IHG One.
ROLE • UX Researcher, UI Designer
OBJECTIVE • Rebranding the IHG One app to promote more comprehensive traveling experience for travelers​
UXUI
Collaborative Project
7 Week
Overview
When we began this project we were tasked with improve the mobile experience for both loyal and prospective IHG customers. We found Travelers staying at IHG hotels are not using the mobile app at the same rate as the competitors.
Points to Improve
The Problem
Charted #30 for Travel in the Apple Apps Store
This ranking landed them behind apps for their biggest direct competitors such as Marriott Bonvoy (#14), Vrbo Vacation Rentals (#8), Hilton Honors: Book Hotels (#13), Airbnb (#2) and indirect competitors like Expedia (#4), Booking.com: Hotels and Travel (#9), and Hotel.com: Travel booking (#27).
Less App Engagement Than Competitors
The IHG: Hotels and Rewards app generally garnered half, sometimes less, engagement than its competitor's apps. Compared to IHG's 600K ratings in the Apple Store, Marriott had 2.3M ratings, both being 4.9/5 stars. In the google play store, IHG achieved 5 million downloads compared to Marriott's 10 million
...But, there's still hope!
$133.7 billion
The Market Research
$18.8 billion
The "Smart" Hospitality Industry is GROWING
The global smart hospitality market is poised to surge from $18.8 billion in 2021 to a staggering $133.7 billion by 2031. This growth is driven by rising investments in hotel technology and a demand for exceptional guest experiences, led by Europe with Asia-Pacific showing the fastest growth.
2031
2021
The Background
90%
of Travelers Want A Personalized Experience
The customer experience in hotel bookings is being revolutionized by AI and machine learning, offering hyper-personalized recommendations and seamless, real-time interactions. These advancements empower guests to make faster, more informed decisions while improving overall satisfaction and loyalty.
2031
Competitive Analysis
We analyzed fifteen companies in total, six DIRECT competitors, three INDIRECT competitors, and six COMPARATORS.
We assessed each company on five criteria for success using the Harvey Balls methodology: Look & Feel, Accessibility, Self Service, Differential treatment, Authority & Trust, Social Connectivity.
Best Western is a global hospitality enterprise with over 4300 hotels in
100 different countries around the world.
Direct Competitors
Accor All’s app streamlines booking and amenities, including transportation and activity resources on their home page.
Wyndham Hotels and Resorts is an American hotel company with over 9000 hotels worldwide.
Hyatt is voted the highest reward point value by Nerd Wallet.
Hilton is the highest valued hotel brand in the world with robust brand recognition.
Marriott is premiere trusted hotel brand known for their attentive hospitality and strong loyalty program.
Indirect Competitors
Third most downloaded travel app in the world.
Consolidate your travel. Focus on the stay, excursions, and the experience.
TripAdvisor is a popular travel planning software that helps user generate trip itineraries based on reviews from other travelers.
Groupon is known for consolidating discounts and deals for third party vendors. As such, they offer travel packages comparable to hotels and appeal to potential IHG customers.
The North Face is an outdoor focused apparel retailer whose target demographic features adventurers and travelers, similar to that of IHG.
Comparators
Target is an American retailer that has a robust e-commerce platform both on mobile and web. Their loyalty program is well explained to new users and easy to join and use.
Lululemon is a Canadian sports apparel retailer. Their primary target audience features those with an active and busy lifestyle and share a large portion of customers with IHG despite the vastly different product.
Groupon is known for consolidating discounts and deals for third party vendors. As such, they offer travel packages comparable to hotels and appeal to potential IHG customers.
Tesla redefined automotive travel experience by utilizing smart technology.
Harvey Balls Analysis
We analyzed fifteen companies in total, six DIRECT competitors, three INDIRECT competitors, and six COMPARATORS. We assessed each company on five criteria for success using the Harvey Balls methodology: Look & Feel, Accessibility, Self Service, Differential treatment, Authority & Trust, Social Connectivity.
Personalized Experience
Streamlined Features
Robust Features
Generalized Experience
We interview 6 Travelers
To gain insight on the highs and lows of traveling, we interviewed 6 travelers that fell into three different categories: Business, leisure, and multipurpose. They ranged from ages 21 - 59, and experienced all three categories of travel regardless that they tended to a singular one.
We made an infinity map to distill the insights of the
Interviews
2 Solo business travelers
2 Leisure focused travelers
2 Multipurpose travelers
Takeaways
Travelers value amenities for convenience
Both business and leisure travelers value onsite amenities such as breakfast or the business center. They enjoyed not only the convenience these service brought, but also the fact that they were complementary.
Many didn't have a desire to interact with staff
People often opted for a contactless experience when it was available. This was particularly preferred during check in and check out. One traveler said asking for late check out was akin to "groveling to stay a couple hours longer."
Members want context for their rewards
Often times without defining exact point milestones or giving examples of how they could redeem points, customers had no idea how many points they should be aiming to earn. In cases when they were provided context, they were more motivated to stick to a single reward program to continue to earn points.
They want foresight into accommodations
Both anxious and an experienced travelers expressed a desire to see more of their accommodations beyond just room details before booking and arrival. This could include detailed descriptions of all amenities, example videos of the spaces, more detailed or additional photos.
Personas
From our interviews we distilled our findings down and I led the team in producing 4 personas as well as their respective journey maps.
