Marriott Vacation Club faced a critical inflection point: their digital presence had become fragmented across properties, platforms, and user journeys. The legacy ecosystem struggled to communicate the aspirational lifestyle promise of vacation ownership while serving the practical needs of existing members managing complex membership portfolios.
How do we transform a transactional booking platform into an aspirational lifestyle ecosystem that drives both acquisition and retention across global markets?
Analytics revealed a fundamental disconnect: users didn't understand their membership benefits, leading to underutilization and increased refund requests. The existing IA prioritized organizational structure over user intent forcing customers to think like the business rather than the business responding to customer needs.
Over 60% of browsing sessions originated on mobile devices, yet mobile conversion rates lagged desktop by 40%. The legacy mobile experience was a responsive afterthought, compressed desktop layouts that frustrated rather than facilitated.
We focused on creating an experience that merged luxury with simplicity. The UX strategy prioritized reducing friction, improving hierarchy, and aligning visual design with Marriott’s premium tone.
A new IA streamlined user flows into three main paths: Explore Destinations, View Membership Benefits, and Book a Stay. Wireframes emphasized scannability, visual breathing room, and contextual CTAs to guide users toward their goals without cognitive overload.
I designed a 12 column responsive grid and modular components for flexible scaling across devices. Typography paired sophistication with readability, while the color palette reflected the brand’s warmth and trust. All components were designed to meet WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards.
Interactive prototypes validated flow efficiency, with emphasis on micro interactions and animations that mirrored Marriott’s brand rhythm smooth, reassuring, and confident.
Individual screens are tactical; design systems are strategic. By building reusable infrastructure, we enabled consistent quality across hundreds of touchpoints while freeing creative resources for innovation rather than repetition.
In a category plagued by confusion (timeshare = complicated), clarity became our competitive advantage. Users don't want to decode systems, they want to dream about vacations. Our job was removing friction between aspiration and action.
Technology and design are insufficient without aligned teams, clear governance, and shared vision. The most impactful work happened in stakeholder alignment, ensuring every department understood their role in delivering cohesive customer experiences.
Meeting accessibility standards wasn't compliance theater, it was market expansion. An accessible digital experience serves aging boomers, international users with varying English proficiency, and situationally impaired users (bright sunlight, one handed mobile use). Inclusion is good business.
This project reinforced my conviction that brand strategy and user experience are inseparable disciplines. Every visual choice affects usability; every UX decision communicates brand values.
The most meaningful design work doesn't happen in isolated deliverables, it happens when systems, strategy, and execution align to create coherent experiences that drive measurable business outcomes while genuinely improving people's lives.
