Walter's Hospitality
Walter's Hospitality is an event-management company that organises a wide range of events. They work closely with outside vendors like florists, caterers, and photographers, and also manage complex internal planning and money matters.
- Role
- Product Designer
- Duration
- 12+ months
- Industry
- Hospitality, Event Mgmt
- Team size
- 12
Role
Product Designer
Duration
12+ Month Project
Industry
Hospitality, Event Management
Team size
12
Challenge
Before this project, Walter's Hospitality struggled with old ways of working. They used spreadsheets, emails, and paper, which caused a lot of back-and-forth. Information was scattered, different teams couldn't easily share updates, and many tasks had to be done by hand.
Results
The most immediate and important benefit of the new platform is the expected reduction in time spent on manual tasks.
My Responsibilities
As the Product Designer for this project, which lasted 12+ months, I took ownership of key parts of the design process. My main responsibilities included leading the user research, driving the ideation phase, and creating the complete UI design for the new event management platform.
Challenge
Walter's Hospitality faced several big problems that slowed them down and affected client happiness. A major issue was their messy and inconsistent way of managing vendors. This caused delays in event planning and led to different experiences for clients. I learned how their 4 major meeting plan works.
Key findings showed that a single solution wouldn't work for all vendors. The floral vendor with pre-designed packages didn't need extensive inventory fields, while the custom floral vendor desperately did.
Design Decisions
I conducted one-on-one interviews with Walter's event planners, administrative staff, and key vendors. To handle the varied ways different vendors work (florists, caterers, photographers), I created a modular vendor profile system. This design allowed each vendor type to set up its specific data fields, services, and communication methods.
Synthesizing Complex Information
To turn the large amount of information from interviews and research into clear insights, Miro was an essential tool. This digital whiteboard helped us organise raw observations into meaningful conclusions.
CRM, Multi-user profile management
I created an end-to-end flow for each user and showed prototypes to each vendor by letting them use their own portal. This is an extensive platform where I dug deep into each use case and curated a personalised experience for every user, including admin, staff, and all vendors.
Reports
After identifying the major things the analytics team wanted to track, I created a reports page that shows revenues and packages.
Conclusion
Working on Walter's Hospitality's platform taught me a lot about complex enterprise design. A key learning was how to handle and bring together conflicting needs from different teams. This experience showed me that good product design in complex settings needs strong communication and the ability to build agreement, not just technical skills.
Potential Next Steps
- Advanced Analytics & Reporting
- Mobile App for Event Day Management
- Integration with Event Tools
- AI-Powered Features
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