Hilton Worldwide Mobile App

Led the innovation of cross-platform mobile UX and design for Hilton Worldwide’s mobile applications, overseeing a team of 12 on high-impact projects such as Enhanced Floorplans, Digital Check-in Multi-room, Uber Remind to Ride, Fun Finder, Hilton Suggests, Points and Money, Hilton Honor Meter, and a full iOS app redesign. Key initiatives included development for the Apple Watch and iPad apps, early stages of Connected Rooms, and Digital Key Phases 1 & 2. Enhanced user experience with features like Favorite Rooms, Digital Key UK, New Stay Mode, Warmth & Hospitality, Multi-Key, and Personalized Search. Worked closely with the research team on usability testing, providing strategic insights and prototypes to drive user-centered improvements. Championed and implemented Hilton’s cross-platform design standards across projects, ensuring consistency and excellence in user experience.

As a Senior Information Architect I took on the challenge to fully redesign of the iOS Hilton Hhonors App, as it was originally called. At first shifting it away from the "hamburger menu" to the more standard tab menu approach and later focusing on ways to improve its user rating in the Apple App Store from two-stars to of the five-star rated iOS app it is today. Then we added the iPad and Apple Watch Apps, as well as focused on the implementation of a lot of key projects for Hilton, to encourage brand loyalty and push the boundaries of innovation in the hospitality industry, so of which are outlined below. Now I have been working on cross-platform projects across iOS and Android and most recently I spear-headed the Personalized Search project, which will change how people discover new travel destinations and book hotels quickly and easily through the Hilton Mobile app in just a few taps.

Tools used: Sketch Design, Adobe Photoshop, Balsamiq Mockups 3, Principle Interaction & Animation, Atlassian JIRA, Basecamp, Invision

Work featured in: Forbes Digitday Engadget Venturebeat Hotelsnow Techcrunch Succesfullmeeting Travelplus

 
 

Digital check-in

Digital Check-in is one of our most favorite user features which we pioneered in the Hospitality Industry 2 years ago when I started with Hilton. Here I took on the challenge to improve upon the original concept, where in addition to coming up with a lot of UI improvements, to help guide the user through this process, I was also able to shorten this process further for our users by incorporating their favorites as a way to bypass the manual selection process all together. This is a great example of how even when it comes to my own original work, I was able to make a lot of UX improvements that would benefit our end user even more and help keep the app experience consistent after many new changes and additions have taken place over the years. 

 

Honors Meter

Keeping track of the Honor Member program is one of the way to engage with customers and to develop brand loyalty and the Hilton Honors Meter was one of the first key projects I have worked on from a wires stage to through the design phase with our designers. It was important to keep the UX simple to understand and easy to navigate through the key matrices our users have already come to use on the web.  Upon taking on this challenge, I worked with key branding and business stakeholders in developing the requirements for this project and delivered an approach which was cross-platform and easily adaptable to phones, watches and tablet devices. 

 

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Apple watch

At Hilton we were one of the first to adapt and build an Apple Watch app. I have been tasked with designing a small screen user experience prior to the release of the watch by Apple. Working off of the Human Interface Documentation provided by Apple and focusing on our existing features of the Hilton mobile app, I was able to come up with ways to engage and communicate with the user in a lot of micro-interactions through the in-stay experience. It was my impression that things like booking a reservation is probably not something a user would find a great UX on a small screen, but being updated about a booked stay or reminded to check-in and pick a room was a great way to start a dialog with the user on a smaller screen. I also didn't want to leave the user without quick-views of their current Honors status as well as their upcoming stay information, which was all integrated into easy to navigate, smaller screen experience on the Apple Watch.

 

Digital Key

Digital Key for Hilton was one of its most innovative projects in the hospitality industry, where they asked me to help them build a incredibly simply, dynamic and expandable user interface, resembling the existing physical key card they used today in most of their 5,000+ hotels. My focus early on was to keep the user experiences in a digital key modal, which would then provide for all of the additional features we were looking to incorporate down the line, things like; renaming rooms, sharing keys, different provisioning states of the key itself as well as the educational component of taking a physical medium and replacing it with a digital one. 

