To understand why the current site performed poorly, I reviewed customer complaints and conducted interviews with a dozen uninformed users, alongside product owners. Feedback from two key stakeholders closely connected to customers were also included.

Patterns quickly emerged. Users struggled with clarity, trust signals, and navigation. Many of the friction points were tied directly to experience gaps rather than the offerings themselves. These findings confirmed that a strong UX overhaul could significantly improve outcomes.

Going through the site myself, I was able to identify some loose ends and multiple usability issues that could impact user satisfaction. These ranged from unclear calls-to-action and inconsistent navigation to weak error handling and visual inconsistencies.

To strengthen the case, I mapped these findings against Jakob Nielsen’s usability heuristics. This helped connect user frustrations to recognized usability principles and demonstrated how these gaps directly impacted conversions. Presenting this structured analysis created alignment with stakeholders and clarified the path forward.

To stay grounded needs of in real users, I developed a persona based on our ideal customer profile. This included their motivations, frustrations, expectations, and goals; be it searching for investment property or planning a vacation. This framework ensured that every design decision supported user intent and improved overall satisfaction.

The existing information architecture was largely functional, so I focused on improving the shopping flow and redesigning the landing experience. Stakeholders preferred to retain the current hero section style, so I redesigned components using the existing design tokens while refining interactions to include hover, active, and error states. I built a structured component library to ensure consistency and scalable design implementation.

The landing page serves as the storefront and first impression. It needed to communicate value instantly and guide visitors clearly toward action. I restructured sections to ensure each block had a clear purpose. Subtle motion and refined interactions were introduced to enhance clarity without distraction. After multiple iterations, the final layout improved hierarchy, storytelling, and user flow.

Each property or vacation package needed a focused, persuasive experience. The previous product page lacked obvious action cues and clear hierarchy. I redesigned the product page using a familiar e-commerce pattern, placing primary calls-to-action prominently on the right to align with common mental models. Within the first week of launch, this page recorded a 67% engagement rate. I also provided post-launch guidelines covering image quality, resolution standards, and content structure to maintain consistency.

Using Maze and Microsoft Clarity, I ran A/B tests on the account-creation splash modal. I conducted unmoderated testing with session recordings and tested three variations across different user groups. The results revealed a clear preference for discount-driven messaging. These insights informed the final implementation and strengthened conversion performance.

After handoff, I conducted a design audit during development and identified several inconsistencies in implementation, particularly with mobile responsiveness. Issues ranged from card layouts and image sizing to overflow handling and spacing inconsistencies. I worked closely with the engineer, adding annotations and detailed specifications within the design file to ensure accurate, pixel-precise execution.

Within 2 weeks of launching the site redesign, the impact on our customers was evident with better engagement rates and backlinks from popular social media apps due to increase usage of quick link sharing. The site ranked top in name search and first page in related search for SEO showing clear alignment between content and user intent.

Although this was a short engagement, it reinforced several important lessons: