Folio Travel
My Role
UX Designer
Lead UI
Conducted user interviews
Timeline
4 Weeks
Product type
Mobile Web
Team
3 UX Designers
OVERVIEW 📚
What are digital guidebooks?
More short-term rental hosts and property managers are offering their spaces to guests and providing them with digital information guidebooks that include property rules, check-in procedures, and local recommendations.
And so, It is essential for hosts to be able to edit all the information they want their guests to know in those guidebooks without having to go through emailing and waiting to ask the website owner to do it for them.
OUR CLIENT 💼
Folio Travel is a startup that helps hotels and short-term rentals deliver 5-star hospitality by providing their guests with stylish digital guidebooks with curated property information and personalized recommendations.
Folio Travel Supports 170+ Listings Across:
PROBLEM 💭
Hosts aren't able to automatically set up guidebooks, or make edits to them once they are created.
Folio's Travel's current way of making digital guidebooks:
Hosts share their property details with Folio.
Folio builds the guidebook ( This takes up to a week).
Then when the guidebook is ready, hosts will be provided a link that is ready to share with guests.
SOLUTION💡
Giving hosts the power to personalize guidebooks
A mobile website made specifically for hosts to create and edit their guidebooks with style, on the go, without having to email someone and wait long.
Share property information with your guests.
You can add property information and details to your guidebooks and save them as a draft to continue working on them later.
Create and style guidebooks.
Create your own account and create new guidebooks anytime!
Add recommendations & see analytics.
You can add your favorite recommendations, Edit guidebook designs, and download usage analytics!
UX PROCESS 🛠
WHAT OUR CLIENT TOLD US 💬
Hosts want to manage their guidebooks
Our client mentioned that they keep getting emails and feedback from their customers on how they wish to create their own guidebooks and they find the current way of Folio making guidebooks frustrating due to the fact that they can't change or add anything once they are made. This is all done manually through calls and emails.
Almost all email requests to Folio are followed by..“or CAN WE do this ourselves?"
USER INTERVIEWS 📝
Empathizing and understanding current users
We wanted to hear the customer's point of view. Prior to our research, our client was able to provide us with a list of 11 diverse hosts who’ve consented to be a part of the UX interviewing and testing process. With these interviews, we wanted to dive deep into the hosting world and understand what it’s like to be a host using Folio.
After completing all the interviews, we noticed what was mentioned by our client was true.
Most of the interviewees needed to constantly add information and updates to their guidebooks but doing that seemed very frustrating as they had to go through many calls and emails to do so.
View the full interview discussion guide here.
AFFINITY MAPPING 📌
Synthesizing our findings
Next, our team made an Affinity diagram to synthesize all the interview notes leading to a couple of useful insights that would help lead the direction of this project.
AFFINITY MAP TRENDS:
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We did hear from our interviews that they want a platform where they have everything in one place including their guidebooks, accounts, and billing.
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Hosts want the ability to create, edit and personalize their guidebooks autonomously anytime.
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Hosts mentioned that it would be very helpful if they can add their favorite recommendations and be able to see how many guests download their guidebooks.
DESIGN WORKSHOP ✍🏻
Ideating solutions
After knowing our user’s needs, we went on to ideating by running a collaborative Design Studio session with all our team members and our client. We all rapidly sketched out initial screens and ideas then narrowed them down to a few final ones that we all agreed on.
By doing a Design Studio, we were able to engage with our clients and understand their vision more clearly. This session helped us come up with helpful ideas and our client enjoyed being part of the process.
TESTING & ITERATIONS 📲
Designing the right thing
We created Mid-Fidelity wireframes and prototypes that were set out for testing on 7 users. And based on the feedback we got from both the users and client, we did some iterations and improvements.
1. Improving the Home screen layout
We got feedback from our client that they would prefer if Hosts can find all they need most on the home screen such as:
New guidebook option
Drafts
Pending guidebooks
All guidebooks
2. Improving Navigation
We Also added:
A hamburger menu with additional options
And a search guidebook option on the home screen
3. Improving Payment screen
We noticed more options were needed when it comes to the checkout process. So I added these options:
Preview guidebook before publishing.
Save as Draft for later.
Edit guidebook before publishing
And I also made the payment options in the form of 2 buttons
HIGH FIDELITY SCREENS✨
The final design
After implementing improvements and getting the designs approved by our client, I was responsible for creating a high-fidelity prototype. I created this by following Folio Travel's current design system and style guide.
STYLE GUIDE 🖼
A warm and cozy design
CONCLUSION 📖
Moving forward...
The Folio Travel design we did has been handed off to the engineering team and we are working with them to make it go live soon. If we had more time to complete this project, here are some things we would like to add:
Mid-stay pulse check: Adding an automatic message for hosts to check in with guests in their MId-stay would be a good addition to making guests feel welcomed during their stay.
Host videos: In many user interviews, we’ve heard from users mentioning that they would like an option to upload videos in their guidebooks.
Process length warning: Adding a warning message about the length of the process before creating a new guidebook.
“We love making our guests feel at home when staying at our space. Our guest guide helps us add that personal touch in a modern way and get those 5-star reviews.”
— Melinda & Matilda
REFLECTION 💌
It worked!
I’m very proud of the work our team did for Folio. This project allowed me to utilize my skills in research, collaborative communications, and strategic design thinking to deliver solutions that meet business goals.
This experience working alongside Folio allowed me to sharpen my toolkit as a Designer and continue developing my abilities around mapping out ways to enhance the user journey.