 

Connected Rooms

Connected Rooms started as a proof of concept project and later become an MVP for Hilton. Our main objective was to create a simple to use remote control for your room. That included controls for your television, thermostat, lights and other streaming services. Given my experience with the Apple TV and both its physical and app based remotes, I decided  to model our approach with that same simplistic approach. The only challenge was around how many different things we needed to control and how to property pack all of it into a simple to use user interface. Using a side menu and easy to understand controls was the key in creating this simple, yet elegent user experience. 

 

prototyping and animations

Prototyping with tools like Principle is something I have recently started doing for almost all of my UX projects, here are some examples of smaller projects I've done at Hilton on both iPhone and iPad. 

References

"Eric has been a great thought partner in developing the iPhone app to incorporate new features in innovative ways. Eric’s most appreciated quality is that he keeps the stake holders updated on progress of his team’s work at all times. Eric’s timely delivery and going the extra mile every time has contributed to the success of our projects."

Anjali Mirchandani – Director of Brand Innovations & Guest Technology at Hilton

“I worked with Eric over the past 3 years with a multitude of projects relating to the Hilton mobile apps. Eric is a creative leader that is able to influence through his extremely user-friendly experiences, which is evidenced by his persistent drive to build what's best for the user. He has been a crucial member of the team and integrated well, working intimately with Product, Design, and even Engineering. He went above and beyond to ensure requirements are understood and aligned upon. He understands the importance of working with Development, as opposed to being prescriptive, and is extremely well-liked by the team. He is a key member of the development organization and I am glad I have had the opportunity to work and learn from him.”

Akash Shah – Senior Product Manager at Mobileforming, LLC for Hilton iOS App

“Eric led the mobile design efforts for the very earliest phases of Connected Room, and his talent, energy, and engagement were highly evident throughout the complex project. To work with Eric is to learn from him, and his expertise made a major difference. We’d be very fortunate to have him on the Hilton team for the long term!” 

Josh Weiss – VP Brand & Guest Technology at Hilton

“Eric is not only a team player, a necessity for fast-paced agile development, but also a thought leader when it comes to providing platform knowledge and competitive perspectives. He’s led the iPhone platform UX for several years now with outstanding results; plus, he’s a delight to work, having a healthy sense of urgency and always willing to take the initiative.”

Robyn Harman – Senior Manager, Mobile Product & Innovation at Hilton

“Eric has been an outstanding thought partner in the development of the iPhone app, he always delivers more than expected and in innovative ways."

Rich DiStehano – VP Web and Mobile Products at Hilton

“Eric provided the stability and firm hand to deliver excellent work product and teaming, even in the midst of major transformational change.

Eric wore many hats for us, but his expertise shined most during project initiation within the JIRA toolset and later in running scrums to keep strong cadence over time. Leadership, clients and colleagues have all enjoyed working with Eric. In my department, Eric quickly gained my trust and became an integral part of my key delivery teams. Difficult projects or stakeholders, tight deadline delivery, or shaping an amorphous problem set – Eric has proven a qualified and reliable senior analyst for me.

Eric’s calm demeanor and effective management of multiple concurrent projects enabled us to close 20 projects in one year, many of them with Eric’s fingerprints prominently displayed all over the success story. I found Eric to be direct, honest, reliable and capable of high quality JIRA delivery within complex projects.”

Reynold Khachatourian, JD - Business Transformation & Portfolio Management

“Eric is one of the best project and product managers I've ever worked with. He has a wide range of skillsets but where he really shined was his ability to articulate UX needs to the rest of the organization, help with lunch-and-learns, and structuring our JIRA board to show how to track design thinking exercises and research into measurable effort levels.”

Erik Bjarnason - UX Designer

“As the Design leader Eric successfully updated the end-to-end workflow of his designers streamlining it with the product team’s workflow, and the dev team’s agile processes. This was beneficial because it reduced the time design tickets were completed in, integrated with Jira, and provided more visibility into the design team’s work queue. This immediately had the affect of level-setting priorities and expectations, while reducing designer burnout. The refinement and prioritization processes Eric introduced are still an invaluable part of the design workflow today. Eric also successfully managed the relationship with Legal ensuring we were always compliant. Most of all, Eric is known for being a great communicator. He makes everyone feel seen and heard. It was an absolute pleasure to partner together and I’m certain that Eric will add creative energy to any company.”

Rhodel Swaniker - VP, Product & Strategy - Core Digital Media, a part of Rocket Companies