Design Collaborators
Objective
We wanted to create a mobile app experience that empowered and informed guests before and during trips to our vacation rentals. In addition, we were betting that an app that enabled more self-service would reduce the load on our customer service and field teams.
While guests already had the ability to manage their trips and access vacation rental information via the web-based Trip Portal, this solution was proving to be less than ideal in context. Guests were likely to be away from their desktop computers during a trip, and were often traveling to areas that lacked a data connection.
What guests really needed was an on-the-go solution that would remain useful even in the most difficult of circumstances. A native app solution would also unlock functionality not possible with the web portal, such as keyless entry, auto-connect to WiFi, and contextual notifications/reminders.
Constraints / Challenges
Most of the executive team was skeptical of the need for a native mobile app, preferring instead to rely on a responsive web-app approach.
Vacasa had never produce a consumer-quality native app before, and we need to heavily adapt our legacy data and APIs.
We needed to quickly adapt to a distributed teams model, as our new mobile engineering team was based in Aukland, New Zealand.
Vacasa had a very challenging and political work culture at that time, which often made it difficult to see a project through to launch before it got killed in another restructure or turf war. We knew that we would have a very short window for success.
So much data…
There was a ton of available quantitative data of guest behavior and pain-points. (Vacasa was founded by financial analysts—they do love their data.) There were also plenty of qualitative insights from our CX and field teams. The challenge was synthesizing it all into a meaningful, actionable story. (I know this is always the challenge, but it was especially so for this project.)
We had a treasure trove of data to sift through from our customer service and field management teams. From here we were able to identify the primary pain points.
We combined CS, field, and legacy Trip Manager data to form a provisional guest journey map.
We mapped our quantitative data set against our qualitative findings from a combination of user interviews, surveys, and CS call recordings.
From there we narrowed it down to a manageable set of guest needs that we knew could be solved with a mobile app.
This allowed us to build out a list of feature requirements, and then triage those requirements from MVP to stretch goals.
Ideas ideas ideas…
What constitutes a 'wireframe'? I feel like we employed every possible answer to that question during this project. My co-lead Andrew and I both kept extensive sketch notes as the project goals and direction began to solidify. We shared and whiteboarded these explorations together, and in the process came up with some really interesting and unique methodologies for brainstorming how it might all come together. We then transformed those ideas into mid-fidelity wires and prototypes that we could test with users.
My early sketch notes. Starting with pen and paper helps me break out of my comfort patterns.
Andrew's tablet sketch notes were pretty amazing, and his illustrative style helped inspire our visual design.
We used sticky-note wireframing to help brainstorm IA, blocking, and layout patterns.
We then extrapolated our sticky wires into a set of mid-fidelity wires and user flows.
This enabled us to create a series of prototypes for early user testing and stakeholder validation.
Extendable component system
We had just updated the Vacasa design system the previous year during a major rebranding effort. However, the existing system would not translate well to native app design without some modifications and additions. The fact that this was such a greenfield, consumer-facing project also gave us some room to add some modern touches like natural shadows and a fully realized illustration system.
Modules & patterns
As the design system scaled up into patterns and templates, extensive variant and state documentation was required to ensure that engineers and future design teams would have a full understanding of the contextual relationships.
Trip page modules (blocks) and all of their possible states
Modality and states
User flows & interaction specs
We tested and documented virtually every user scenario we could come up with. This proved crucial in ensuring that our engineering team in Aukland had everything they needed to create an amazing experience in record time.
Authentication flows & sign in patterns
Guest management flow & state specs
Vacasa wins
Vacasa retrospective
I’m glad we…
Proved to the executive stakeholders that a native trip app was not only a viable solution but absolutely essential for a positive guest experience.
Built a strong MVP product from rough concept to launch in record time.
Met our primary objectives of increasing guest NPS and reducing the workload for our customer service and field teams.
Created a foundation component system that could be extended for new features.
I wish we'd…
There were a few crucial features that had to be scoped out of the project in order to meet our peek-season launch goals. I don't know if any of those features were added later.
The aesthetics of the Vacasa app have been radically toned down and simplified since we first launched it. I feel like this has robbed the experience of personality, but then again looking back I think our more 'fun' approach might've been a miscalculation. Our design team was constantly trying to push a very straight-laced, almost B2B company to be more consumer-first, and that just wasn't the reality of the situation.
