Travelnet
360° Redesign of a Tourism Booking Platform for Cuba's Largest Accommodation Tour Operator · Feb 2024 – Present
Feb 2024
Project initiated · ongoing toward launch
4 roles
UX · UI · IxD Supervisor · UX-QA
PrimeVue → Extended UIKit
Proprietary Design System
Full autonomy
100% ownership of all design and product decisions
My Rol
UX Lead
IxD
UIKit - Design System
I was the sole UX/UI owner on this project — from information architecture through interaction design supervision and user-perspective quality assurance. Unlike other projects I've worked on, this team — with low UX maturity — trusted my decisions completely and gave me the freedom to lead my domain almost entirely independently. That autonomy extended into product decisions, where I operated with Product Owner-level influence.
What Makes This Project Different
This wasn't about designing screens. It was about transforming an outdated product into a sales-driven platform — inside a team with no established UX culture — with the freedom to build everything from scratch: mind map, information architecture, complete design system, interaction patterns, and implementation supervision.
The Problem
Travelnet is a travel agency headquartered in Havana with branches across Cuba's major tourist destinations. Their existing digital platform was an outdated product: stale content, poor navigation architecture, and critical usability and accessibility failures. It wasn't built for conversion — it was a digital catalogue with no sales flow.
The goal wasn't just to modernize the interface. It was to execute a complete 360° turn on the digital business: transforming an informational site into a booking platform capable of competing in the international tourism market, backed by a scalable system the development team could maintain independently.
Process — From Structure to Interaction
Mental map
Team lineup
Scope definition
Cognitive map
Reserve flow analysis
Identification of drop-off points
Information architecture
Content hierarchy
Navigation by sections
Lo-fi wireframes
Validation with stakeholders
Structure iteration
Interface Design — Decisions Built for Conversion
Mental map
Team lineup
Scope definition
Design System — From UIKit to a Proprietary System
From PrimeVue to a Complete Design System
I started from PrimeVue's UIKit and extended it into a proprietary design system with documented design patterns, enriched components, and defined interaction behaviors. This system gave the development team the foundation to implement with consistency, and gave the design side the ability to scale without accumulating visual debt.
I defined five critical design patterns that no digital booking product can afford to ignore. Each was documented with variants, states, and implementation guidelines for development:
Pattern 01
Latency Reduction
Differentiated loading states based on wait type: skeleton screens for content, spinners for discrete actions. Critical on a booking platform making external system queries.
Pattern 02
Notifications
A notification system with informational, success, warning, and error variants. Positioning, duration, and dismiss behavior standardized across the entire
Pattern 03
Error Handling
Validation errors, system errors, and connection errors — each with contextual messaging and clear recovery actions. No error state leaves the user without a path forward.
Pattern 04
Dialogs
Modal dialog variants for confirmations, alerts, overlay forms, and critical messages. Each variant has documented dismiss behavior and primary/secondary action definitions.
Why These Patterns Matter Beyond Design
These four patterns didn't just improve the user experience — they became the communication layer between design, development, PO, and SM. By standardizing how critical system states look and behave, we reduced development time, eliminated ambiguity in sprints, and gave the team a shared language for discussing the product.
UX-QA: Supervising Implementation
Beyond design, I took on the UX-QA role throughout implementation. I reviewed developed components against documented patterns, verified that interaction flows matched approved designs, and confirmed that the final in-browser experience was consistent with design intent. This role is uncommon in low-UX-maturity teams — and it was what ensured the design work wasn't lost in the handoff.
Before vs. After
This before/after isn't just aesthetic — it's the result of a business transformation. The previous platform couldn't sell. The new one was designed from the first mind map to convert visits into bookings.
Travelnet Cuba · Before
Outdated, overloaded design
Confusing navigation with no hierarchy
No structured booking flow
Informational product — not a sales tool
No design system or patterns
Travelnet Cuba · After
Modern interface built for conversion
Clear information architecture
Optimized step-by-step booking flow
Booking hub integrating 3 product types
Design system with 4 documented patterns
Current Status and Expected Results
Project in progress · launching soon
The project began in February 2024 and is approaching launch. Business outcomes — conversion, bookings, retention — will be measurable post-launch. What has been delivered: information architecture, complete design system, documented interaction patterns, validated booking flows, and completed implementation supervision.