Mobile-First IBE Redesign for DS Destination Solutions

DS Destination Solutions offers an Internet Booking Engine to property management companies and destination marketing organizations across Europe. Travelers use it to browse and book properties directly through each agency's own website, without ever leaving their branded environment.

The existing IBE was visually dated and had never been built for mobile. The ask was a full rebuild, not a refresh. One flexible product that each customer could brand with their own colors, fonts, logos, and border radius, while the underlying structure stayed consistent across all deployments.

I started with user interviews across property managers and destination marketing staff. Two findings drove every decision that followed.

The property hierarchy was working against the traveler. The old system always routed through a parent property regardless of how many bookable units it had. I made it contextual: single-unit properties surface the unit directly, multi-unit properties show the overview first. Fewer steps to the right level of detail every time.

Mobile came first throughout. Travelers browse and book on mobile. Every hierarchy decision, tap target, and density call had to work on the smallest screen first. Tablet extended from mobile. A second designer handled the desktop in parallel using the mobile and tablet designs as the foundation.

One product, configurable per customer. Colors, fonts, logos, and border radius adapt to each brand. The interaction model, information architecture, and component structure are shared across every deployment.

Search and availability: rebuilt for touch-first use, with filter and date selection patterns designed to reduce the time between first interaction and seeing relevant results.

Property and unit display: the contextual hierarchy runs throughout browse and detail views, always routing the traveler to the right level with the minimum number of steps.

Booking flow: each step stripped to what the traveler actually needs at that moment, from property selection through to confirmation.

The process ran from user research through low-fidelity wireframes to production-ready Figma files, with design and implementation running in parallel throughout.

300+ live deployments running on the new system at the point of my departure from DS Destination Solutions in July 2025, with the full rollout still in progress. Each one runs the same underlying product, branded per customer.

Tools Figma

Skills Product Design, UX Research, B2B, SaaS, Responsive Design