Project Overview
Dream Journey, a tourism company aiming to modernize its digital presence, approached me to completely redesign their customer-facing platform—a comprehensive travel and vacation hub. The project’s goal was to streamline the user journey from discovery to booking, enabling users to explore tours, reserve packages, and manage every part of their travel experience online.
The platform needed to accommodate a wide range of travel segments including family holidays, solo adventures, and couples getaways—while also supporting backend features like user dashboards, refunds, and support ticketing. One of the most user-centric features was the “Reserve Now, Pay Later” capability, requiring trust, transparency, and clear user guidance throughout the booking flow.
Key Objectives
- Redesign the website to reflect modern UI/UX standards.
- Improve the conversion flow for bookings and reservations.
- Develop a scalable design system for all digital products.
- Introduce a personalized user dashboard for tracking trips, refunds, and vouchers.
- Create an educational section for travel tips and safety content.
My Role & Contribution
I was engaged as the lead UX/UI Design Consultant, collaborating directly with the founder, marketing leads, and a development partner. My responsibilities spanned across research, design strategy, system architecture, interface design, and cross-platform scalability.
- Conducted stakeholder interviews to align on business goals and conversion KPIs.
- Ran a competitive benchmarking exercise to study top-performing travel platforms.
- Designed and conducted user research using a mix of surveys and moderated interviews to understand; Booking behaviors, Pain points in cancellations/refunds, Content expectations for trip planning.
- Created detailed personas reflecting different user types (e.g., family planner, solo traveler, travel enthusiast).
- Mapped the full customer journey, from awareness to booking to post-travel follow-up.
- Identified key experience opportunities to; Reduce friction in booking and payment, Emphasize clarity around trip details and refund eligibility, Foster trust through transparent, supportive content
- Designed user flows for critical journeys like; Reserve Now, Pay Later, Managing upcoming and past trips, Submitting support or refund requests Downloading tour vouchers and receipts.
- Overhauled the website structure for ease of exploration—segmenting tours by type (family, couples, solo) and purpose (relaxation, adventure, cultural).
- Designed mobile-first wireframes and progressive enhancements for desktop views.
- Integrated smart filtering and recommendation logic to help users discover tailored trips.
- Developed a centralized design system in Figma using Atomic Design methodology to ensure consistent UI components across all screens.
- Created a modular, scalable system with; Buttons, form fields, badges, and banners, Responsive layout grids, Color tokens and typography scales.
- The design system became the single source of truth for developers and marketers across the Dream Journey digital ecosystem.
- Facilitated UX workshops with stakeholders and cross-functional teams to validate design decisions and test flows.
- Delivered high-fidelity prototypes and interactive walkthroughs for critical journeys (e.g., tour discovery, checkout, dashboard management).
- Supported the development team during implementation with specs, assets, and UI QA.
Key Features Delivered
- Tour Discovery Engine with filterable categories (destination, group type, season).
- Reserve Now, Pay Later booking logic with status tracking.
- Personalized User Area with access to; Upcoming and completed trips, Voucher downloads and ticket management, Refund and support request tracking.
- Educational Travel Tips Section to guide users on pre-trip planning and safety.
- Fully responsive design system adopted across mobile and desktop.
Impact & Outcome
- Increased user engagement with a noticeable reduction in drop-offs during the booking process.
- Faster go-to-market for new campaigns thanks to reusable components from the design system.
- Enhanced brand trust and user satisfaction, with more users completing their journey from exploration to reservation.
- Post-launch analytics revealed improved support deflection rates, as users were better equipped to self-manage travel changes.
Reflection
This project was a perfect balance between experience design, UI consistency, and business enablement. Dream Journey’s transformation into a digitally-savvy tourism hub reflects how thoughtful UX and a robust design system can align product strategy with real user needs. The modular foundation laid here ensures scalability across future products—be it mobile apps, kiosk interfaces, or email marketing.