Recurring Reservations
OVERVIEW
Proximity helps coworking space owners easily manage their space. One of the features they offer allows coworking space members to book conference rooms. Using their feedback site, Proximity determined that users wanted the ability to create repeating reservations through the software. This quickly became their most requested feature, and thus, a high priority. A redesign of the booking process along with the added ability to create recurring reservations, helped make the site more intuitive, increase revenue, and reduce the amount of support requests.
ROLE
UX Designer
CLIENT
Proximity Space, Inc.
CAPABILITIES
UX Design
UI Design
Interaction Design
Information Architecture
User Flows
Feature Testing
COMPANY
PROXIMITY SPACE, INC.
Proximity was founded in 2017 with the mission to connect the mobile workforce through a growing network of independent coworking spaces. They help hundreds of space owners and managers simplify logistics and more easily manage door access, billing, conference room booking, events, and guest visits. In addition, Proximity also helps entrepreneurs, remote workers, and digital nomads access coworking spaces where they’ll find a supportive and like-minded community. They’re a people company that happens to create software for coworking spaces.
COWORKING
What is coworking you ask?
Coworking is the new way of working and sharing. It’s not just about sharing a building and cost, it is about belonging to a community. Think of it as a gym membership for office space. Coworking spaces are designed to provide a productive and collaborative environment for their members and are created without corporate constraints on what is perceived to be a traditional office environment. Members are able to work alongside other professionals without being a part of the same company. This creates communities and fosters network growth.
THE PROCESS
GOALS
Proximity’s users are coworking space owners, managers, and members. They use the software to reserve conference rooms and other reservable resources daily. This allows them to conduct meetings and host events. The original feature, however, was missing the ability to reserve resources repeatedly without creating multiple reservations. We called this Recurring Reservations. The goal of Recurring Reservations is to make the user’s life easier by eliminating the need to create a new booking for each reservation.
OLD BOOKING PROCESS
SIMPLIFIED USER FLOW
Along with adding the ability to create recurring reservations, a more refined user flow was needed so that users could focus on one important piece of information at a time. I redesigned the booking process and introduced a multi-step solution that would handle both recurring and non-recurring reservations in a simpler, more effective way.
NEW BOOKING PROCESS
STEP 1
STEP 2
STEP 3
BETTER EXPERIENCE
With no clear breakdown of price and many options all on the same hierarchy, creating a reservation was confusing and overwhelming. It was difficult for users to feel confident moving through the booking process, therefore adding additional options to this layout would only confuse users more. A new layout combined with a multiple step process helps the user focus on one task at a time and prevents them from feeling overwhelmed with content.
TAKEAWAYS
The original plan was to get the feature and functionality out as quick as possible and then iterate and improve the booking process all together in round two. This approach ensured that the added feature would be released quickly, but it was not the best experience users could have. It was quickly realized that along with the added feature, we needed to improve the experience and interface of the overall booking process. It was important for us to rework the existing feature before adding new functionality so as to not overwhelm users in the release of the new feature and the improved process later on.