Booking platform
Unique monastery accomodation
- UX Design
- UI Design
Duration: 6-8 weeks
Timeline: May 2019 - June 2019
PM & Report: Slack, Gmail, Skype, Trello.
About Monastays
In addition to booking elements, Monastays offers a system for organizing reservations and marketing services tailored to target countries, markets and groups, thus connecting communities, churches, tourists.
As the only providers of religious tourism in this way, the Monastays team wants to connect all stakeholders, map processes and solve problems that most tourists, but also tourism professionals and stakeholders encounter in the processes of selling, searching, selecting and booking accommodation.
Challenges
Early vision and goal
The development of (Croatian) tourism requires far more than "sun and sea". The tourism industry seeks to keep up with changes in the market where guests are becoming more diverse and demanding in terms of content and experience. After a long domination of hotels and resorts in some past decades, individually tailored and adventurous experiences are gaining more and more importance with an increasing number of tourists.
Experiences and target groups
Providing experiences related to local culture is an increasingly important component of a successful tourism story. Since religion is an inseparable part of culture, it can serve as a motivation for tourist believers to experience the locality through (common) faith and relax spiritually and physically. Target groups are people that does not prefer beach parties, extreme sports or expensive resorts, but strives for the quietest possible type of vacation that would allow them to more easily recharge their batteries from increasingly complex and exhausting everyday life.
Research phase
Starting by uncovering needs through workflow research
Primary users of the Monastays platform are people (believers) who are in search of quietest possible type of vacation that would allow them to easily recharge their batteries used out in an increasingly complex and exhausting everyday life. This enabled us to map out their workflow, and detect what they care for. Insights gathered in this research were used to create a feature list and a production plan for the new platform.
Progress
Simplifying processes without limiting users
Design screens needed to be clean, usable and enjoyable to the end users. After mapping out structure and workflow, we sketched rough wireframes. Throughout the project we had a weekly meetings where the client could monitor the progress. There was a a lot of revision, balancing between stakeholders vision and metrics gathered in user research. Regular communication with client kept them involved in the process from the beginning, as well gaining ther trust in good outcome.
Filter options and importance of it
Have access to everything but focus only on one thing at the time.
Initially, I’ve designed two versions for filtering options. Goal was to have all filters accessible at glance. Also, big priority was to show/hide map area per user’s preferences.
Final process
Personal information & payment
We had few variations of the payment process. After runing a few test, we came to the conclusion that we should enable users freedom of booking trough app without login / register. That’s the main reason why on final booking steps we simple two step form and confirmation.
"Franka worked on numerous projects with us. Every time perfectly and within the time frame. Her feedback is honest and she definitely brought added value to all projects. I always prefer to work with her, since we have built a good business relationship over the years. Personally, I am always amazed at how much is she investing in herself. Franka is a rare mix of talent, productivity and ambition. Coffee with her is always a pleasure."
CEO of CodeIn Consulting & Monastays
