Proof

The Social Tourism Experience

A ground-up redesign of San Antonio's travel and tourism website offered a wealth of opportunity for innovation and improvement. Extensive User Experience and Architectural studies were done to determine the most innovative ways of approaching tourism, facilitating a social experience surrounding the activity of planning your next trip to San Antonio.

  • Scroll to view the landing page of VisitSanAntonio.com

The goal was not only to provide Users what they'd expect to find from a typical tourism website, but also delight them with abilities to plan, favorite and manage trips and activities. On top of that, I introduced a social layer, encouraging Users to share their trip plans, enticing others to join in on the fun in San Antonio.

  • Scroll to view a detail page of the Browse & Book experience

As the Lead Digital Art Director, I worked rapidly through the UX and IA process, plotting out a robust architecture. I served as the UX Designer, Visual Designer, Art Director and liaison to the Front End Development Team - guiding the experience into development.

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Full project walk-through:

Architecture and Prototyping

  • I used both rapid forms of prototyping - sketching, shown here - and Axure to work through the architecture of this enourmous web platform.

The landing page

  • As with any major website, competition for homepage realestate from various facets of the business was tough, but in the end I created an experience that met both the needs of San Antonio and more importantly, visitors seeking to plan their trip to the city.

    Right away, visuals from the City pull you in. First and foremost, the goal was to encourage users to book experiences, and plan a trip to San Antonio. One of the first UI elements they encounter as they progress down the page is a Trip Planner. Setting the dates here would affect the rest of their personalized experience, as the site could then cater options towards their actual travel window.

    The site was also personalized around their social profile and preferences contained within the site - intelligently offering recommendations on where to go and what to see in San Antonio based on the user themselves.

Critical Experience Views

  • Visual Design that incoporated aesthetics of Texas and its culture

    To truly represent San Antonio and what it has to offer, I shaped a design that incorporated various flourishes and elements reminiscent of Texas and its culture. The colors were limited but bright, and soft, and warm. Overall, the City Pictures were allowed to shine, while supported by an airy and welcoming User Interface.

    Detail of active, relative data

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    Browse & Book experience

    Browse and Book was perhaps the most important portion of the site. I examined and researched patterns of filtering and sorting to ensure the experience was easy and intuitive, on all devices.

    Trip configuration pattern detail

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    Example details of progressive education across the UX

    Important to any interactive experience is the educational layer. I took careful consideration to supply the user with notifications that felt relative and timely, keeping them engaged by helping inform about things they could do and actions completed.

    All of the Browse and Book system lead the user towards building an itinerary, seen on the right. Their trips could also be easily shared with other friends, encouraging more and more Users to hopefully travel to San Antonio.

    Detail of adding an item to the Itinerary

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    Mobile views of the Browse & Book flow

    The mobile experience across the site was critical. Here, the Browse and Book flow can be seen. Using and utilizing best practices and current patterns, I created a focused experience that presented informtation clearly and simply with the easy ability to drill down for more.

Style and Design System

  • One of the later steps, I created a robust style guide and design language system to support the development team. Consistency, space and rhythm are core tenants of how I ground a design system, ensuring these things are taken into account properly as development goes underway is paramount.