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Dave Navarro McDonald
Work

COVID-19 Guidance

COVID-19 Guidance

A Go-To Resource Built in Crisis Time

When COVID-19 hit in 2020, travel didn't stop. It just became chaotic. Restrictions changed by the day, varied by country, state, and city, and were scattered across government sites with no central source of truth. Travelers had no way to see what rules applied to the specific destinations in their itinerary. I designed a COVID-19 guidance feature that surfaced up-to-date travel restrictions directly inside TripIt, organized around each user's trip. It launched in summer 2020, became a go-to resource within the app, and the card components I introduced as part of this project remain in TripIt's design system today.

How might we make checking COVID-19 travel restrictions as easy as checking flight times?

Adapting Quickly in a Fast-Changing Landscape

With travel bouncing back unexpectedly in summer 2020, there was limited time to conduct formal research and still ship something useful. I took a hands-on approach: Slack polls, card sorting, and informal interviews with industry experts within TripIt to gather quick, valuable insights. That shaped the initial information architecture on a tight timeline. On the content side, managing data from our third-party COVID-19 travel restriction API posed a real challenge. I analyzed the API to build a matrix that organized binary values, numerical data, and lengthy strings into a structured UI. Converting these diverse data types into user-friendly copy required careful planning. The matrix guided our data display and streamlined the development process.
Matrix mapping API fields to user-friendly copy

Finding the Right Structure in Uncharted Territory

One of the main hurdles was how to organize regional data within countries like the US, where restrictions varied state by state. TripIt's existing hierarchy didn't support this structure, so I introduced a new card component to our design system that naturally grouped items and allowed flexibility for this nuanced data. Throughout the process, I participated in design critiques with the team, using their feedback to refine my work. Asking for feedback regularly helped me step back, view decisions from different angles, and catch potential inconsistencies before they became problems in development.

A Streamlined Solution for COVID-19 Travel Guidance

The final product consolidated COVID-19 risk data into a format that was accessible and easy to interpret. Users could access the latest guidelines directly in the app, relevant to the specific locations on their itinerary, without searching government sites and scattered resources. As part of this project, I introduced a second card component and layout to the design system. Both components remain available in TripIt's design system, adaptable for future needs beyond COVID guidance.
Mobile COVID-19 guidebook with modular info cards

Expanding: Airline Policies and Responsive Web

After the initial launch, we expanded the feature to include airline-specific travel policies and restrictions. I also adapted the guidance for responsive web, creating a streamlined right-rail module that displays key information at a glance: vaccination exemptions, testing requirements, quarantine rules, and airline certification.
Airline-specific COVID policy view in the mobile app
 With each update, I kept the user journey top of mind, making sure that even as we layered in new information, the experience stayed clean and intuitive for travelers navigating uncertain times.
Responsive web dashboard with COVID summary and airline certification

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