Challenge

With increasing competition and change in consumer habits Veena World wanted to mark its territory in their segment and chart a stronger direction by building a perfect customer journey.

Approach

To facilitate the ambition we reintroduced the company to the world as an aspirational, immersive, and systematic platform, to enhance customer dialogue online and build an adaptable, scalable and future-proof system.

Using customer journey to drive commerce

Once we aligned on priorities for the business, we started mapping the experience. Building an experience-map collaboratively helped everyone understand the importance of customer experience. My role was to understand the brand history with leaf design and build a site map with help of our director Mr. Sumit Patel. The site framework brought the brand to its audience in an experiential and unexpected way, similar to offline experiences. The ultimate aim was to keep the user informed at all contexts with transparency and clarity, speed up consumer dialogue and reduce offline interaction.

From UX to UI: a qualitative approach using design tiles

To help shape Veena World's digital language, we kicked off the with a series of style tiles.

I took a step with my team taking a multiple aesthetic approach, we worked with Veena World team closely to define how we wanted the brand to be perceived in the digital space. I conducted our first meeting in Veena world office with our Boards stating imageries and perception of brand in coming years.

The new brand had to be adaptive and flexible. Users would be led to the content, cutting needless diversions, while not oversimplifying the interface. To achieve the clean look and natural feel, a neutral color scheme was used, with complementing white and gray shades. Veena World’s signature yellow color helped highlight details combined along with cinematic visual imagery and light and big typography.

Celebrate life through travel

The home page inspired people to go out there and travel, express and enjoy. Scalability, dynamism and a flexible matrix allowed the client to publish relevant data. Attractive destination pictures using design cards, served as a tempting vocabulary while contextual navigation enabled discovery. With simplicity at the core of the user experience, the site came alive with rich content and delightful micro-interactions.

It’s an open world – keep searching for more

Vacation plans start with many parameters: location, time, budget or type of travel. Streamlining content about innumerable destinations, the site used the computational concept of Explore or Exploit to focus on helping users find what they’re looking for. By implementing utility to product listing pages, users could search by type of travel as well as traditional methods, such as destination and time. We enabled a thumbnail design that enables quick overview for easy decision points also caters all the business requirements. This approach helps users to curate and, importantly, it aligns them with the brand’s positioning, bringing their unique personality and point-of-view forward.

Elevating Product Experience

After understanding the offline product and information through first-hand interviews we came to a conclusion that major factor was how we present the product throughout the user journey from browsing to booking which is in line with the offline flow.

Easy decision points at the start helped choose between the different products shortlisted, by combining major chunks of data as in the overview section. A progressive disclosure segregated the information into sections that answered all questions, and also built deeper perceptions with real-time photos and experiences. This added credibility and enabled swifter decision-making.

Booking for ease and excitement, the path to purchase.

Group tours are based on fixed departure dates, and hence feature prominently on the website. The calendar was specially customised accordingly to just show the departure dates, and the data shown was fetched according to the relevant date. A seamless three-step booking process adds a substantial enhancement to the user experience. Allowing users to make an informed decision and book a tour anywhere in the world without a pause is an important part of completing their experience.

Stay connected with my account

One of the key properties of Group tours are that they are highly based on fixed departure dates, it was critical to show the data based on the date and even show all the departure dates.

As group tours being very date dependent we made sure the data shown was fetch according to the relevant date, and progressing towards more decision based points so as to when the user wants to compare.

Digital-first approach to branding

The website was rooted in real personality, and authentic opinions; while the brand kept it simple, but significant — strong typography, cinematic images, and a touch of sophistication. To make sure the tones were hitting the right notes a dreamy yet friendly tone of voice complemented the approach.

Design principles and guidelines helped communicate how to best represent the brand across channels. Together, it would steer all future UI design for the company, across multiple touchpoints, driving a digital transformation.

After delivering and rolling out the first product, the new platform generated multiple sub-verticals which were handled with same expertise as before.

At every step, only a consistent message and experience went through. As the brand evolves through several aspects, the site continues to expand and the platform continues to deliver.

The new website helped modernise Veena World but kept it firmly rooted to its legacy, maintaining the focus on community and making an already vibrant marketplace even more vibrant. The new veenaworld.com became the first of its kind travel operator to have a smooth online booking experience, whilst setting a benchmark in experiential e-commerce. It provided seamless and responsive interactions, showcasing the brand story and contextually promoting products, with strong SEO.

As with all things digital, Veena World’s marketing and product teams continue to ensure a consistent and smooth rollout, as the product continues to evolve and grow.

5X

ONLINE BOOKING

70%

MORE AVERAGE TIME SPENT

20+

NEW MARKET REACH