This case study is password protected due to an NDA.

My Role

Ai Product Designer

UX Strategist

Prototyper

Skills Involved

User Research

Vibe Coding / AI-assisted prototyping

My Team

Alexa Barnett

Johno Beadles

Gianna Farina

Sophia Gordon

Difei Huang

Prerit Jain

Alyssa Kaczmarski

Eshwari Malani

Mckenna McClain

Kaitlin McHugh

Bernardo Reyes

Grace Shephard

Nina Whitcomb

Xiaolu Xi

Duration

10 weeks

Final Presentation

Team Photo

Project Brief

Delta Beyond

Turning Bucket Lists into Boarding Pass

The Problem / Background

Native digital inspiration has been limited. Landing pages, app experiences are conversion -driven and not engagement -oriented.

The Opportunity

Build Gen Z engagement today to drive loyalty tomorrow. Turn the largest and wealthiest generation into lifelong delta loyalists

Project goals

Build Gen Z engagement today to drive loyalty tomorrow. Turn the largest and wealthiest generation into lifelong delta loyalists

Final Design- key features

SkyMiles Blueprint

This is not just a mileage calculator, nor a fare estimator. It's a world blueprint built on mileage as its core visual language, combining the preliminary mileage benefits of credit cards and frequent flyer loyalty programs to compute and present a personalized, visualized travel blueprint for each user

Discovery Card

Members use the map to discover new places — when something catches their eye, tapping the destination surfaces more to learn about it.

Inspiration Browsing

An interactive map for destination discovery, paired with a scrollable moodboard that surfaces pricing as members browse.

Final Design- key features

Full Filter Panel

Once a member knows what they're looking for, they can filter their journey based on what matters to them — without ever leaving the map. Members can set a destination type — beach, golf, and more — then get specific: minimum and maximum budget, preferred flight length, and travel dates. The experience adapts around those constraints.

Filter by

Credit Card Bonus

&Medallion Tier

Members can select their Medallion Tier and credit card to receive personalized destination recommendations. Delta Beyond translates their status, miles, and spending power into clear travel possibilities, allowing them to compare how different cards expand their options.

Final Design- key features

Destination Overview

In Overview, members learn more about the destination, browse popular attractions, and look at available flights. In Planning, Delta Beyond uses a member's preferences to build a trip that works for them, and lets them know the moment their trip is ready.

Flight Recommendations & Partner Offers

Flight info is used to proactively alert members of relevant deals, based on their interests and mileage balance, prompting timely booking decisions.

Project Brief

Project objectives

How might we drive engagement, loyalty, and revenue by turning travel inspiration into Delta booking ?

Create a digital interface that fosters authentic

interactions with DL and other travelers.

Drives personalization by capturing input on personal preferences.

Includes sharing that allows members to include their friends in their travel via social media or app.

Measures the impact by having a data structure that allows for quantification.

Support the full journey by expanding reach beyond the day -of-travel.

Project Brief

Key features & functionalities

Deliver a native app experience that that enables :

trip inspiration

• Receive travel suggestions based on past trips or saved destinations


• Opportunity to promote new routes

Save Destinations

• Add any destination to your WanderList to save for future bookings


• Includes pricing and easy access to book

spin the globe

• Spin for inspiration and receive spontaneous travel ideas


• Gamification

personalized offers

One-stop-shop for trip planning with personalized offers from the Delta ecosystem (Delta Vacations, Delta Stays, Co-brand, etc.)

journey tracker

Track your miles, flights, and countries traveled

Shareable travel stats for social media

Driving engagement, loyalty, and revenue by turning travel inspiration into Delta bookings !

Project Brief

Client-Defined Success Metrics

The client provided the initial success criteria. Our team translated them into experience principles and design priorities, connecting business goals such as adoption and conversion with customer outcomes such as trust, engagement, and continued use.

