Case Study: Kunfer Travel
Kunfer is a Seattle startup led by serial entrepreneur Sidney James and backed by Expedia co-founder Ajai Sehgal.
The core team envisioned an enterprise, subscription-model value service capable of delivering significant savings on travel-related accommodations like flights, rentals, and hotel rooms.
By partnering with small and mid-sized companies, Kunfer is able to aggregate individual spending to establish the type of country club perks and large-scale purchasing power that only larger corporations currently enjoy.
Having recently pivoted into the travel space, Kunfer came equipped with a fresh business model, and had recently secured an integral partnership with Hertz Rent-A-Car.
Yet with Marriott on the line and investment pitches scheduled for the coming weeks, the company was was in urgent need of design services focusing on research, interaction, and visual design.
Partnering with one additional designer,
I was challenged with establishing MVP interface and interaction design standards.
CHALLENGES
With minimal data in place to substantiate its value proposition, and a highly amorphous vision for the final product, Kunfer was suffering from a core identity crisis at the intersection of identity and product experience.
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Recruiting for UX research with (very) limited time.
After client-furnished interview participants proved unsuited to the company's intended direction, we scrambled to recruit for efforts in usability, ethnography, and contextual inquiry.
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Balancing style with professionalism in brand identity.
Kunfer came across hip, and their inspirations were heavy with trending apps and stylish disruptors. But in designing for business professionals, the brand required a more conservative foundation.
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Using my nascent psychic powers for good.
Provided a rather amorphous product vision and an intelligent, but considerably less verbose client contact, one of my biggest hurdles involved the elucidation of intended features, limitations, and goals.
THE DOUBLE DIAMOND APPROACH
Agile processes are core to my workflow, and you'll notice my case studies are split into four sections—each focused on different perspectives, processes, and deliverables. From here, jump directly into any particular section, or keep scrolling for a quick summary.
User Research
Competitive Analysis
Persona Development
PROJECT RECEPTION
Taking on the common pain points of time-intensive research, content overload, and expensive first-party booking, our team delivered solutions custom-built for a dependable, productive, and stress-free user experience.
Our designs were overwhelming well-received by the client, who left the presentation without extending a single concern. He later conveyed high praise from company advisor Ajai Sehgal.
"So you all did an amazing job like I said before. It’s exactly what I envisioned when I thought it in my head. And hopefully I’ll be hiring you all soon!"
SIDNEY JAMES
Serial Entrepreneur & Kunfer CEO
