The Challenge
DeluxPark Motel had a beloved-but-tired product. Loyal users loved it, but it had stopped converting new ones. The team had a quarter to ship a meaningful refresh without breaking the existing experience or scaring off long-time customers.
The Approach
I spent the first two weeks doing nothing but interviews — eight power users, four lapsed users, and the full support team. The actual problem turned out not to be the design system. It was that the most-used screen had grown three new features in two years and become impossible to scan.
From there, we worked in week-long sprints: one big idea per week, prototyped end-to-end, tested with five users, kept or binned. Eleven weeks, six sprints, three big bets.
The Result
We shipped on time and slightly under budget. Activation went up 38%, support tickets about the screen we redesigned dropped 60%, and — the metric I'm proudest of — every long-time user we tested with said it ‘felt the same, just better’.
