Gibson Hotel Breakfast

I began the project by working with the hotel owner to determine the application's features and requirements. We didn't know every requirement the application needed at the time, so we defined some high-level objectives to guide the process.

From our discussions, I iterated on hand-drawn wireframes and site maps to experiment with the optimal layout and structure of the application. I then took my best designs and created some mockups in Figma to present to the hotel owner. After we finalized the structure of the application, I began implementation.

I built the application using modern web technologies, managing my development tasks using an agile model. After each significant stage of development, I reviewed the application with the hotel owner to receive feedback and refine details. I also conducted informal usability tests to determine whether the application met my target.

Before the application was released, I wrote a user guide and provided comprehensive documentation on how to use each feature. The application was released once it had been thoroughly tested for bugs.

Once the hotel employees had been using the application for a few weeks, I had a follow-up meeting with the front desk manager to determine if the application lacked any features or if specific processes weren't working as efficiently as hoped. From this meeting, I made some minor tweaks to adapt the application to follow the hotel's process more closely, as well as provide analytics dashboards for them to track ordering trends.

Iteration was common throughout this project, which forced me to constantly rethink my designs and structure my code to be more modular and maintainable. When building a product with the user as the focus, you can always do more to provide a better experience. Given this project's time constraints and resource limitations, this challenge helped me find new ways to ensure a good user experience and meet project deadlines.

Given my unique role as a designer and developer, I built my designs without implementation in mind to ensure I didn't limit myself in thinking of the best user experience possible. Once I got to implementation, I realized that almost any user experience is possible as long as you have the right tools and determination to overcome the complexities of the software. Having both roles ensured my designs were implemented as I had intended.

A big challenge during this project was ensuring the application users had the training they needed to succeed. Hotels turn over staff frequently, so the application needed to be simple enough to pick up and use immediately, but still have the features to perform all required functions. I learned a lot about how to strike a balance between providing the functionality and simplicity required by both a new and intermediate user of the application. To help aid the learning curve, I added a help navigation item linked to the documentation that stepped a user through each feature as they needed to use it.

Instead of using paper forms, an interactive and visually appealing interface improved the guest ordering experience and data.

Instead of manually aggregating all guest order quantities into one order to the bakery, the application automatically generated an Excel sheet to email to the bakery that did all of the number crunching for them. Hours saved, and errors avoided.

If a guest has any concerns or exceptional circumstances, this can be communicated when the order is placed and highlighted to the employee when the order is delivered. This ensures each guest gets a custom and positive experience.

A big issue the hotel had was understanding how much extra food to order to prepare for days the bakery is closed. A custom analytics dashboard provided the front-desk manager insight into the most popular items to order extra to ensure the high-quality breakfast experience is maintained, regardless of the bakery's closing.

Before the app was created, the hotel needed an effective system for managing breakfast inventory. Now, all of the inventory is handled for them through the app through a simple daily inventory check to ensure the hotel has the food it needs to provide breakfast to guests.