WIRELESS ROOMS
Project Research / Branding / App Design
Empathise
The idea for Wireless Rooms started as an answer to a question as all the best ideas do. While travelling the company CEO was having a meal with a hotel owner and they discussed the day-to-day struggles of the hospitality industry. "How do we improve the hotels day-to-day and make more money?". The initial concept was born of an in-room tablet that could easily connect guests with the hotel, remotely, digitally, and provide 2-way messaging saving both the guests and staff time.
After this initial conversation, the Covid pandemic hit the hospitality industry hard finically. This lead to lower staff numbers followed by high occupancy rates due to the borders being closed. With dated, expensive and time-consuming processes the hospitality industry requires a revamp from a product that utilises modern technology.
Define
During our initial research, we identified our target personas so we could better define our goals. The primary user of the product was the guest, our primary persona was the hotel owner/manager. These two personas are closely linked but still have very different motivations and hesitations that need to be addressed by the product. Also, by not meeting the needs of our primary persona the hotel owner/manager, the secondary persona wouldn't be relevant as the product probably wouldn't be purchased.
After identifying the needs of our personas we decided on the primary goals of the project. This was we could priorities the development of features that ticked most of the goals. The Wireless Rooms primary goals are the following:
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Increase Incremental Revenue
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Reduced Operating Costs
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Improved Guest Satisfaction Scores
These goals have been designed to cater to the dual persona's and their values. The secondary persona is catered to by point 3 however, the primary persona is catered to by all 3.
Ideate
To begin the third stage we had to define what was required for the end product. For the hotel/manager/staff a portal for managing content and messaging would be required. The guests would require an easy to use and intuitive app combined with a dockable tablet. Outside of the end product a brand and a website would also be required to sell the product.
We then created user flows to define a minimal viable product that would become the base to build on. The user flows targeted the goals of our persona to make sure time was dedicated to the appropriate areas of design and development.
Prototype
An initial proof-of-concept prototype was created to sell the idea to our first client. This first client would be important as they would be a testing ground for the product and needed to see the product had potential.
Although the early concept was well-received it became clear there were limitations to the design. A new concept was then fleshed out fully utilising XD's high-fidelity prototypes. This could then for the first time be experienced as a final product for the first time on a tablet. Due to all interactions before being done through a desktop computer using a mouse new amends were discovered.
Test
Once we had agreed on a final prototype of the product was developed ready for our test hotel. We did experience some teething issues with the hardware due to the power going off in rooms when people left however, implementing the solution was a quick and easy process.
Feedback from the staff and guests from our early prototypes has been positive. This feedback has provided us with valuable insights for future development.
"Wireless Rooms helped us by improving efficiency both in terms of reducing call volumes and increasing room service orders, but also saving staff time."
Olly Shepherd - General Manager
Our testing and the depth of this project lead us to a non-linear process where we will continually learn, test and ideate. Our future goals are to provide more reporting, insights and questionnaires so we learn how the tablets are used. We can then better cater to our personas once we have gained insights into their likes and disliked.