Summary

Client: Plum Co-Ownership
Project Scope: Web/Desktop Design
My Role: UX/UI Designer, UX Research
Industry: Real Estate

Tools: Figma

Background

Plum is a vacation home Co-Ownership company that allows groups to buy, co-own and manage vacation properties. Plum makes home co-ownership easier by offering solutions for financing, maintenance, and vacation stay scheduling.

Plum is currently operated out of Durham, NC.

Problem

Plum’s current website did not have scheduling capabilities. Each user had their own account but they could only access documentation and finances. Any vacation scheduling had to be relayed verbally to Plum staff and implemented into a calendar. Users had no way to schedule their own stays in their vacation homes or to see the days or weeks the home would be occupied by members of their group.

Design Challange

Design a scheduling system for the Plum website that would allow users the schedule their stays and allow them to be able to see when the shared vacation home would be occupied by other group members.

Research

Before beginning the design process I spoke with several Plum users from different co-ownership groups. They all expressed one common problem:

Vacation Scheduling

This task had become an inconvenience to users because they were unable to schedule their own stays or see when their shared home would be occupied or vacant. There was a constant issue of date miscommunication or errors with Plum staff and customers along with not being able to schedule as they wished because of overlapping dates or being unaware of the unavailability of the home.

Deliverables

With the use of user feedback and the understanding of the limitations that the Plum team and users were facing, I was then able to come up with a solution that would help both parties to enjoy their Plum experience.

I decided to create an online vacation calendar that would include a self-scheduler that would allow users to schedule their own vacation stays that were able to be viewed by other members of their co-ownership group. The intended goal was to make scheduling easier and more efficient for users and to eliminate miscommunication and the process of having to verbally relay information to the Plum staff.

This added calendar and scheduling option would put vacation planning directly into the co-owners hands!

New Features

Ability to add and edit stays
Scheduling Preferences
Request date swap with others

Launch and Take aways

Plum’s new self-scheduler was successfully launched in October of 2022! After months of monitoring and evaluation, there was an increase in overall website traffic due to the increase in vacation stay scheduling. Plum’s users and staff both reported an increase in satisfaction with the vacation home booking process. Users also expressed that the new scheduling system made it easier and more convenient to customize and enjoy the experience of having a shared vacation home!

After implementing the new design for Plum, user engagement increased by 50%, and the average session duration rose by 30%. The updated interface also reduced the task completion time by 25%.
Feedback indicated users wanted easier access to account settings, so we added a prominent settings line item to the main navigation bar, reducing settings-related support tickets by 30%.

Plum Co-Ownership