Empowering Timeshare Owners Through Clarity and Trust

About

Welk Resorts, founded by entertainer Lawrence Welk in the 1960s, is a luxury vacation ownership company offering upscale resorts and timeshares with a focus on service and entertainment. Public estimates place its annual revenue between $100 million and $500 million.

Problem Statement

Users weren’t just frustrated, they were anxious. That emotional response showed this was more than a functional problem; it was a trust problem.

“Every time I try to book, I feel like I’m guessing.”

Objectives

Our mission was to redesign the Owner’s Lounge to restore user confidence and autonomy.

We set out to:

• Create a unified digital experience where owners could view points, book trips, and manage rewards in one place.
• Reduce dependency on support staff for basic tasks.
• Build an interface that communicates clarity, transparency, and trust.

Success would mean users feel informed, empowered, and genuinely enjoy using the platform.

Discovery

Approach:

We began with a combination of qualitative and quantitative research to understand not just what issues existed, but why they were happening. This included conducting twelve user interviews with timeshare owners representing a range of experience levels, analyzing three months of support chat logs containing thousands of data points, and holding stakeholder interviews with the marketing, support, and engineering teams to gain a holistic view of the challenges from both user and business perspectives.

Key Findings:

We started with 12 in-depth interviews and analyzed months of support chat logs. The insights were emotional, not technical:

User Insights & Needs

• Clarity — understand points, values, and options at a glance.
• Control — manage bookings without relying on staff.
• Trust — feel confident that the system works as intended.

We mapped user emotions throughout the process — anxiety peaked during booking and confirmation. That became our north star: reduce anxiety through design clarity.

Persona

Task Mapping

We mapped the 7 key steps of the owner journey — Login → Review Points → Book Trip → Confirm → Manage Booking → Explore Experiences → Contact Support — to uncover where trust broke down and how design could rebuild it.

Key Insights:

• Emotional Peaks: Anxiety rose during booking and confirmation; relief followed clear feedback.
• Main Challenges: Unclear data, fragmented systems, and delayed confirmations.
• Design Opportunities: Simplify steps, show real-time status, guide with reassurance, and make support proactive.

Design Strategy & Solutions

Core Design Principles

• Clarity: Show key data — balances, availability — immediately.
• Feedback: Every user action triggers confirmation or system response.
• Reassurance: Use tone, microcopy, and visual cues to convey reliability.

Key Features / Solutions

• Points Dashboard: Real-time balances, point-to-value conversion, upcoming redemptions.
• Smart Booking Flow: Filters availability based on points rather than just dates.
• Predictive Confirmation: For example, “You have enough points for 5 nights at Resort X”.
• Guided Recommendations: Suggest trips or experiences tailored by history.
• Microcopy & Tone: Swap dry system messages for empathetic feedback — “You’re all set!” instead of “Transaction complete”.

Testing, Iteration & Feedback

Usability Testing Setup

• 5 representative users tested key flows (login → review → book → confirm).
• Moderated sessions capturing verbal feedback, time on task, confusion points.

Key Results

• Completion times improved by ~40%.
• Users expressed relief and greater confidence.
• Participants described the experience as “clear,” “reassuring,” and “easy to follow”.

Iteration Highlights

• Simplified navigation and hierarchy.
• Added a progress bar to orient users during booking.
• Enhanced typography, spacing, and visual hierarchy for readability.
• Expanded confirmation screens to break down costs, points used, next steps.

Challenges & Cross-Team Collaboration

Technical Integration Complexity

One of the largest hurdles was handling four separate backend systems — CRM, Booking Engine, Rewards API, Support Portal — all with different data models and update frequencies.

Aligning Stakeholders

• Marketing pushed for high visual polish.
• Engineering prioritized system reliability and data consistency.
• Users demanded simplicity and clarity.

My role became the bridge: ensuring decisions respected user needs while being feasible technically and aligned with business goals. I led design reviews, presented user data to justify design trade-offs, and developed robust interaction specs for engineering to follow.