PAS Concierge is a travel agency that provides seamless travel experiences to their clients. As the company is growing they felt that the time had come to create a brand and an online presence. PAS believe that personal connection with clients is one of the most important parts of running a business. They aim to give each client top quality, reliable and most of all individually catered service.

PAS Concierge

Create a brand and an online presence for a travel agent.

Project overview

Brief

My role in this project was to create a brand that perfectly represented the company. Once the brand was created, I could create an accessible, responsive and informative website. I also had to tackle the challenge of creating an online presence without losing the human touch, that they value so much at PAS.

Duration: Two months
Role: End- to end UX/UI Designer
Team: Self directed
Tools: Figma

Problem statement

How might we build an online presence for PAS concierge, while maintaining human interaction via the phone? In addition, how might we create a brand for PAS that clearly reflects who they are as a company?

Gathering requirements from client

The process

Desk research

I carried out desk research, it was important to see what the travel agent market is currently like, who their competitors were and if this field was still popular and if not why.

The most common question I found when doing research about travel agents in 2023 is if they are still relevant. Are people still using travel agents? Before building a website, it was important to find out why travel agents are still valuable, and find a ways to integrate that into the website. When were people most likely to use travel agents? For what sort of trips? Which audience is this business aimed at?

Findings

Secondary research

For the secondary research I carried out competitive analysis. While at this stage PAS don’t need an extensive website, it was good to look into other travel agent websites and see what would be good to integrate or avoid.

Problem

Travelers still seek the advice and services of travel agents, and the importance of human interaction needs to be taken into account. While PAS recognize having a website is crucial they don't want everything to be done online and completely lose human connection.

In addition, as PAS grows they need to create a brand they can be recognized by.

Solution

1) To build a responsive website for PAS with emphasis on the personal client experience. The website will be a place for clients to find all the necessary information to contact PAS, learn more about who they are and what they do but anything in regards to booking travel they will need to schedule a phone call to ensure that there’s human interaction.

2) Create a brand that represents them as a company, as well as the clientele they work with.

Personas

Goals

Business goals:

  • Have a website for the business for clients to find all their information on

  • Clients can schedule calls on the website

  • Eventually down the line, have all clients have their own login, all their personal travel updates will appear in their profile making sure no information gets lost and that there is a safe place where all data is stored

  • Eventually incorporate payment solutions

User goals:

  • Find contact information and schedule calls easily

  • At a later stage be able to track trip history, trip updates and so on

  • At a later stage pay for trip via link on the website

Technical goals:

  • Make sure the website is responsive

  • Ensure the website was abides by accessibility guidelines

  • Integrate a live calendar to book calls which will be updated as each call is scheduled to ensure no overlap

Flows

Brainstorming potential ideas

When discussing with the client features they wanted to include, I came up with some ideas.

  1. Adding a person account page, for the client to be able to track their flights, payments and any other relevant personal information.

  2. Having a payment process directly on the website.

  3. Add some client reviews

  4. FAQ section

Due to time constraint, as the client wanted the website to be up and running as soon as possible, we weren’t able to implement all these ideas. But the client actually thought they would be very beneficial and was open to revisiting this later down the line.

Wireframes

Desktop

Mobile

I began the design stage by focusing on the branding of the company. When I met with the client I asked for five words that would best describe PAS, and I wanted to base the brand identity on that. I sketched out 6 options and presented them to the client, and asked them to select which one they wanted to use.

Branding

Once they selected which logo they liked, I presented them with UI kit options. It was important to remember their audience, they cliental varies but they aim to attract people who want a high quality service. It was important that their brand reflected that clearly.

Another very important element that was taken into account was accessibility, while a high percentage of their clients are older, they are more likely to have visual impairments. So, I wanted to make sure the font wouldn’t blend in a be difficult to decipher.

Blues are often associated with calm and tranquility, while beige/sand color is known to be neuatral, and relaxing. Hence, given the audience I was designing for and the goal of the website, those were the colors I leaned towards.

After discussing with the client, they wanted to stick with only blues and greys, they also preferred sharp edges on the buttons. Here is the final UI Kit:

High fidelity prototypes

Thought process

When designing this website there were a couple design principles I made sure to implement.

  • Contrast: When I chose the colors, I knew it was crucial to make sure there was enough contrast so the text, and buttons stand out clearly.

  • Alignment: All the elements are consistently aligned.

  • Proximity: Making sure all the elements are perfectly spaced, so it’s clear to the user when object belong together.

Accessibility

When designing this website, one of the most important things to keep in mind was accessibility. The client had mentioned that his cliental were generally older than fifty, which meant that when creating the website it was crucial that I kept accessibility in mind.

Some of the things I did to make sure the website was accessible:

  1. I chose a clear font, that can be resized for those with visual impairments.

  2. I made sure the website as a whole was kept simple, and consistent throughout.

  3. I made sure the colors I chose didn’t clash, or make the font hard to read.

  4. I added Alt Text to the images throughout the website.

Closing thoughts

Project reflections

As the project came to a close, I feel confident that I created a design that provided a solution for the problem. I created a brand reflects the professional services they offer, with the calming neutral blues and sleek simple logo. I loved creating this design, I integrated an airplane window into “Our packages” page in a subtle but clear way. The website was kept minimal, providing all the necessary information to contact them, understand who they are and what they offer but beyond that no further steps can be taken without scheduling a phone call. Thus, we made sure to keep the human interaction factor intact.

Challenges

As with every project, there will always be a few challenges along the way. This project I think it would have to be finding the finding a way to keep human interaction in tact. The client was really nervous that the website would change the character of their business, so I am glad we found a good solution.

Next steps

After discussing with the client, we will revisit this project soon in order to expand their website. They wanted to remove the “Packages” page for now until they had more to add to it, it felt unnecessary for now. Down the line, they will be offering more services and would like to add more about that on their website. I look forward to working on this more, and seeing where this project goes.