Deem + Apple Travel
Deem + Apple Travel
Project: Etta + Apple Travel
Role: Product Design Director & Lead
Dates: June 2020 - Dec 2020
Responsibilities:
Design Strategy & Leadership
Research
Journey/Experience Mapping
Information Architecture
Concepts & Prototyping
Stakeholder Management
Presentations
Overview
Challenge: My primary responsibility was to figure out how to integrate the new Etta branding into a new Deem app project already under construction, all while combining the needs of Apple, one of the largest companies and travel bookers in the world, for their white-label corporate travel app.
Solution: By incorporating new app navigation, page layouts, headless CMS, and a new app templating system for typography, iconography, color, and imagery, we were able to adhere to the new Etta brand identity and enable a modular UI to support requirements from Apple and future customers.
Outcome: After several months of research, discovery, planning, design, and iterations with internal and Apple teams, the Deem travel app, with new Etta branding, and Apple white-label app, launched together in February 2021. As planned, Apple has been able to add several custom modular features while Etta has kept its strong brand/UI identity intact.
Research & Planning
Gaining Clarity:
Mapping out the traveler journey to highlight touchpoints, needs, and existing solutions prior to and after the travel booking process.
Auditing Apple's vast usage of UI patterns, layouts, and styles in order to identify points of overlap between their components and the ones we'd need for the travel application that could work within our brand language.
Working with the Apple IS&T team through multiple sessions to map out the app architecture, pages, and features in comparison to other consumer and corporate travel applications.
Design and Prototyping
Exploring Concepts: We went through a large number of layouts and concepts for every page and component of the app, many based on Apple UI patterns. We integrated a headless CMS and digital asset management tool, allowing us to separate content between companies and allow each customer to integrate their own branding through imagery, colors, iconography, and fonts. The News and Support sections were completely driven by the CMS and customizable by each company.
Results & Final Outcomes
Having Apple as our customer caused lots of internal debate between what concessions should be made for Apple and what might be considered positive or negative outcomes for the thousands of other customers we had on the platform.
Once we made our architectural changes, Apple’s contract allowed them to add custom modules and features in their own binary that we would never build independently. The back and forth with their internal stakeholders was a great experience for me and the team, consistently pitching, iterating, and negotiating to arrive at a design that made everyone happy in the end...most importantly business travelers.