Quantitative

Adoption percentage of total customers opening & using the new feature

Saturation within gen z customers

Engagement time spent with feature & amount of shared data to capture personalization

Connection drive new linkages with delta partners & ecosystem

Conversion Shopping rate

Qualitative & Behavior

Digital NPS/ csat scores

App use beyond the day -of-travel

A greater sense of trust/understanding

Repeat visits and feature use

Secondary / Primary Research

Research plan

To design for Gen Z loyalty, we first studied how this generation actually discovers, decides, and books travel — pairing a screener survey with one-on-one interviews to surface real behaviors and pain points, grounding every recommendation in evidence, not assumption.

Data synthesis

Behind Every Number, a Traveler

139 Survey Responses

35 Interviews

8+ Group Discussions

Inspiration

80%

Discover travel inspiration through social media

Inspiration

72%

Revisit their saved inspiration content

Guidance

69%

Want the app to automatically suggest trips that fit their budget

Recognition

41%

Believe collectible digital badges would increase engagement

ideal experience of travel

the ideal Gen Z travel experience

Gen Z isn't just booking a flight — they're looking for an experience that meets them at every stage, from the first daydream to the trip home. Our research distilled this into 5 key components that define what an ideal travel experience looks like for this generation:

Long before they book, Gen Z is already dreaming — scrolling daily for their next getaway and looking for something to spark it.

Gen Z wants to bring their friends along. They need a way to turn a group chat plan into an actual trip.

Above all, it has to feel real. Gen Z isn't chasing tourist photo-ops — they want to live like a local and uncover the hidden spots that define a place.

Inspiration

Guidance

Connection

Recognition

Authenticity

Turning that dream into a booked trip takes a seamless experience end to end. Good UX is the difference between an idea that gets lost on their phone and a ticket that gets booked.

They want to feel seen — an experience shaped around their preferences, needs, and goals, not a one-size-fits-all itinerary.

Target Audience

Archetypes - Travel Type

Our primary research surfaced five distinct traveler personas, each defined by a different relationship to price, spontaneity, and social connection. Together, they capture the range of mindsets WanderList needs to design for, not a single Gen Z traveler.

early Ideation

key features (Low-fi Wireframe)

The client provided the initial success criteria. Our team translated them into experience principles and design priorities, connecting business goals such as adoption and conversion with customer outcomes such as trust, engagement, and continued use.

Onboarding

Skymiles Blueprint

Moodboard

Group Planning 1

Group Planning 2

Concept Validation

Usability Testing

With core concepts designed, we moved from primary research into usability testing to see how Delta Beyond actually performs in users' hands. Each session paired task completion tracking with a closing System Usability Scale survey, giving us both qualitative friction points and a quantitative benchmark to measure future iterations against.

17 Participants

5 Task Flow

Quantitative Data

Task completion rate

Task completion time (per task)

Error encountered

SEQ (Single Ease Question)

System usability score

Qualitative Data

Observation notes on confusion

Open-ended feedback: favorite feature, biggest pain point

Suggested improvements per task

Closing reflections on naming

Testing Process

Task-based walkthrough of 5 key flows on prototype

Live observation + error tracking

Post-task ease & sentiment ratings

Closing SUS survey

Concept Validation

Testing Insights & Data analysis

Task-by-task usability results from a 17-participant study of the Delta Wanderlist prototype, covering onboarding through trip planning and booking.

N/A

Chosen as Favorite

N/A

Chosen as Most Confusing

100 %

Direct Success

0 %

Indirect Success

5.81

Avg. Likelihood to Book (1-7)

N/A

Avg. Ease (SEQ 1–7)

Adoption

100% completed onboarding with zero failures. The entry point itself isn't a barrier.

Trust/Understanding

Every participant correctly explained the quiz's purpose (personalization), showing the concept is instantly legible.

Engagement

Interest in continuing landed only moderate (3.56/5) — participants wanted more visual polish and richer personalization options.

Task 1 - Onboarding

User journey map

UX journey map

( MVP delta beyond experience )

We crafted a cohesive end-to-end journey that guides customers from dreaming and discovery through planning, booking, travel, and reflection, while demonstrating how the broader ecosystem works together to support customer needs and business goals.

Information Architecture

From Discovery to Departure

We reorganized the experience around travelers’ goals rather than individual features, creating clear pathways from exploring and saving destinations to planning and booking a trip.

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