“Plan Smarter, Not Harder” – Designing a Smarter Way to Find Meeting Rooms
The mobile HRIS platform allowed employees to book meeting rooms, but the process required checking one date at a time to find availability. This made scheduling slow and repetitive. The lack of visibility across rooms or nearby dates led to frustration and frequent booking retries.
😵💫 😵💫
“I’m just trying to book a room, not play calendar roulette every time.” — Employee, Mentally Checked Out 😤
💥 Key Problems on New Employee
Users could only check room availability one date at a time
Switching between rooms and dates created navigation friction
No support for glancing across a week of availability from a selected point in time
Users had no control over how they wanted to begin the booking process
🧪 Initial Hypothesis
If we allow users to choose between starting with a preferred date or a preferred room, and follow with a smart weekly view from that point, they can complete bookings faster with less confusion and less trial-and-error.
🔬 Research Highlights
70% wanted to check multiple dates quickly after selecting a room
60% also wanted a date-first flow to compare all room options
Average booking took 6+ taps before this update
1 in 4 bookings were abandoned mid-way due to friction in navigating calendar and room list
🛠️ Solution: Dual-Path Booking Flow with Weekly Scroll
🔹 Room-First Flow
User selects a preferred meeting room
Then selects a starting date
System displays a scrollable 7-day view (from selected date) showing the room’s availability
Time blocks are interactive and color-coded (🟢 Available, 🔴 Fully Booked, 🟡 Few Slots Left)
One tap to select slot → Book instantly
🔹 Date-First Flow
User selects a date
System displays all available rooms with time slots for that day
Horizontal scroll lets users browse nearby dates without reloading the calendar
Quick room filters help narrow choices
🔧 UX Enhancements:
Replaced static calendar with interactive weekly timeline
Time slot blocks grouped and color-coded
Mobile-optimized gestures for smooth room/date switching
✅ Outcomes
🕒 Booking time reduced by 41%
📅 Rebooking rate increased as confidence improved
📉 Drop-off in mid-booking flow decreased from 26% → 9%
“Sometimes I’m like ‘just give me any room,’ other times I’m picky. Either way, this flow saves my brain.” — Employee, Certified Calendar Survivor 📅🔥
📚 Reflection
This project showed how important it is to align flows with user intent. Room-first users want to find time. Date-first users want to find space. Giving them a tailored path based on that mindset made the system feel personalized and powerful — without increasing complexity.
“Let the user lead — and design your flow to follow.”
