Byway Travel Case Study

Transforming Byway Travel's Design Function.

Fractional

Mentorship

Joining the Byway team as a Fractional Head of Design. We worked with them, from refining product development to hiring the first designer.

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Introduction

We worked with Byway to transform their design function in just 3 months, joining as their Fractional Head of Design.

From day one, we pushed the business to be design-led, embedding design into decision-making. We reviewed the existing processes, aligned the team around a shared set of design principles, and built the case for growing the function properly.

Over the course of the engagement we hired Byway's first dedicated designer, handed over frameworks the team could keep using long after we left, and set the business up with a stronger, more confident design culture than when we arrived.

Our Approach

We worked with Byway to define the design function's architecture, process, and operating model, from opportunity identification through validation to launch. We wanted to ensure that we combined data-driven insights with human, real-life expertise to identify opportunities, test audiences, and product concepts. We also developed the hiring process and team-build timeline, defining how the function would scale, and advised on the strategy required to launch and optimise each project.

Timeline

(01)

Onboarding, review and diagnosis

Onboarded and aligned goals. Reviewed existing frameworks and processes. Broke down user personas and identified areas to do more user research.

(02)

Introduce frameworks, strategy

Workshops to work on design principles, facilitated on 'big vision' for the product, introduced user research frameworks.

(03)

Conversion improvement, partnership workshop

Work began on improving conversion. Searching for tool to support A/B testing and worked on design changes. facilitated the FirstChoice partnership through a series of workshops identifying key journeys, core KPI’s and with clear goals from the outset.

"We never would have achieved our goals without you facilitating that meeting"

Paul Conray, COO at Byway Travel

(04)

Hiring

Job description and task creation. Screening, calls and interviews for Senior Designer. Final candidates chosen for interviews.

(05)

New designer, hired new frameworks offboarding

New user persona’s identified and signed off, alongside design principles completed and signed off. Candidate hired and onboarded. Joined as a member of the product advisory board.

Key Outcomes

(01)

New design principles

Introduced new design principles and ways of working for the design team and development team.

(02)

Research frameworks

Created a framework around quantitative and qualitative research for the business, and conducted interviews, focus groups and product tests.

(03)

User persona alignment

Realigned the user personas to coincide with the recent growth of the business and changes in priorities, whilst not alienating the currently served users.

(04)

Hiring

Created the framework around the hiring process, developed the design task and interviewed candidates/hired a Senior Designer to join the team.

(05)

Creativity

Pushed the creativity and experience of the current product experience to reflect a more human-centred, loveable characteristics of the brand.

(06)

Decreased stress, increased MRR

Increased MRR over the short period through tests with the product. Decreased the stress of the CMO and Head of Product.

What our client said

“Design leadership has been the difference between building something transformative and something just ‘fine’. Bringing in a fractional Head of Design gave us the strategic thinking we needed without slowing the business down.”

Cat Jones, CEO at Byway Travel

“What stood out was how quickly design became part of every product conversation instead of an afterthought. We went from ad hoc decisions to a team with real frameworks, and that shift is still paying off.”

Aurelie Butin, CPO at Byway Travel

Impact

We helped Byway build a design-led culture in just 3 months: new design principles adopted across the team, a research framework put into practice, and a Senior Designer hired to carry the work forward.

Work with us

If you’re looking to hone-in your design principles, hire a new team or push your creativity, get in touch with us below to see how we can really push you.

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