Breadcrumb

In a post-pandemic world, the line between living and traveling is blurring – more flexibility in work, as well as pent up demand from the time we’ve spent staying at home due to the pandemic, mean people are shifting away from the mindset that traveling is a series of one-off trips and instead of a lifestyle where you can spend time in different places of the world throughout the year. If people are traveling more frequently, that also means there should be a change in how people document and share their travels.

One of the main pain points that travelers experience while on vacation is they can't truly unplug – when our phones keep us constantly connected, it makes it hard not to check work emails or fall into doom scrolling, which means we take the stress of everyday life with us on vacation. Furthermore, standard trip planning platforms such as Yelp and Tripadvisor can be overwhelming, and most travelers would agree that recommendations from friends and family who have more context about both the trip and the traveler’s preferences add a level of personability and comfort not found on a stale website. Yet, when you're the person sharing those recommendations, it can be a pain to jog your memory of your favorite spots from a trip you took years ago. And even if you’re in the habit of saving locations, often these are presented without the story behind the save, and thus are inadequate for sharing. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. This team of design engineers would like to introduce Breadcrumb, a logging device that allows travelers to seamlessly document their journeys by capturing location and audio-based memories for personal reflection or sharing. Breadcrumb is a wearable device that pairs with an app. To use Breadcrumb, you can choose to either wear it as a pendant, clip it to your clothing, or on your wrist using the band. Users click once to log a location and hold down the button to record location-based ‘crumbs’ and sound ‘bites’. Experiences can be saved without looking at a screen, and later can be played back and shared in its partner app. The app borrows the popular social media concept of ‘stories’ and allows users to easily parse through friends’ published crumbs. As a whole, Breadcrumb’s mission is to enable travelers to document and share their experiences without the burden of their phones. The interdisciplinary nature of the team was the key driver behind this project. It is what led to the inception of a new product with a unique user experience that spans across both hardware and software, aiming to re-imagine the traveling experience. Throughout this project, the team employed an iterative design process, building looks-like prototypes to emphasize the form factor and user interactions and works-like prototypes that explore the technology and test the idea's validity.