This project was part of the Reply Creative Challenge 2022, under the Customer Experience category. The brief focused on reimagining the Heinemann Duty Free shopping experience, especially in a post-pandemic world where retail habits were shifting rapidly. With Gen Z travelers expecting more personalized, seamless, and digital-first interactions, traditional duty-free retail was struggling to keep pace. Our challenge was to create a mobile solution that bridged the gap between physical and digital shopping, strengthened brand loyalty, and made airport retail feel intuitive and engaging again.

My Role

UX/Market Research, Journey Mapping and User Personas, Wireframing, Business Pitch Storyboarding.

Tools

Miro, Figma, Premiere Pro.

Team Members

Karthik Venkataraman↗ Lauren Van Loo↗ Lu Tien Ying↗

01 / brainstorming

We kicked off the project by organising multiple brainstorming sessions among the 4 person team. We then simultaneously worked on gathering market research data and conduction a SWOT Analysis and a Competitor Analysis to deepend our understanding of Heneimann and it's operations at the time.

A Miro Board with a SWOT and Competitor analysis, also with basic market research
SWOT Analysis and basic market research
Insight: Gen Z travelers expect their digital tools to alleviate physical transit anxiety, not add another layer of commerce to navigate.
A Miro Board with a SWOT and Competitor analysis, also with basic market research
Understanding Gen Z buying habits - Stats used in final pitch deck
Four team members from JeKyLL Design Studio sketching wireframes on paper
Initial sketching and brainstorming with the team.

02 / UX Research

Working alongside the 4-member JeKyLL Design Team, we conducted a thorough UX Research phase. Our goal was to uncover exactly where the friction lived in the current duty-free transit experience. We made use of two User Personas and a Customer Journey Map and collated our findings on Miro, while using Figma to build the high-fidelity prototype solutions.

A filled up Customer Journey Map on Miro with touchpoints, painpoints and highlights
Mapping the current user journey to understand Pain-points and Highlights.
business and leisure travellers user personas
User Personas to empathize with during the design process.

During the research journey we understood that it was important for us to look at the bigger picture and not restrict our design process to only airport transit, since Heinemann operates their duty-free services across multiple transit authorities.

a slide from our final pitch deck showing the unified travel experience approach for mmultiple transit authorities
Our unified travel companion approach - Slide used in final pitch deck.

03 / Design system

Through initial brainstorming sessions, UX Research and an understanding of Heinemann's current brand aesthetics we established a new design system characterized by bold typography, high-contrast brand colors, and clear component architecture to ensure the app felt native and intuitive without breaking off the identity of Heinemann from their long-term customers.

Heinemann app brand color palette showing primary and secondary hex codes
Typographic hierarchy using sans-serif fonts for the Heinemann app
Establishing the brand identity and typographic hierarchy for the new app.
Figma component library showing buttons, inputs, and navigation bars
The finalized component library on Figma.

While settup up the new brand identity, we brainstormed new names for the travel companion app, eventually landing on Travel U.

04 / Interface Design

The final deliverable was a high-fidelity Figma prototype that introduced a new brand name, integrated live market stats, and featured a comprehensive rewards system. The dashboard was designed to provide an overview of the traveler's journey, profile setup, and an AR-walkthrough simulation.

A slide from the pitch deck showing a tag like that reads - Envisioning the Heinemann travel companion app called Travel U and a screen from the final prototype
Five screens from the final prototype displaying jdashboard ourney details, profile setup, AR walkthrough simulation and dashboard overview
Final Prototype screens displayed in the pitch deck.
[ VIEW FIGMA PROTOTYPE ↗ ]

05 / The Final Pitch in Milan

We collated our research process, app walkthrough, and business strategy into a final project report and a pitch deck. This culminated in our team pitching the concept directly to Heinemann representatives at the Reply Xchange Convention in Milan, Italy where our idea and app were viewed among a sizeable gathering of business executives and creative enthusiasts.

A slide from the final pitch deck describing the AR technology that would work at transit places like airports
a slide from the final pitch deck describing the new reward system for customers and a welcome kit offered to new customers
Slides from our final pitch deck.
The JeKyLL Design Team presenting their pitch to Heinemann representatives in Milan
The JeKyLL Design Team alongside Heinemann representatives.

We summarized our business idea and presented a walkthrough of the Travel U app through a fun story-based video with a character named Emily based on our User Personas.

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Bicycle Parking at Uppsala Centralstation↗