Flourish
Novel health & wellness app
Recovery of traveling and the hospitality industry after the pandemic
The challenge
Addressing COVID anxiety
Our mission was to develop a solution that would both address traveler’s worries about traveling and provide adequate care and support to regain market loss for Marriott Bonvoy in a post-pandemic world.
My role
Orchestrating user-centric design solutions
As a UX Designer on a team of 5, I played a pivotal role in shaping and enhancing the user experience of our product. My responsibilities included conducting thorough research and ideating creative solutions to ensure seamless implementation of user-centric designs.
Project goals
Key items that needed to be covered
Address challenges for hotel employees and discover points for opportunity with Marriott’s leading customer services
Build and brand new program congruent with existing Marriott branding guidelines
Develop solutions that will last beyond the state of the pandemic
Research methods
Informed design process
User interviews
Prototype testing
Market research analysis
Survey administration
To best understand the needs of our target audience, we conducted extensive user interviews with health officials, business travelers, and Marriott guests.
Using tools such as Otter.io and affinity mapping, I transcribed and analyzed the interviews, uncovering three specific pain points that guided our main features, user flows, and personas:
1. General COVID related concerns
2. Confidence in hotel cleanliness
3. Knowledge about amenity access
Mood board & brand voice study
Through our research process, I identified the program name, "Flourish," which encapsulated the meaning and positive feelings of wellness and peaceful growth. The team loved it!
From here, we proceeded to develop our design system and branding approach.
Design system using Figma
The team developed a logo and style guide complete with custom icons that aligned with Marriott's brand voice and strengthened brand loyalty. We aimed to highlighting the company's compassionate approach to world class travel experiences.
Impact
Making a difference
Flourish is designed to keep Marriott’s travelers in mind while expanding upon Marriott’s current safety efforts to build a wellness program that will live beyond COVID.
Flourish’s ROI is predicted to help bring Marriott back to it’s pre-pandemic state by 2023 year-end.
Multiple rounds of user testing were conducted, resulting in the following iterations that increased accessibility and clarity for users by over 70%
Home screen
Flourish logo & navigation
Users felt that the CTA to explore Flourish was not clear. Though we nested the Flourish logo in the center of the bottom home navigation, the icon had not gained user recognition.
Enlarging the “About” button and changing the size proved to stand out to users.
Our initial design concept featured a script font. The feedback we received was that it was hard to read. We shifted the logo concept to the existing Bonvoy typeface that is more recognizable to Marriott users and enlarged the lotus icon.
The second piece of feedback we received was that the size and color of the service buttons was hard to sift through. To this effect, we enlarged the buttons and made them the Flourish teal to match the home screen CTA “About” button. We also added custom icons to the buttons to make each service more easily distinguishable.
Final features
Amenity availability
Request wellness services
Local COVID-19 policies
Map of sanitization stations
Complete prototype
Final thoughts
Learnings
#1 Big challenges require out of the box thinking
In a time of uncertainty, the Flourish program's innovative approach provided an effective solution to address traveler's pain points and regain trust.
#2 Creative solutions require freedom to test and develop
By providing the freedom to develop a branding strategy and design concept, our team was able to create a comprehensive program that will successfully address traveler’s main concerns, increase customer satisfaction, all while setting Marriott apart as the premier hotel and brand.
Marriott Bonvoy's Flourish program highlights the importance of taking risks and being creative when tackling big challenges. The success of the program serves as a reminder that innovative solutions can provide significant benefits for both customers and businesses alike.