A room booking and access management system designed for the Studiz ecosystem, connecting administrative workflows with a mobile experience for students and teachers.
Role
lead product designer
Timeline
March '24 - September '24
Team
1 designer, collaborating with Studiz stakeholders
During working at Studiz, I worked on a new room booking system that later became the foundation of my AP Degree thesis.
The project originated from conversations with partner institutions, who were experiencing frustrations with their existing booking processes. Room management relied on separate systems, information was often difficult to access, and the overall experience created unnecessary work for both staff and administrators.
For Studiz, this became an opportunity to strengthen their administration platform with a feature that could create value for existing partners while supporting future growth.
What started as a room booking concept gradually evolved into a broader exploration of how rooms, bookings, users, and access could work together within the Studiz ecosystem.
Initially, the challenge was to design a way to reserve rooms. However, during the process it became something more than this.
Educational institutions needed to manage rooms, schedules, permissions, and users across different workflows and systems. At the same time, the solution had to fit naturally into the existing Studiz platform rather than feeling like a separate product.
The goal was to create a booking experience that made room management easier for administrators while providing a clear and intuitive experience for the people using the spaces.
To understand the challenge, I conducted stakeholder interviews, user interviews, competitor research, and usability studies.
One of the most interesting findings was that the biggest frustration was not creating bookings, but finding the right room in the first place. Users often lacked information about capacity, equipment, availability, or location, making what should have been a simple task unnecessarily time-consuming.
Experience mapping: worst stage
At the same time, institutions wanted fewer systems, not more. The value of the solution would come from bringing room booking into an environment users were already familiar with.
insights presented in a user persona
These insights helped shift the focus away from booking forms and calendars, and towards visibility, discoverability, and connected workflows.
Based on the research, I focused on three key questions:
How can users find suitable rooms faster?
How can booking workflows become easier to manage?
How can the solution feel like a natural part of the Studiz platform?
The project quickly grew beyond the initial concept. While room booking remained the core focus, it became clear that bookings were connected to a wider set of needs, including user management, permissions, and access.
This perspective helped shape the solution from just a feature into a more connected product experience.
The design process began with user flows, wireframes, and concept exploration before moving into high-fidelity prototypes and testing.
Sketching
Because the solution was being developed for an existing product, consistency played an important role throughout the project. I worked within Studiz's existing design system while introducing new patterns and components needed to support booking management, room discovery, availability states, and access-related workflows.
Component library
A large part of the work focused on the administration side of the experience, where staff could create rooms, manage room information, handle bookings, and maintain availability. However, as the project evolved, additional opportunities emerged.
One was a user-facing booking overview, allowing students and teachers to access and manage their bookings directly from their profile.
Another was access management. During the project, I explored how room permissions could be linked to bookings through access groups, helping institutions manage access in a more structured way while creating a stronger connection between digital and physical spaces.
Access management in the app
The solution was continuously tested throughout the project using both low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes.
Through Think Aloud testing and feedback sessions, I evaluated booking flows, room discovery, information hierarchy, navigation patterns, and content clarity.
The feedback led to several iterations across the experience, helping refine both the structure of the system and individual interactions before final delivery.
Feedback grid
The project continued beyond the original thesis scope, allowing additional opportunities to revisit, refine, and expand the solution over time.
The final concept brought room booking directly into the Studiz platform, creating a connected experience for administrators, teachers, and students.
Rather than treating booking as an isolated task, the solution focused on the entire journey, from finding the right room and creating bookings to managing access and keeping users informed.
The result was a system that reduced dependance on external tools while giving institutions greater visibility and control over their spaces.
Room search
Search and filtering tools help users find suitable rooms based on capacity, equipment, location, and availability.
Floor maps
A visual floor map provided a quick overview of room locations and real-time availability, helping with wayfinding.
Booking overview
Users can create, edit, extend, view, and manage bookings through a streamlined workflow.
aCCESS MANAGEMENT
Access groups and booking-based permissions created a more structured approach to room access.
Looking back, the most valuable lesson from this project was learning how quickly a seemingly straightforward feature can reveal a much larger design challenge. What began as a room booking project became an exercise in connecting people, spaces, permissions, and workflows into a coherent experience.
The project also gave me the opportunity to lead a complete product design process in a real business context, balancing user needs, business goals, technical considerations, and existing product constraints.
Most importantly, it reinforced the importance of designing systems rather than isolated screens. Many of the strongest outcomes came from understanding how different parts of the experience related to one another, and finding opportunities to make those connections feel simpler and more intuitive.
And what's crucial to note: this feature helped with signing a new partner institution.
