POWDr Corp operates a hospitality portfolio that includes four season destination resorts such as Snowbird.com and Copper Mountain, alongside skier/snowboarder classic destinations such as Mt. Bachelor and Eldora. It now includes Woodward action sports summer camps, as well as two national park lodges, Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley and Zion Lodge in Zion National Park. 

The navigation wrapper, however, was designed in 2017 to support only one mountain resort, Copper Mountain. In short, we were asking a lot of it. So we set out to design a navigation system that elicited a consistent brand feel but allowed each individual brand to speak to guest expectations.

How, then, can we create a flexible navigation system that allows each resort to maximize its guest experience? It started with a comprehensive audit of 50 winter resorts around the world, alongside premium hospitality brands such at the Broadmoor and Bandon Dunes, among others. 

We audited navigation systems using metrics that included position, nomenclature, and functions, then performed a competitive analysis to determine which models might best support the POWDr portfolio.

We found a consistent relationship between top performing navigation systems and select features, including immediate access to conditions content and booking functions. We also found an emerging reliance on hamburger navigation for desktop, as well as the use of stationary widgets that supported persistent access to high-value content. This analysis led us to explore both hamburger navigation for desktop and the use of a persistent sidebar widget.

Next, we tested several versions using first, tree testing, and then interactive prototypes. In addition to guest preference tests, we tested key tasks the sites need to support and measure both completion percentage and time to completion. After isolating the most effective solution, we rolled it out across the platform, assisting each brand in customizing the navigation and sidebar widget to best meet guest expectations.

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