Designing integrated application system for hospitality management solution in Novotel
About Novotel
Novotel believes it’s important to leave space for slow living. Its hotels invite business travelers to clock out and rest up while encouraging families to spend quality time together.
With 513 hotels in 79 countries around the world, Novotel wants their customer, whether they’ve arrived from a thousand miles away or came from a thousand miles away or for their staycation, to get the best offer travelers an opportunity to connect with family, friends, colleagues, and themselves.
Project Overview
NovoHotelier is the premier Hospitality Management Solution (HMS) meticulously crafted to cater to the distinctive needs of the renowned Novotel brand. Through its comprehensive management capabilities, NovoHotelier is poised to elevate the operational efficiency of Novotel establishments, enrich the guest experience, and deliver invaluable insights.
Project Challenge
With Novotel's many hotels and properties, an integrated application system is needed for hotel property management. This management is also used to meet customer needs and coordinate between departments within the hotel.
Product Requirement Document
Build a Hospitality Management Solution (HMS) meticulously crafted to cater to the distinctive needs of the renowned Novotel brand. As a cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) offering, it has been purpose-built to oversee all facets of Novotel's world-class operations, spanning guest reservations, check-ins, housekeeping, billing, and comprehensive reporting.
Project Scope
With various types of users in the application, I decided to focus on one important role, namely the Front Office. So, this application feature will meet every need of that role.
Target User
The target users for Novohotelier are individuals, professionals, and businesses of all sizes who require a streamlined and secure solution for digital document signing and management.
Goals Feature
- Front office will be able to create reservation and guest management
- Front office will be able to automated or direct check-in and check-out
- System will be integration with Online Travel Agent
- Front office will be able to assign task for another departement like housekeeping
- Manage and give notification for inventory and room-aminites
- Front office will be able to generate invoice and view financial report
- View and manage guest request or feedback
- Create customize service for user feedback
Required Key Features
- Reservation
- Intergrated with online platform
- Check-in/Check-out automated
- Housekeeping
- Billing and Financial Report
- Guest Review & Request
- Reporting & Analysis
Comparative Research
Comparative Analysis Summary
After looking at and studying each brand used as comparative research, it was found that each brand had advantages and disadvantages. When applied to the application that will be built, we focus on fulfilling deficiencies in other applications to become important feature points in this application. Of course, it is adjusted to the needs of users using this application.
Interview
After trying to interview users from Novotel, we found several habits or applications they often use to integrate. Then, through this interview, the aim is to get pain points and needs from users when using the application.
The applications currently in use need to have more explicit user interfaces.
If connected to housekeeping, you cannot know in real time the status of the room and its equipment.
I need help seeing guest reviews, and fulfilling guest requests is still done manually.
The reports in the application need to be completed and have filter features to help search for data.
Interview Summary
After knowing the interview results and the user's desired needs, check whether the interview results meet the exact features of the PRD. Through this insight, it was also found that every feature in PRD can be fulfilled and is also needed by users.
User Persona
User Flow
Some user flows are important to know how users will use this application
New Reservation
Guest Check-in/Check-out
Add New Room Type
Assign Task For Housekeeping
Request Guest Tracking
Guest Feedback Report
Information Architecture
Design Style
Typography
Color Palette
Hi-Fidelity Design
After the research process and understanding what user needs, I make high fidelity design is created that applies the selected color and font combination.
Front Office Dashboard
Front Office dashboard equipped with various kinds of data reports in real time. This data is provided so that the Front Office can easily find the data directly
Reservation List
There is a table that provides data regarding the list of guests who made reservations directly or telephone to the hotel. All data that have made a reservation have not yet checked in to the hotel
Guest Check-in List
When there are guests who want to check-in, the Front Office can easily find and click the check-in button on this page.
Guest Check-out List
Has the same features as Check-in, on this page the Front Office can easily see data on guests who will check-out
Online Travel Agent
The system connected to the Online Travel Agent can automatically enter customers who book from other platforms. The front office can also easily see user data and the origin of the travel agent
Review & Request
Hotels need to read reviews and requests from guests, so on this page, guests give requests and reviews when they have checked out of their rooms.
Usability Testing
Preliminary Usability Testing
Type:
Moderated
Duration:
5-10 Minutes
Participants:
3 People
Criteria of Participants
- 27 -29 years old
- Front office staff at least 1 year experience
- Never used the application but have used a similar application
Task Flow
5 tasks were created to understand how users can check in and out of the application. This will give some insight into new improvements in this app
Usability Testing Result
From all the users I have tested, I also get feedback from users regarding the display that I tested on them.
Average Success Rate: 77,7%
The appearance of this application is already good. Still, the buttons need to be improved, and the display of too much data needs to be improved.
User Insight
“It's a bit difficult to find a way to check-in and check-out for visitors, because the buttons are hidden. However, making a new reservation is easy to do”
Dennis Arnandi Setiawan
- 28 years old
- Front office staff 1
"I usually use applications with many color displays, but for this application the color display provided is not too excessive"
Herawati Siahaan
- 30 years old
- Front office staff 2
"There is too much data, sometimes it gets confused because of the combination of one row and another row"
Erwin Winata
- 30 years old
- Front office staff 3
Takeaways
Interface Result
With user feedback regarding the application's appearance, which is still too dense, improvements are still needed to make this application more straightforward for users to understand. However, even though the features in this application are complete, users still need time to know how to use it.
Depth Interview
To get more complete information, using the interview method with more users at an early stage can provide new insights about the application that will be built. So, this application only takes a few references from comparative research.
Next Iteration
Feature development is needed to support existing features. Then, it is also necessary to adjust the appearance to be more user-friendly by conducting more profound interviews.
That's All, Thank You!
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