Designing a Travel Platform for the Post-Pandemic World

Finding opportunities amidst uncertainty by taking proof of concept through an exploratory design journey as we navigated through the global pandemic to map out the Pelago brand identity as a new kid on the block travel tech startup.

by Risiandi Jiang – UX / UI / Product Designer

by Risiandi Jiang – UX / UI / Product Designer / User Researcher

The Background

Pelago is a 0-1 Travel Tech startup that was initially conceived by a team of consultants at the Boston Consulting Group Digital Venture and a special projects team from Singapore Airlines. The start-up was later acquired and fully funded by the Singapore Airlines Group as part of the group’s larger strategy to expand it’s off-flight services.

As the Pelago team was assembled under new leadership, the unthinkable happened that impacted the whole travel industry on a global scale. As the whole world was grappling with the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the team at Pelago stayed positive and focused on building amidst the uncertainty. To ensure continued funding from the Singapore Airlines Group, the team needed to take the proof of concept that was designed by our predecessors into a working product.

Pelago is a 0-1 Travel Tech startup that was initially conceived by a team of consultants at the Boston Consulting Group Digital Venture and a special projects team from Singapore Airlines. The start-up was later acquired and fully funded by the Singapore Airlines Group as part of the group’s larger strategy to expand it’s off-flight services.

As the Pelago team was assembled under new leadership, the unthinkable happened that impacted the whole travel industry on a global scale. As the whole world was grappling with the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the team at Pelago stayed positive and focused on building amidst the uncertainty. To ensure continued funding from the Singapore Airlines Group, the team needed to take the proof of concept that was designed by our predecessors into a working product.

With all hands on deck, we began our exploratory journey to search for our identity and position in a saturated market to prepare for the post-pandemic world.

The Challenge

How might we...

enter a highly saturated market and differentiate ourselves from other travel platforms?

Understanding Ourselves as a Startup

To find the answer to the challenge we set for ourselves, we needed to understand ourselves as a travel-tech startup and leverage on our strength to find opportunities to differentiate our brand and offerings. To do this, we conducted a SWOT workshop involving relevant stakeholders from each department.

Establishing Our Differentiators

Diving into a saturated market wasn't an easy task. As the new kid on the block, we needed a way to differentiate ourselves from our competitors that have years of headstart. We started the process by analyzing our competitors in the market, to learn about who they are and what makes them unique. Through a series of workshops with everyone from different departments involved, we aligned our positioning, offerings, and unique selling proposition.

Design Exploration

After we have aligned our key differentiators, we began various design explorations starting with wireframing numerous content ideas for the home page around the concept of "Travel that shapes you". We believe that as fellow travelers, we immerse ourselves in the experience of our travels through the five senses, smell, touch, sight, sound, and taste, which in turn help shape our view and ideas of the world around us.

Guided by the brand concept developed by the Brand & Marketing team, we began exploring the look and feel of our website by turning our low-fi wireframes into hi-fi UI design.

Through a series of design workshops and reviews involving key stakeholders from all departments, we finally found the look and feel that reflects the brand which resonated with us.

Once we've established the look and feel of the website, we began designing the user flows and building the hi-fi prototype to test before handing it over to the developers to build and ship. Take a look at the prototype here.

My Personal Learnings

1. As the Lead Designer, it is important to share my responsibilities with my teammates, and guide them along the way so they can learn and grow from the process.

2. Working with various stakeholders from different departments and understanding their respective objectives helps to inform initial design directions. A great way to achieve this is by facilitating ideation workshops to align the design strategy.

3. Working closely with the Product team and partnering with the Head of Product has been a great learning experience, especially when they involve us in product strategy conceptualization and share their feedback on our design solutions.

4. Shifting from Sketch to Figma was not an easy task since nobody in the Design team has had prior experience working with Figma. However, the outcome outweighs the time we invested and it improved our workflow at the end of the day.

1. As the Lead Designer, it is important to share my responsibilities with my teammates, and guide them along the way so they can learn and grow from the process.

2. Working with various stakeholders from different departments and understanding their respective objectives helps to inform initial design directions. A great way to achieve this is by facilitating ideation workshops to align the design strategy.

3. Working closely with the Product team and partnering with the Head of Product has been a great learning experience, especially when they involve us in product strategy conceptualization and share their feedback on our design solutions.

4. Shifting from Sketch to Figma was not an easy task since nobody in the Design team has had prior experience working with Figma. However, the outcome outweighs the time we invested and it improved our workflow at the end of the day.