INTERCONTINENTAL HOTEL GROUP

/ ROLE

Lead UX and UI designer

Ceros platform builder

at MONK agency

/ THE CHALLENGE

  • Create an online experience where IHG Corporate and Hotel employees can explore, learn about and be excited by each of the IHG brands and their customers
  • Focus on the Crowne Plaza brand as a vanilla-template
  • Utilise the Ceros platform for the mobile experience
designs

/ DISCOVERY AND APPROACH

Discovery research outcomes showed a lack of understanding and a lack of differentiation between the brands for employees. The online experience needed to provide employees with the fundamental knowledge of each brand, its commercial and customer target audience and the experience each brand brings to its customers. 
At the same time, I needed to create a channel that inspired passion in its staff yet provided an explorative experience; all within the constraints of the Ceros platform.

 

/ DESIGN, TESTING AND ITERATION

I started by contacting Ceros to get a demo of their platform and explore the limits of what could be achieved. With the variety of media assets available (photography, video and presentations), I knew a multimedia experience would enrich the website but we had to be sensitive to file constraints and load times for mobile devices. 

The concept was to give a first-person view of what a customer would experience during their stay with each of the brands from the moment they arrived to the moment of their departure - sharing commentary and snippets of information along the way via video or animation. 

I created a set of templates within the Ceros platform from which we could reuse and skin across each brand experience. As each brand had its own set of iconography and a distinct colour palette, I exploited these to subliminally reinforce each brand. A multimedia footer provided access to 'little moments of delight' where users were able to engage with rich media content.

Below shows the experience for a desktop experience:

wireframes

/ FINAL OUTCOME

MVP was handed over to the client and released to a group of internal employees internationally for intially feedback and review. The overall response was well received and as the online experience was a vanilla product, the clients were able to change the content according to their needs via the Ceros CMS.