Modernizing Attraction Schedule Management for Haven Parks
Year
2024-2025
Industry
Hospitality, Travel, Service
Client
Haven Leisure Limited (UK)
My role
Product Designer (Full-time)
Context
Haven operates 40+ holiday parks serving over 4 million annual guests.
I was part of the team that led an overhaul of the internal activity management system. By moving from a manual, spreadsheet-based workflow to a centralized schedule templating system, we reduced operational workload from weeks to hours and eliminated critical scheduling errors.
My Contribution
01
Holistic Approach
Feature service design spanning admin and ground staff facing tools to guest apps and web experience.
02
Scheduling Module
A template creator for setting up thousands of activities for the next season, reducing staff overhead by 90%.
03
Staff Productivity
Championed a major quality of life improvement for ground staff who use tablets on-site.
UX Consulting
UI Design
Workshop Facilitation
Design QA
Design Tokens
Service Design
The Ecosystem
Spreadsheet Nightmare
Current tools failed to show multiple attractions in the same full-week view, forcing managers to plan in Excel. Consequently, they had to manually re-enter thousands of session slots one by one, when setting up the upcoming season.
Legacy System
The new scheduling solution had to be designed for seamless integration with the platform’s legacy internal calendar system with 100+ active park admins.
Tight Deadline
The full lifecycle of the new system (from development to final onboarding) had to ensure 100% readiness for peak seasonal operations within 90 days.
The Solution
Schedule Templating Module
I shifted the user mental model from Data Entry to Pattern Management. Instead of entering 90 days of events manually, Managers create a template and populate the peak schedules with one click.
Visual Clarity
A color coded visual calendar view with multiple activities, allowing managers to spot gaps and overlaps instantly.
Activity Filtering
Filters for venue, type and age group to easily compare related session density in a single calendar view.
Bulk Actions
Added functionality to drag-and-select for bulk deletion or editing.
"Why not use Google Calendar?"
Fair question. Here's why:
The goal was to build upon the internal system already in place.
A unique database of thousands of specific park activities that standard calendars aren't built for.
Avoiding the high overhead and development time required for third-party API synchronization.
A strict three-month deadline favored an internal build over complex external integration.
The final MVP uses familiar scheduling patterns to keep things intuitive while resolving the usability issues of the legacy system.
Navigating Constraints
I navigated strict backend limitations and a 3-month deadline to build a foundational MVP. By reusing existing components and prioritizing core UX, I aligned design feasibility with engineering and time constraints, accepting calculated tradeoffs. I prepared a iterative plan for future improvements in combination with staff feedback.
The Impact
Scheduling tasks that took weeks were reduced to hours.
“Just wanted to say the delete all function in templates. Bloody brilliant! Just saved me a lot of time from fudge up I made!”
“I have uploaded all the first weekends with no issues! Very quick!”
“I’ve been with the team at <...> this week and they brought to life for me how much better their world is because of the work you’ve delivered on the Activity Planning Process."