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Growthops Digital

Spa booking system
‘Making an appointment to refresh and relax’
Role
UX/UI Designer
Timeline
Nov 2022 — current time
Team
Senior Account Manager
Digital Producer
Senior UX/UI Designer
UX/UI Designer
Technical Director
Senior Full Stack Developer
Senior Front End Developer
Tools
Figma
Figjam
Shortcut
Responsibilities
Competitor analysis
Product development
Service design
User flows
Wireframes and wireflows
Hi-fidelity design
Prototyping
Stakeholder management
Results

1.

Integrated 100+ products incl. bathing appointments, spa treatments, accommodation and gift certificates into Phase One release.

2.

Working with the client, redesigned the product strategy across the business.

Business goal

Peninsula Hot Springs (PHS) tasked us with redeveloping their booking system for their baths and day spa. The challenge was to create an accessible system that allowed users to book one or more of 100+ products, creating an opportunity to encourage
booking more products and do it in a way that emulated the relaxing atmosphere of the hot springs.
My role
Our approach
I
We started by running a series of discovery workshops with the PHS team to determine the core functionalities to be created in the Phase One build and develop the product strategy. Combined with competitor research, we used learnings from this discovery to inform the creation of a user flows which we then workshopped with PHS to match the desired experience.
II
Once basic functions were discerned and flows determined, we used agile sprints and a process of continuous design and discovery to build out the booking system in coordination with our internal development team. Only once wireframes had been approved did we move to building out high-fidelity designs.
III
Working with the development team, we broke the entire booking system into a series of different functions which were tackled in two week sprints with each sprint culminating in a client showcase to gauge progress and plan the next sprint.
The experience problem
Customers visit the hot springs for a relaxing and luxuriant experience. Part of this experience is dependent on a seamless and easy to navigate booking process. With over 100+ options to choose from at varying prices ranges, customers encountered difficulties finding out what was included in an offering and could be overwhelmed with choices.

Combining different items together as ‘packages’ simplified some of these choices but also meant that customers found it difficult to build their own unique experience. Difficulties finding when expriences could be booked was also leading to customer droppoff.
There are too many options and it’s to easy to hit a dead end. This doesn’t reflect a luxury experience we offer.
- client feedback
Customers cannot see all of our products or when they are available. We are losing customers in the minutiae of the process.
- client feedback

The existing website at the start of the design process.

Discovery
Our team ran a series of discovery workshops with the Peninsula Hot Springs team to help determine what the key customer pain and business points were. We were able to draw on feedback and complaints data as well as our clients experience in interacting with their customers on a day to day basis to create a cohesive picture.
Activities
Qualitative validation
Quantitative validation
Customer journey mapping
Competitor analysis
Function prioritisation
Mapping customer experience pain points
In mapping point of view pain-points with the client team and looking through customer feedback, we identified problems for both customers and the business:
Business pain points
  • Categorisation of packages is complex in the backend system -  great complexity of maintaining a booking system with overlapping packages
  • Current booking system format does not allow an expansion of products being offered
Customer experience pain points
  • Overwhelming amount of information for customers
  • Users are unaware of what ad-ons are suitable for specific packages
  • Customers pathways can lead to dead-ends where the customer cannot progress any further
  • A lot of the functions don’t seem to work well
  • Functions don’t meet the fundamental user behaviours
  • Messaging and function don’t seem to align
  • UI is clunky and outdated - does not reflect the experience.
  • Inconsistency between pages in the booking flow
Customer journeys
Task based journey mapping with the PHS team highlighted that the majority of problems lay within the booking system itself. I synthesised this feedback in the form of an customer journey map and noted key opportunities to improve across the ‘Discovery’, ‘Selection’ and ‘Payment’ stages:
A customer journey map detailing the end to end booking experience.

A customer journey map detailing the end to end booking experience.

Considerations
The middleware API we were designing for was based on the LS retail backend and Dato CMS - the combination of which led to a limitation around the categorisation of products and what information could stored for each product. Our competitor analysis had surfaced desirable features used by competitors on the same system but further investigation found that these required custom coding in order to integrate. As we were time limited, we aimed to minimise this as much as possible.
Peninsula Hot Springs (PHS) had asked us to design the system with a mobile first viewpoint and 'future proof' the booking system so that further features could be added including more accommodation options.  
Iterating solutions
Working with the PHS team, we redesigned the product offering strategy in order to capitalise on the opportunities and alleviate the pain points identified in the customer journey maps. This simplified the backend and gave us more flexibility in creating an enhanced customer experience.
Wireframing and prototyping
The booking system used a drawer function - increasing accessibility on mobile. Wireframes and wire-prototypes for the core booking flow were designed and tested over a period of eight sprints with multiple iterations needed to meet the limitations of the underlying systems. Once these were finalised, brand guidelines were used to create the UI and construct a design system.

Wireframe iterations of the enhancement flow

Creating a cohesive system

Limitations in how the way the API functioned meant that the three flows were given separate entry points in the booking draw. As many components as possible were reused in order to simplify development and add create patterns for the user.

At the current time, this booking system is still in development.

Next Case Study: Our Medical app

Want to get in touch?
Email
hello@johnpoole.design
Phone
(+61) 431 820 715