Marriott Vacation Club enterprise membership portal redesign
— Case study · 02 · Marriott Vacation Club · Hyatt · Sheraton · ILG · Enterprise UX Redesign · Enterprise · Hospitality · Mobile-First

Enterprise UX at the scale of a Fortune 200.

Multi-year redesign for Marriott Vacation Club across four brands. Mobile app, booking system, member portal. Stripped the complexity way down while keeping everything that actually matters.

ClientMarriott Vacation Club · Hyatt · Sheraton · ILG
AgencyPocket Made
EngagementUX Strategy · Mobile App · Unified Design System
LeadAngelo Manzano
01 The Diagnosis

The product worked.
The experience didn't.

60%+
Of browsing sessions
on mobile devices
While the platform was engineered for desktop
40%
Lower conversion
mobile vs. desktop
Members couldn't complete core tasks on the device they were using
47
Friction points
mapped across journeys
Documented before a single wireframe was drawn
12
Top-level nav
categories, by department
Organized for internal teams. Not members.
The core finding

Members filed refund requests not because they disliked the product, but because they couldn't figure out how to use their benefits. The platform was engineered around internal business units, not member needs. A system for people who already understood it served nobody.

02 The Brief

Twelve categories.
None of them "Book a stay."

Top-level nav had twelve categories organized by internal departments. Members seeking to book a stay hit a system that assumed they already understood the product. Starting principle: organize around what members do, not how the business is structured.

The brief wasn't a visual refresh.
The brief was to close a 40% gap.

Two user types: first-year owners booking simple stays, decade-long members managing complex portfolios—borrowing, banking, waitlisting, expiration. One system tried to serve both. Failed both.

Before wireframes, 47 friction points mapped across member journeys. Research separated product viability (good) from UX quality (broken). Product wasn't the problem. The interface was.

Also built a unified design system for four distinct brands: Marriott Vacation Club, Hyatt Residence Club, Sheraton Vacation Club, ILG exchange network. Shared architecture, distinct identities.

03 The System

Four brands.
One unified architecture.

Each brand: own identity, member base, benefit structures. System had to serve all four with shared logic, distinct visual presence.

Marriott Vacation Club
The flagship. Largest owner base, most complex points portfolio system, and the benchmark all other brand experiences had to meet.
Hyatt Residence Club
Premium positioning, distinct member expectations. Required system parity while preserving the brand's premium visual differentiation.
Sheraton Vacation Club
Legacy vacation ownership brand with an established member base. Continuity alongside modernization, not a disruptive overhaul.
ILG Exchange Network
Interval Leisure Group's vacation exchange platform, adding cross-brand exchange complexity to an already sophisticated booking architecture.
04 The Work

Mobile-first.
Member-centered. Progressive.

Information architecture rebuilt from member actions, not business units. A mobile-first system that addressed the 40% conversion gap directly. Progressive complexity for a product serving both first-year members and decade-long portfolio managers on the same platform.

01 — INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

Task-based navigation
not department-based.

Rebuilt 12 department-organized categories into task-based navigation reflecting actual member behavior. Book. Manage. Exchange. The structure follows how members think about their membership, not how the company is organized.

UX Strategy · Information Architecture · Navigation Redesign
02 — MOBILE APP DESIGN

Closing the gap.
All four brands.

Designed across four brands for iOS and Android. Every core member journey — booking, points management, exchange, account — rebuilt for mobile-first. The 60% of sessions happening on mobile now land on a platform built for them.

Mobile App Design · iOS · Android · Multi-Brand
03 — PROGRESSIVE COMPLEXITY

Simple to start.
Powerful at depth.

Interfaces that scale from simple stay booking for new members to advanced portfolio management for long-term owners. Points borrowing, banking, waitlisting, expiration tracking — available without overwhelming new members who don't need them yet.

Progressive Disclosure · UX Strategy · Member Segmentation
04 — UNIFIED DESIGN SYSTEM

Shared components.
Distinct identities.

A component library serving four brands with shared interaction patterns and platform logic while each brand's visual identity remains intact. Built to extend to additional brands in the Marriott portfolio without re-architecting from scratch.

Design Systems · Multi-Brand · Component Library · Scalability
05 The Numbers
47.
Friction points mapped
Documented before wireframing began · Research-first methodology
4.
Brands unified
MVC · Hyatt · Sheraton · ILG · One system architecture
40%
Mobile conversion gap closed
The gap that defined the engagement brief
Multi.
Year engagement
Iterative design across brands · Continuous optimization

A system built
for the business.
Not the member.

— The core problem statement · Marriott Vacation Club engagement
06 Today

Enterprise UX
is never just a redesign.

The Marriott engagement confirmed a principle we apply to every enterprise program: the research phase isn't preliminary to the work. It is the work. Forty-seven documented friction points before wireframing means no design energy spent solving problems that don't exist.

The multi-brand design system
proved that identity and architecture
can be separated.

Vacation ownership is among the most complex consumer financial products to navigate digitally — points that expire, benefits requiring activation, exchange windows, waitlist logic. This engagement proved that complexity at this scale requires a research-first approach, not a design-first one.

What you build can be shared across brands. What you express stays distinct. The unified system across four brands validated that multi-brand digital estates are achievable without brand dilution — a model we carry into every multi-stakeholder engagement since.

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