Serenity Lounge
The physical and digital demands of travel can leave guests feeling exhausted and overwhelmed upon arrival to the hotel lobby. Our lobby's personalized and effortless experience is designed to create a calming oasis where guests can begin to relax and unwind.
Time Frame:
January - March 2023
Team:
Teddy Koutsoftas, Hannah Fralick, Lila Ward, Haley Gruensfelder
Role:
Need Finding, User Research, UX/UI Design
Skills/ Tools:
UX Research, Sketching, InDesign, Figma
Setting the Scene
For both guests and employees, the check-in process can be stressful for many reasons.
Before even entering the hotel, guests have used a plethora of phone applications, so we wanted to design a product that gave guests a break from their phones.
Research
For our initial research, we visited 6 hotels throughout Atlanta’s downtown area. We interviewed 10+ guests and employees to understand their experiences and understand where pain points in the lobby may lie.
We visited hotels that were diverse in terms of price point in order to understand how different types of hotels operate and how the guest’s experiences differ.
Concepts
After our initial research we developed concepts focusing on personalization and relaxation.
User Testing
With the initial concepts finalized, we were able to test and analyze our ideas to figure out what was working and reveal issues we hadn’t thought about.
We tested both an informative screen that users couldn't interact with and an interactive screen. People were confused by a screen you couldn't interact with and said things like “I want to touch it” and “Am I just supposed to sit here?”
Our interactive screen tested much better and we were able to learn what features users liked and disliked and what we could do to improve it.
Our interactive screen tested much better and we were able to learn what features users liked and disliked and what we could do to improve it.
Since collecting and using user information was a big part of the lounge, we wanted to map existing examples of utilizing user information to understand why this can seem creepy and where we want our product to be.
Insights
By analyzing our research, we boiled down everything down into three main insights.
The Final Experience
Interactive Screen
Welcome Page
When guests arrive to the table they are greeted with a personalized message and a slideshow that cycles through acticities.
City Information
If guests decide to explore activities further, the screen will turn into an exploring mode and allow them to scroll through activities in the city.
Hotel Information
Guests also have an option to explore activities within the hotel. We found that guests usually will come in with knowledge about the city, but are often unaware of what the hotel has. Here, hotel activities are easily accessible.
Drink Order
One of the highest-rated features, ordering a drink, allows guests to request a drink without having to call over an employee.
Room Settings
In the room settings tab, guests can directly change the temperature of their room, the amount of lighting, and safe code. If their room is changed or upgraded their settings will be transferred to the new room.
