Complete redesign and rebranding of the service as well as the launch of the application
Role
Sr. Product Designer → Head of Design
Year
2020-2023
Platforms
Web, iOS, Android
Yandex Travel is a comprehensive travel planning service offering hotel bookings, flight and train ticket purchases, as well as search for tour packages.
The app allows users to compare prices, receive cashback through the Yandex Plus program, and access 24/7 support.
13 mln
Monthly users
Market leader
By number of hotel reservations
1
Product design
When I joined the service in 2020, it hadn’t been updated for a long time. The team was in the process of contemplating future monetization models, and it was primarily a transactional service adjacent to Yandex Search (the main business of the big tech company).
Thanks to the team’s efforts, we changed the development strategy, completely redesigned key user scenarios, and launched an app to transition to a full-fledged service model with high retention rates.
what I succeeded
Completely updated key user scenarios and design of products
Updated the brand and increased the metric of spontaneous awareness by tens of percent
Launched an app from scratch which briefly increased conversion to key service metrics
We updated flight search results, making the results themselves more compact while also more informative
Most of the changes are related to the product, although there are many visual updates as well. After a series of in-depth interviews and UX tests, we made the search results more informative.
We moved the filters to the first page and redesigned the hotel snippet by removing unnecessary information (such as the address) and adding useful details (like the price per night, a larger photo, favorites, etc.).
For the app launch, we rethought every stage of the user journey, focusing on key metrics as well as user convenience.
As a result, we managed to make the service’s main scenarios more user-friendly, which directly impacted the metrics—they increased significantly compared to the web version of the service.
The approach to style also changed: we made it more dynamic and incorporated brand elements (more on this below).
Unlike the web version, we decided to split the hotel selection process into two stages: choosing a hotel and selecting a room on separate pages. This approach reduces cognitive load and allows users to first focus on exploring the hotel and then proceed to choose a room.
Thanks to the commitment to continuously improving the product, as well as the development of a clear brand and product strategy, over three years we made significant progress—from refreshing the style of the web version of the service to completely redefining the design approach in the app.
* It is important to note that the latest version was initiated and developed while I was at Yandex Travel, but it was released after my departure and has continued to evolve under the current design director, Ilya Skopin, and the design team.
2
Brand design
During the time I was responsible for the service’s design, a complete rebranding was carried out, and all communications were unified into a single Tone of Voice and style.
Thanks to this and many other marketing team activities, we managed to multiply brand awareness and other metrics, which directly impacted attracting a new audience and led Yandex Travel to rank in the top 1-3 across all booking categories.
This is what the various advertising formats looked like when I joined the service. The style was very inconsistent, with no system or logic behind the creation of the visuals.
My team and I initiated the rebranding process, focusing heavily on positioning and other strategic aspects, with design being more of a final stage in the process.
We revised our approach to all brand touchpoints so that the updated brand identity is visible in every format. By unifying the style of our brand assets across all channels, we saw an increase in brand awareness (we regularly tracked the BHT metric).
3
People and culture
It was an amazing adventure! When I joined the team, there were just two product designers besides myself. By the time I left, the team had grown to six product designers, two brand designers, and a UX writer.
As the team expanded, we needed to restructure our workflows and establish better synchronization between product and brand design, as well as across different product teams. This growth challenged us to rethink our processes, improve communication, and ensure a consistent design approach throughout the company.
