📌 Light mode recommended
is a free wedding planning platform that helps couples create wedding websites, set up a wedding registry, and most importantly, inform out-of-town guests on "Where to Stay" all in one space.
Joy's top goals in 2025 included optimizing the "Where to Stay" page due to its revenue potential. I was tasked with performing user research and iterating to find solutions. It's here that I developed the "habit of seeing".
ROLE
Product Design Intern
RESULTS
Provided critical feedback at a transformative stage for the company
~9.8k conversions caused by improvements in internationalization tools
Nearly doubled user retention for "Explore Other Options" feature
Incorporated modals that to 5% relative lift in purchase conversion for hotel bookings
The habit of seeing i.e. creating user personas, heuristic journey mapping, Microsoft Clarity observations and user interviews.
Frank and Lydia
Recently Engaged
Frank and Lydia have just booked their wedding venue at Untermeyer Gardens and want to update their 'Where to Stay' page on their wedding website. Lydia was born in California, so many of her family and friends live out of state. However, with Frank and Lydia's long hours, they do not have time to search for adequate lodging for their out of town guests.
Their goal is to use Joy's 'Where to Stay' platform to find 5 or 6 suitable hotels and feature them on their wedding website for traveling guests. Because they have so much programming at Untermeyer Gardens around the day of the wedding, the hotels need to be in a 5 mile radius from the venue. They want of range of 3 star hotels, for a lower cost option to a 5 star hotel, for more extravagant spenders.
Ages
29 & 32
Job Titles
Analyst & Nurse
📍
Brooklyn, NY
Jerry and company
Invited to the Wedding
Jerry, Lydia's older cousin, currently lives in California with his wife and four children. Jerry, while excited for the wedding, is concerned if there will be adequate accommodation for his large family.
His goal is to book a hotel off of Frank and Lydia's wedding website, because of the cheaper rates. With 4 kids, Jerry's on a budget but needs to keep in mind the comfort of his wife and their two newborn boys. He wants to find a cheap hotel that is also walking distance from the gardens so him and his family can enjoy some peace in the outdoors.
Age
41
Job Title
Software Engineer
📍
San Jose, CA
Where are we in the process?
Narrowing Down to Three Friction Points
Confusion
Users struggled to understand the function of certain components. Because of that, they were making uninformed decisions.
Dead ends
In 2 days, 3 guests struggled with going back and forth to different pages to find the right hotel. 2/3 guests did not complete their booking flow.
Accessibility
14% of users IP addresses were from non-English speaking countries, but there were no built-in language translation options.
Clarifying Explore Other Options' Functionality
i.e. "Confusion"
Context
Explore Other Options is a button on the couples wedding website, that allows guests to browse hotels not listed on the wedding website, with the same exclusive rates.
Goal
Explaining "Explore Other Options"'s value to a user, ensuring they're making fully informed decisions before removing it off their site.
ℹ️
3/4 of users remove the button without knowing its function
❗️
'Explore other options' has no connection to the site preview. Instead, when turning the toggle off, it feels like you are telling the site that you are done choosing hotels.
✅
Add an information tooltip to describe its function and a modal triggered by clicking the toggle off to inform the user how a guest would use that functionality
Surfacing Hotels
i.e. "Dead Ends"
Context
Wedding guests struggle with choosing hotels because the Joy x Nuitèe platform entails jumping from hotel PDPs back to the wedding hotels page if guests want to preview other hotel recommendations.
Goal
Browse other hotel options without returning to a previous page.
ℹ️
2/3 users did not complete the booking process, after jumping back and forth from Hotel PDPs.
❗️
On hotel PDP pages, there are no additional hotel recommendations featured on the page; leaving the experience feeling like a dead end.
✅
Surface 2–3 alternative hotels at the top of the page (92% don’t scroll to the bottom) to encourage exploration and comparison.
Adding Language Selector for International Users
i.e. "Accessibility"
Context
~60% of Joy users discover the product through organic SEOs, that lead them to Joy Marcom. The site detects the local language on your device and sets the language based on that information.
Goal
Increasing adoption in international users by internationalizing Joy's Marcom site
ℹ️
~13.6% of users are from non-English speaking countries.
❗️
Automatic localization is not always accurate and users have no way to change the language without manually altering query parameters or changing the language on the local device.
✅
Incorporating a language menu into the header and footer of the Joy marcom site will improve internationalization efforts.
Takeaways.
"Diagnosing design problems is a matter of detective work. "
Data whispers
Let analytics gently tell you where the real problems live.
Micro-drama
Design for the tiny emotional spikes because users remember feelings long after they forget layouts.
Managing up
Build constructive relationships with higher-up to get to your goals efficiently.
Don't assume
Things are often clear to you because you've been looking at them for so long. A fresh pair of eyes is invaluable.
