningful narratives, allowing them to better understand a country enriched with history, traditions, and diverse cultural heritage. Through thoughtful design and research collaboration with my team, I crafted an experience that brings Vietnamese culture to life in an accessible and engaging way.
MVP Light Mode, Design System, 3D Prototype
August 2025 - November 2025 (3 months)
Travel enthusiasts and culture lovers
Figma
Tran Minh Thao Nguyen, Dau Minh Ngoc
In the first eight months of 2024, Vietnam welcomed 11.4 million international visitors, only half of Thailand's 22 million, despite winning multiple travel awards.
We surveyed 114 people about their travel behaviours and their interests on our features. 81.6% of people are highly interested in the stories behind cultural products. 75.4% of consumers say price is their top concern when buying Vietnamese specialties.
Our research reveals that Vietnam still lacks a clear and consistent mechanism to prevent tourist overcharging. Additionally, many local businesses struggle to sustain their business due to disadvantaged seasonality and limited support structures.
While major travel platforms excel at booking and promotions, they often lack depth and meaningful cultural context. Our survey shows that users care most about price, prefer in-depth content, and enjoy podcasts while traveling. Yet apps like Agoda, Traveloka, TripAdvisor, and Google Maps mainly deliver surface-level reviews and transactional features. There's a clear gap for richer storytelling and more immersive cultural experiences that today's travelers are actively seeking.
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Comprehensive review system with community-driven content. Strong reputation and brand recognition globally.
The experience-related content is often broad and not highly specialized, making it harder for users to find niche or deeply curated recommendations.
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Provides highly accurate navigation and brings together helpful details like reviews, photos, and opening hours in an easy-to-use interface.
The platform isn't designed specifically for tourism, so it lacks features for booking travel or tours, and it doesn't deliver inspirational or storytelling-driven content that helps users plan richer experiences.
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Agoda is particularly strong in Asian markets, offering users a wide selection of hotels, flights, and experiences all in one place.
Often filled with heavy promotions, which can create information overload and make navigation feel cluttered.
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The mobile app is user-friendly, personalized, and supported by a solid loyalty rewards system, creating a smooth and efficient booking experience.
Focuses primarily on transactions and bookings rather than building a strong travel community, resulting in fewer user-generated insights and less engaging travel inspiration
Based on our research, we explored opportunities to enhance how travelers discover and experience local culture beyond basic navigation and booking tools. We used these three "how might we" questions to anchor our design thinking process.
Painpoint 1
Most booking apps focus solely on commerce,
with little emphasis on cultural value
or local experiences.
Painpoint 2
Users struggle to choose experiences that fit them
due to scattered information and lack of personalization.
Painpoint 3
Users lack opportunities to share or contribute information
about real experiences at destinations.
How might we
Integrate cultural storytelling into booking experiences to help users understand the significance behind destinations?
How might we
Recommend personalized experiences tailored to each user?
How might we
Create a mechanism for users to share real experiences,
helping others make informed decisions?
I defined our goal as building a platform that transforms travel into meaningful cultural connection—empowering users to discover authentic experiences, support local businesses, and share stories that bring communities closer together.
Young people are eager to explore traditional craft villages, yet they struggle to find accessible, trustworthy sources that explain the cultural, historical, and human stories behind them. We want to create an experience that brings these narratives to life—offering rich, in-depth storytelling that makes heritage easier to discover, understand, and appreciate.
Travelers want their journeys to feel rewarding, yet most cultural experiences end the moment they leave the village. We designed a digital passport that lets visitors collect unique "cultural stamps" each time they explore a place. These badges build a sense of progress and connection—and can later be redeemed for vouchers on handmade products or future tours, turning every trip into lasting value.
Travelers often look for audio content that can accompany their cultural experiences, yet most destinations offer little beyond on-site signage. We introduced a dedicated podcast section where users can listen to rich, immersive stories as they explore.
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After three months immersed in research, stories, and continuous refinement, we revealed the first MVP of Tinh Hoa Bản Xứ.
Users can navigate craft villages through an intuitive, dynamic map that highlights nearby cultural spots. By tapping on any location, they can view detailed village information, discover local stories, and customize their travel routes for a more meaningful journey.
The app features a dedicated e-commerce platform where users can browse and purchase regional cultural products at any time, extending the experience beyond the trip itself.
The app curates a personalized "Memory Gift Box" that automatically captures the stories you hear, the podcasts you listen to, and the cultural destinations you explore. By opening it, users can revisit every moment of their journey beautifully organized in one place.
Each time travelers visit a craft village, they earn a unique stamp or badge in the app. These can be collected, accumulated, and later redeemed for vouchers on handmade products or future cultural tours.
Users can dive into detailed narratives that reveal the traditions, heritage, and people shaping each craft village, creating a deeper and more personal travel experience.
Some interactions were built too quickly, which led to small flow glitches. I need to refine transitions and timing to make the prototype feel smoother and more intentional.
A few screens still show uneven spacing and alignment. Sticking to a clearer spacing system will help create a cleaner, more unified visual rhythm.
I used gradients—including on the logo— because I believed it would make the brand feel more expressive. Later, I realized this choice made the identity less cohesive. A solid-color palette would give the system more clarity, consistency, and brand strength.
Working on Tinh Hoa Bản Xứ with my teammates taught me so much more than just building an app. Across weeks of discussions, iterations, and countless prototype tweaks, we learned how complex it is to design a product that feels truly consistent — from logic flows to sitemap structure to visual alignment. Here are the biggest lessons I took away:
At first, we tried to tackle a huge landscape of cultural and travel problems. But the more we researched, the more we realized that being overly ambitious only diluted our solution. The smarter approach is to define the core problem early — and commit to solving that really well.
Our final product lacked consistency in UI details like iconography and spacing — all because we didn't create an aligned framework early on. Now I understand the value of setting a solid model, system, and structure first. It becomes the single source of truth the whole team can follow.
Designing an app in a few months requires constant decision-making and rapid problem-solving. The moments we communicated openly were the moments we moved fastest. Clear communication helped us align, fix issues quickly, and truly understand each other's thinking.