Eksenia

Background:

Eksenia is a PMS and Channel Manager. They provide software solutions for every type of property management in hospitality. Their mission is to use innovative technologies to minimize time spent on administrative everyday tasks.

I was brought in when there already was an MVP made that was used for testing. I came in as the sole designer and I had to go through the whole app and analyze what could be improved regarding UX and UI. Since this was my first time working on an app in this industry I had to do a lot of research.

Constraints:

• There was a very clear idea regarding the app users. The target users are less tech savvy, are used to working in programs like Excel and they are hesitant to learn new tools. We always had that in mind and tried to keep the UI and functioning familiar to those users. One of the founders is actually a user and that was super helpful during the entire project, because we could have a direct user perspective in every discussion.

• The other constraint was the deadline – two months. This, combined with the previous constraint, led me to develop design solutions that could easily be modified and used in various places in the app.

User flow for the web app

Task flow for the web app – Adding a new reservation

I developed the design system in parallel with working on the UX and UI design. There were a few revisions along the way since I didn’t have the full overview of the system needs before starting.

Eksenia already had a developed logo with the bold purple colour as the primary colour. I have used the logo as a base for developing the visual identity and the design system.

All of the navigation icons are custom designed.

Navigation elements for web and mobile.

Buttons and some of the other elements for navigation, tables and forms.

Cards and notifications for actions. Cards were used for the calendar screen.

Some of the input field states.

Dashboard

This is the first screen after login. Dashboard provides an overview for each property with current guests, latest booking, arrivals, departures and daily summary. Most of the 5 sections are built with tables, which are one of the core elements of the app. Some sections have additional functionalities, like check boxes and sorting.

Calendar

This was the most challenging screen to design because there were a lot of functionalities that could be added, but we also had to keep in mind the ease of use. This is the screen in which the users will do most of the work. Reservations, rates and closing of units could be edited or added via the calendar and it provides the best overview of vacancies and rates.

Modal/Forms

Every reservation, rate, guest or setting is designed with the same form elements. They are both created and edited in these forms. We did a lot of revisions trying to figure out the best layout of the input field, form sections and button placements. We needed forms to be easily modified and used as elements on different screens, but also on smaller devices.

There are some UX issues we couldn’t solve with the constraints we had, so we made some compromises. For example, all the steps (tabs) in these modals aren’t required but some validate the next, so the process isn’t seamless and every change has to be saved manually and every tab has to be opened manually.

Mobile

Android app was built a year after the web app. It is simplified and modified for mobile, but heavily based on the web app design.

After the web app was completed I also worked on a simple one-page website design.

Illustrations for the website.