To use full service amenities
To stay close to restaurants, coffee shops, etc
To have comfortable accommodations
To receive efficient services
To have explore cities and new cultures
To feel safe in her environment
To be able to meet new people
To understand her destination before she arrives
To receive efficient service
To receive consistently reliable service
To live close to grocery stores
To live close to work
To build and control a predictable routine
To be comfortable with living arrangements
To have explore cities and new cultures
To collaborate when planning
To make group reservations and split expenses
To compare prices, deals, and discounts
To feel safe in her environment
Business
/Short Term
Roger, 45
Businessman
For work Roger often takes short 2 - 4 night trips multiple times a month, sometimes on short notice. While on a trip, he works long days but has his evenings to himself. He mostly travels alone, but occasionally will take a trip
with colleagues.
Leisure
/Solo
Jen, 34
Avid Solo Traveler
Jen is eager to see the world and she doesn’t want to wait for her friends. She enjoys traveling for the adventure, and a key way she explores new cities is through their food culture.
Business
/Long Term
Izzy, 40
Traveling Nurse
As a researcher, when Izzy travels for work she needs long term accommodations. She stays at hotels for 3 - 4 weeks at a time and rarely has a car during these stays. She prefers to cook for herself instead of eating out everyday, and during these stays
Leisure
/Group
Lydia, 65
Vacationing Parent
Lydia enjoys annual vacations with her family of 5. Her children are older and weigh in on travel plans, but she has the ultimate say. She also enjoys traveling with friends when she can. She enjoys luxury, but in group settings she’s cognizant of the group’s budget.
Biography
Needs
Values
Potential Accommodations
Journey Mapping
From our interviews we distilled our findings down and I led the team in producing 4 personas as well as their respective journey maps.
Area of Opportunity
Short Term Business
Long Terms Business
Group Leisure
Solo Leisure
Our 5 biggest Insights
Information Architecture Analysis
Design
We analyzed the site maps of the IHG One app as well as the IHG website to evaluate how pain points and successful points in their existing navigation. Between the two, the website was better for gathering brand information but tended to be overwhelming, while the app was better for booking trips in a streamlined way, but had so many embedded browser pages that it made the app feel like an afterthought to the website.
User Flow Pain Points
Redundant Tabs and Links
Throughout the App, many tabs linked out to the same site pages despite having different titles and going by different names. For example the special offers shown under the "More" tab was almost an exact replica of those displayed on the home tab.
Tedious Navigation
Despite having 5 main navigation tabs, much of the information is nested within the search tab. It was increasingly difficult to explore new brands, hotels, and the offering of all properties
Minimal Opportunities for Personalization
The app is not dynamic so their offerings were identical across four different accounts. Even after searching and favoriting different classes of hotels, the suggestions on the home page didn't change.
Revised Site Map
We revised the site map with a few specific goals in mind.
First, I wanted to emphasize exploration. IHG gets 58% of their bookings through their mobile app, but don't showcase all the options they have to offer. I wanted the home page to feel familiar in that they algorithm would suggest properties that were in the same wheelhouse as previous stays, while also offering insight into new properties.
​
Second, being inspired by the Wanderlog app, I also wanted to enhance the experience of planning a trip and give user a very clear vision of not only the property they'd be stay in, but the surrounding the area and prospective perks as well.
​
Lastly, my two teammates wanted to organize and streamline the smart features that are available specifically during the users stay, as well as personalization features such as the preference surveys and the wishlists so user can keep their desires front of mind in our app.
Flow Diagrams
With the new mobile site map and the goals of what we want to change, we created four flow diagrams for each of the areas of improvement. I took point on the itinerary, wishlist, and exploration options in the explore flow, as well as the entire booking flow.
Explore Flow
Reworking the explore flow improved the differential experience by adding a matchmaking survey to match people with potential locations as well as the exploration feature so users feel empowered to find matches themselves. The wishlist and build itinerary features were implemented to give user better insights into their trip and save their findings and favorites.
Booking Flow
My goal for the booking flow was to enhance the experience so users can be more confident in their decision in choosing a property. By incorporating interactive floor plans and reviews, the user would be more informed to make their choice.
Stay Flow
We wanted to make the smart features that users typically enjoy, such as digital key, room controls, and request services, more prominent for easier access.
Post-Stay Flow
Unlike most hotel apps in industry, we built out a flow for after the user's stay. We added a place to leave a review which then helps other potential users later. We also added a feature to help larger parties split their bill.
Wireframes
Feature: Itinerary Building
Feature: More In-Depth
Search Function
Feature: More Prominent
Smart Features
Feature: Seamless Check Out
User Testing
A series of user testing was conducted to investigate the following hypothesis:
1. The redesign helps the user manage the the entirety their stay.
2. The user preferred to have itinerary feature with hotel app
3. The user preferred secondary authentication to use mobile
Hypothesis 1: The redesign helps the user manage the entirety of their stay
The users identified a list of trip management activities during a “trip” and the list is compared with the redesigned features
Hypothesis 2: The user preferred to have itinerary feature with hotel app
Hypothesis 3:The user preferred secondary authentication to use mobile
Design Guide
Font
Helvetic was chosen for its modern, and neutral qualities, as well as the fact that is is legible at small sizes.
​
Color Palette
Accessibility was a primary goal for the app's style guide so all primary palette colors meet WCAG's AA standard.
Imagery
High-quality, photorealistic, warm toned imagery was used to create a friendly feel to the app
​
Referenced Systems
For imported materials, specifically the iconography, the Materials Design system, an open sources design library, was used to create a cohesive look throughout the app.
.png)
Components
Over 30 individual design components were developed and used throughout the app. These components allowed transitions in the prototype, transitions for presentations, and consistency throughout each of the different flows in the app.
Grid System
As any grid system is used, a 8-column grid was used to align all content on the app screens. Instead of implementing rows to make a cross grid system, we opted to auto-layout most content with a 24-pt gap between rows
AAA Accessibility
As accessibility was very important in developing the app, a secondary color palette that met AAA standards. Ideally, this color palette would be available in the settings for any user to access.
