One catalog of tours, five front ends, three kinds of customers. It had to become one product.

I led design at Viator, Tripadvisor’s tours and activities company. Viator connects travelers with the tours, tickets, and experiences that make a trip, and with the operators who run them. It also powered the experiences Tripadvisor sold on its own site. I led design across commerce and supplier products, with a team of designers, researchers, analysts, and developers, plus agency partners for marketing.

The opportunity

We mapped the whole journey, from planning at home to standing in line at the destination. The marketplace had grown in pieces. Travelers met the same experiences through five different front ends: a desktop site that wasn’t responsive, separate mobile sites for the US and international, and apps for iOS and Android. Operators managed it all with tools built for a smaller business.

The problems worth solving

• Five front ends, one product. We merged them into a single platform, with research and design setting the priorities for what to build first.
• Three kinds of customers. Travelers, the operators running the experiences, and the partners selling them under their own brands, Tripadvisor included, each needed something different from the same inventory.
• The trip doesn’t end at checkout. Travelers and operators needed to talk before and during the experience, so we built messaging directly into the apps.
• Tools for the people running the tours. We overhauled supplier tools so operators could manage what they offered without fighting the system.

Changing how the team worked

The merge needed a different way of working. I moved designers, marketers, researchers, and developers into an agile practice that kept the rigor and added speed. I also worked across executives to set one direction for the traveler, operator, and partner businesses.